By The Eva Monkey
on Tuesday, November 26th, 2013
I’m pleased to report that the February 2014 issue of Otaku USA magazine is now on newsstands. I wrote the cover feature for the issue, so please give it a read if you’re able. It was an exciting and challenging opportunity for me, the only things I’ve had published have been in my university’s student paper. Being able to go into a bookstore and purchase something you contributed to is a cool experience. As for the article itself, the main question I found myself asking was “how do I write an article about something which has a substantial twist 6 minutes in?”. Evangelion 3.0 is not what you’re expecting, and to reveal too much about that would lessen the experience. I’m hoping there will be some opportunity to write a proper review of the film in the future. I feel like I have a lot to say about Eva 3.0, more so than with the previous two installments. If you give the article a read, please let me know what you think.
Posted in: Evangelion 3.0, Rebuild of Evangelion. Tagged: Otaku USA.
By The Eva Monkey
on Tuesday, November 19th, 2013
A little bit over a month ago, a product listing for Evangelion 3.33 with the date “February 18th” appeared on Wal-Mart’s online store. Several days ago a product listing with the same date appeared on RightStuf. Then today the “Evangelion” facebook page announced the RightStuf date as being the official date (subject to change), with the Funimation Twitter corroborating it. So now it’s official, you can expect Evangelion 3.33 in North American theaters in January, and the home video release on February 18th. However that may change, and it may even come out early, which I know was the case for the release of 1.01.
UPDATE: As of now (the morning of November 21) FUNimation has taken down or retracted all of their social media posts about the street date for Evangelion 3.33.
Posted in: Evangelion 3.0, Merchandise, Rebuild of Evangelion.
By The Eva Monkey
on Thursday, October 24th, 2013
Occasionally, I put esoteric search terms into craigslist, just to see if anything interesting comes up, like putting “anime” or “manga” into the jobs section, or in this case, I entered “evangelion” into the for sale section. Given various Evangelion media is out of print, I thought maybe I would see someone trying to make a quick buck off of a DVD of The End of Evangelion. Rather, I found someone claiming to be selling “original cels” from Evangelion for $125 bucks a piece.
So I thought this might be a good opportunity to touch upon the subject, just in case anyone else out there may be aspiring to own a small, tangible piece of the show they hold near and dear to their heart. The sad truth is that unlike many other shows, the animation cels from Evangelion were deliberately withheld and never circulated into the secondary market. My understanding is that this was an uncommon and controversial decision. However, Gainax did release a series of 18 reproduced cels called the Neon Genesis Evangelion “Cellu Club”, consisting of 12 machine reproduced cels with backgrounds and 6 limited edition hand painted cels without backgrounds.
Genuine animation cels from Evangelion are considered extremely rare, and very rarely does one show up for legitimate sale. A couple years ago a cel of Misato from the opening animation was auctioned on Mandarake and it sold for 326,100 yen. This is what you should expect for something genuine, so if you ever find yourself in a situation where someone is selling something like the aforementioned craigslist seller, take heed, someone is probably trying to rip you off. Do your research about cels, and most importantly, it is imperative that you buy from a reputable, trusted seller, as there are many people out there making counterfeit cels. This is especially true for something like Evangelion, but it applies to animation cel collecting as a whole.
Posted in: Neon Genesis Evangelion.
By The Eva Monkey
on Tuesday, June 11th, 2013
FUNimation has licensed Evangelion 3.33. After a social media thing where they encouraged people to help them get to a million likes on Facebook, they announced it there as a thank you of sorts. So, yay for that, I think. Further details, like a release date, are forthcoming, however if the previous releases are any indication, it probably won’t be out until first quarter 2014, so some of you still have some more waiting ahead of you.
I also enjoyed their synopsis for the film. It includes a blatant spoiler and a blatant lie. Good job FUNimation marketing.
Posted in: Evangelion 3.0, Rebuild of Evangelion. Tagged: FUNimation.
By The Eva Monkey
on Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
Evangelion 3.33 has been released in Japan on DVD and Blu-ray. There’s still a ways to go before domestic versions become available, however for those of us who partake in fansubs, we can finally enjoy the film in proper high quality goodness. As of writing this I haven’t checked, however I expect raws are popping up on torrent sites right now, and fansubs will also start popping up within a day or two. A decent soft and hard subbed version should be available by weeks end. I already have plans to get together with a small group of friends this weekend to enjoy it. I look forward to being able to finally discuss the film over on Eva Geeks.
Posted in: Evangelion 3.0, Merchandise, Rebuild of Evangelion.
By The Eva Monkey
on Monday, April 22nd, 2013
Just the other day, I was thinking to myself, “I should post something to my site”. At the time, I was thinking of something along the lines of a helpful resource or guide (not what you are seeing instead). Not much later afterwards, two links floated their way over to me saying: “please, click on us, you know you want to”. From that, I am reevaluating whether I want to be Facebook friends with certain people (THANKS A LOT ALEX) and whether I should tell my brain to keep its mouth shut, because well, be careful what you wish for.
These two things. These two things right here. WTF JAPAN. SERIOUSLY. WTF?
