Rebuild of Evangelion

Rebuild of Evangelion, known in Japan as Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版, Evangerion Shin Gekijōban), is a Japanese animated film series and a reboot of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion anime TV series, produced by Studio Khara. Hideaki Anno served as the writer and general manager of the project, with Kazuya Tsurumaki and Masayuki directing the films themselves. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Ikuto Yamashita, and Shirō Sagisu returned to provide character designs, mechanical designs, and music respectively.

The film tetralogy utilizes newly available 3D CG animation and provides new scenes, settings, and characters, with a completely new conclusion in the fourth film. Another stated intention of the series is for it to be more accessible to non-fans than the original TV series and films were.^[1][2]

Titles

The concept of jo-ha-kyū (序破急^?) , which roughly corresponds to "beginning", "middle", and "end", originated in classical gagaku music and is best known to describe the acts of a noh play. In lieu of the traditional classification, the production team has chosen to represent kyū (急^?, [ˈkʲu͍ː], "hurry")

with the Roman letter Q, for "quickening."  With the premiere of the third film, it was announced that the symbol to be used for the final film would be the musical symbol known as the final barline (턂 or ||).[3] However, according to a news article published by Anime News Network it is actually the end repeat sign (턇 or :||).[4] The intended Japanese pronunciation of this symbol has not been stated.

The film titles, in contrast to the normal katakana spelling of Evangelion (エヴァンゲリオン, Evangerion), replace the e (エ) and o (オ) characters with the obsolete we (ヱ) character and the infrequently used katakana wo (ヲ), respectively. The change is purely a stylistic one, as there is no change in pronunciation and all appearances of the Latin spelling of "Evangelion" remain the same. The final film reverts to the original katakana spelling, but adds Shin (シン^?)

to the title; as it is written in katakana and not kanji, the meaning of shin is ambiguous and it can be alternatively translated as either "new" (新, Shin), "true" (真, Shin), or even something else entirely. As was done with episode titles in the original series, each film has an original Japanese title and a separate English international title picked out by the Japanese studio itself.

Production

Anno initially began work on Rebuild films in the fall of 2002, spending nearly six months on pre-production before being delayed by various other projects (such as Cutie Honey, the Re: Cutie Honey OVA, and even a few movie roles).^[6] This included watching the entire original series back-to-back.^[7] In the December 2006 issue of Newtype, Anno revealed he was happy to finally recreate Eva "as he wanted it to be" in the beginning and that he was no longer constrained by technological and budget limitations.^[8]

The release schedule of the Rebuild movies has experienced many delays, with the first film pushed from its original summer release date to fall 2007, and the second film's release date shifted from 2008 to summer 2009. The third film, initially announced as a simultaneous release with Evangelion: Final in the summer of 2008,^[9] was released in the fall of 2012^[10] and the issue of Enterbrain's OtonaFami magazine was revealed that Evangelion: Final is slated for the "Winter 2015" release, but the film's website is still revealed without a release date.^[11]

See also

• Neon Genesis Evangelion (franchise)
• The End of Evangelion

References

External links

• (Japanese) Rebuild of Evangelion website
• (Japanese) Yahoo! Japan: The statement by Hideaki Anno and the bulletin movie
• (English) Anime News Network: Translation of Anno's statement