New Gainax stuff, and a Bakuretsu Tenshi spiel
By The Eva Monkey on Sunday, May 9th, 2004
Site Updates
I don’t have anything in the way of site content to offer this week. College life has been rather unpleasant lately. I’m looking forward to bidding farewell to the semester and exams, and returning to work on the site in a slightly greater capacity than the newsposts of late consisting primarily of random Eva and Gainax stuff.
And while I’m on the subject of not doing squat, I’d like to say that if I didn’t return an email, IM, never got around to sending you something, etc, that I’m sorry, and please feel free to tap me on the shoulder in a week or two if I don’t get back to you in that time.
Gainax Stuff
It was just announced that Gainax is making another Gunbuster OAV series. The original Gunbuster series was one of Hideaki Anno’s first directorial works, and as such, it may very well have Anno behind the wheel. This is excellent news, as it is already known that Anno will be directing Re: Cutie Honey for Gainax, and he very well, and most likely will be behind the wheel of Gunbuster 2. I wouldn’t expect anything less from Anno. And hopefully this new project will spur an American anime distributor to put out a decent DVD of the original Gunbuster, perhaps adapted from the Director’s Cut just released in Japan.
Also of note is that two new Gainax animations began airing in Japan in April. Kono Miniku mo Utsukushii Sekai (This Ugly and Beautiful World), as well as Boukyaku no Senritsu (Melody of Oblivion). Keep an eye out for these two, as they may shake things up in the anime community. Knowing Gainax, its quite possible. Still no word on what the new project “Grapple Gear” is all about.
Also, if the Ikari Shinji Ikusei Keikaku game interests you at all, you can check out some character designs on the official website.
Random Spiel
There has been some discussion lately over the Gonzo series “Bakuretsu Tenshi”, in terms of its character designs, and some of its plot. The plot looks like a blatant rip off of Cowboy Bebop, in the mercenaries for hire department, as well as the music. Most people’s concerns, however, have been in regards to the character designs. Jo and Meg, pictured above, seem to be very blatant rip-offs of Rei and Asuka from Evangelion, or at least, that’s the concensus online. The character Jo is as if you took Rei, and made her a bad ass who is despondent rather than stoic. While Meg is like a much more ditsy, and slightly less grating version of Asuka. I’ve seen the first three episodes of the show, and I can say that it shares very little in common with Evangelion, save for a few character designs.
The only other blatant parallel I can observe is the character Tachibana. His design looks very similar to Shinji Ikari, or possibly Akito Tenkawa (Martian Successor Nadesico) or possibly Naota Nadaba (FLCL). Whatever the case, it definitely goes back to Shinji Ikari of Evangelion, as Akito Tenkawa is very much a Shinji clone, as Nadesico blatantly draws from Evangelion, and Naota Nadaba is very much derived Shinji, as Evangelion is one of numerous sources of inspiration used by Kazuya Tsurumaki, who was the assistant director of Evangelion. In terms of plot, Tachibana shares a lot in common with Akito of Nadesico. Whereas Akito came aboard the Nadesico to serve as a cook, Tachibana joined the mercenary group to be a cook.
If you’re interested in taking a look into this series, I would suggest browsing around on mIRC, or checking out the fansub group Lunar Anime. It would be interesting to see if any more parallels and references are made as this series progresses. By the way, Bakuretsu Tenshi has mechs too.