First: For the home video release of Evangelion 3.33, fast food chain Lotteria is doing a promotion involving a nonuple decker cheeseburger… that’s a burger with nine patties and nine cheese slices. Apparently it’s a clever play on Evangelion Q, which is pronounced “kyuu”, which is the word for nine in Japanese. All I have to say is that if you can’t even fit the thing in your mouth, it’s probably a bad idea. The only reasonable part of this is that it comes with a Spear of Longinus fork, which easily (not so obvious sarcasm) solves the question as to how you are expected to eat this monstrosity. (Source)
Second: The Round 1 bowling chain is providing patrons with the option of wearing an Evangelion themed bowling pin costume while they bowl. Because, of course, it’s not enough to just go bowling, you should also cosplay as the activity that you’re engaging in, and to go the extra mile, it should also be themed around your favorite anime, because, well… when in Japan. I think Lotteria should up the ante on Round 1 and offer their patrons a costume of the nonuple decker cheeseburger while they eat the nonuple decker cheeseburger. Because it’s not enough to just eat a nonuple decker cheeseburger, you should also dress up as a nonuple decker cheeseburger while you eat one. (Source)
I really just… I don’t even. God damn it Japan, god damn it.
Posted in: Evangelion 3.0, Merchandise, Rebuild of Evangelion.
By The Eva Monkey
on Friday, March 15th, 2013
A while back, Shirt.Woot did a promotion with Funimation for the North American release of Evangelion 2.22, where the shirt theme wold be “Robots Save the World”. I thought it was kind of cool to see Evangelion unexpectedly creep its way into my daily life, however I thought that it was kind of a waste to do the theme, but completely ban Evangelion shirts from the vote, even those that were considered parody. Why do an Evangelion thing, but disallow Evangelion things? I still don’t understand this.
So this morning, I checked TeeMagnet, an aggregator for daily/weekly shirt websites to see this design of Eva Unit-01 in the vein of the Decepticon emblem from Transformers. I thought it was cool, and I swear I’ve seen it before recently. After the thing with Shirt.Woot, I’m pleased to see something other than Doctor Who, Firefly, and Star Wars. I know those sell well, but let’s see something like Evangelion for a change. I’m currently debating getting myself one, because I have absolutely no willpower whatsoever, not to mention, my other Eva shirts have gotten pretty worn out. Maybe you could use a new Eva shirt too. Just keep in mind, this is a daily shirt, you may not be able to buy it after today. So if you want it, get it now!
Posted in: Merchandise. Tagged: Eva Unit-01.
By The Eva Monkey
on Friday, February 22nd, 2013
To quote Simon Tam, . Apparently in late September of last year, Dark Horse Manga, in a bid to own ALL THE THINGS, licensed Shinji Ikari Detective Diary. I am just finding out about this now. Why on earth did no one tell me this? Or did no one care to pay attention or say anything about it at the time? This manga is not scraping the bottom of the barrel. No, that would be too insensitive to the barrel, and everything that came out of it, including both Angelic Days, where they stumble upon the Geofront and Nerv headquarters by exploring a spooky sewer tunnel, as well as Ikari Shinji Raising Project, where they… wait… what was that one about? All I remember is a lot of panty and crotch shots. Oh well.
Shinji Ikari Detective Diary is probably the loosest, most painfully idiotic thing I have ever heard about, and it somehow made it to two volumes. The firm statement I made in many an Evangelion panel was that it was so terrible, no one bothered to raw scan it, let alone to translate it, so I cannot even fathom how anyone thought it was a good idea to license it, especially in this economy. Grain of salt: I haven’t actually ready it, however I’ve looked through the scans, and trust this one LiveJournal user’s assessment. Yes, I had to go to LiveJournal to get information or a review about this thing. That’s when you know shit got real.
I don’t see any information available for the release. And I regret the fact that, despite my reservations, I will most likely purchase it when it comes out. Because, you know, my Evangelion shelf clearly doesn’t have enough shit on it yet.
Posted in: Manga, Shinji Ikari Detective Diary (manga). Tagged: Dark Horse Manga.
By The Eva Monkey
on Monday, February 18th, 2013
Get ready kids, Evangelion 3.0 is coming to home video in Japan on April 24th, and you know what that means, right? The wait is almost over.
Get excite.
Source: http://www.khara.co.jp/news/2013/02/000272.html
Posted in: Evangelion 3.0, Rebuild of Evangelion.
By The Eva Monkey
on Thursday, January 31st, 2013
Ten year ago today, I launched EvaMonkey.com.
Ten years.
TEN.
Do you have any idea how long that is in internet time?
It should be noted that the site has been around for a bit longer than that, I began the site in the summer of 2002, hosting it on a Keenspace server for a web comic that never got started (don’t ask). But it was not until late in the month of January that I went and registered the domain and formally launched EvaMonkey.com. It’s been a long time, especially so when you consider the lifespan of the typical fansite. Do people even still make fansites anymore? Or do Facebook pages, Twitters, Tumblrs and subreddits fill that need for people? At any rate, ten years of service to one’s fandom seems like an especially big milestone for me, one that I feel deserves some reflection, so indulge me if you will. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Eva Monkey, Personal. Tagged: Eva Geeks.
I’m pleased to report that the February 2014 issue of Otaku USA magazine is now on newsstands. I wrote the cover feature for the issue, so please give it a read if you’re able. It was an exciting and challenging opportunity for me, the only things I’ve had published have been in my university’s student paper. Being able to go into a bookstore and purchase something you contributed to is a cool experience. As for the article itself, the main question I found myself asking was “how do I write an article about something which has a substantial twist 6 minutes in?”. Evangelion 3.0 is not what you’re expecting, and to reveal too much about that would lessen the experience. I’m hoping there will be some opportunity to write a proper review of the film in the future. I feel like I have a lot to say about Eva 3.0, more so than with the previous two installments. If you give the article a read, please let me know what you think.
