Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that Hideaki Anno’s Evangelion 1.0: You are (Not) Alone, a remake of his highly popular Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series, may be coming to the U.S. courtesy of distributor FUNimation. A U.S. release has not been officially announced, but according to the series’ Wikipedia page, FUNimation has sent out cease and desist orders to fansubbers. Speaking from experience (I worked in the marketing department at ADV Films for three years), I can tell you that that pretty much guarantees that FUNimation has licensed the rights to the property. Otherwise, they wouldn’t legally have the rights to issue cease and desist orders. (Of course, the wiki page could just be a load of crap. We all know how reliable Wikipedia can be.)
I haven’t watched much anime in the four years since I stopped working at ADV. Spending forty hours a week surrounded by pissy otakus and being forced to watch a seemingly endless stream of poorly-animated, hackneyed shows starring robot maids and the pre-pubescent perverts who love them will not only kill all your interest in anime, it will destroy your soul. However, I would be interested in watching an Eva remake, since I’ve always thought it was a cool concept. I hated the original series though. It starts out strong, with lots of big robots killing lots of ugly monsters, but eventually devolves into a plodding, pretentious mess. And I seriously wanted to reach into my TV screen and punch Shinji every time he showed up and started endlessly whining. Dude was an annoying little punk. Hopefully, the new series is more palatable.
December 28th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Yeah, I did think that the end of NGE was a bit (a lot) convoluted, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit. But if the remake does clear up the end then I’d be interested.
December 28th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Jeez, Newsarama, really? “Dude was an annoying little punk”? If you don’t like philosophical narratives and sensitive male characters, don’t watch Eva. This sounds like something you’d read in Wizard. Like, 1999 Wizard.
December 28th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
It sounds like an opinion.
December 28th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Judging from his other posts, the author seems to be a fan of American super hero comics.
I understand the new Evangelion movie hews pretty close to the original. So while Mr. Henson may find 1.0 palatable, I suspect that he would not enjoy the ones that follow.
December 28th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Alan Alda is a sensitive male. Shinji was just a brat. And obviously, I don’t watch Eva.
January 1st, 2009 at 12:13 am
When you worked at ADV were you lying about those titles then when you were trying to sell them? I remember reading good things about you and your promotions at Sequential Tart and other anime news sites when you used to work there.
“being forced to watch a seemingly endless stream of poorly-animated, hackneyed shows starring robot maids and the pre-pubescent perverts who love them will not only kill all your interest in anime, it will destroy your soul.” Maybe your being over generalizing and sarcastic but I bought a lot of your products that were excellent in those days. Sure like any media there are lot of mediocre stuff especially when a lot of product was being marketed but you guys at ADV put out a lot of quality releases that were not only robot maid shows.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Shinji is a brat, well thats just your opinion. I dont know many people that would rush to pilot a god knows what mechanoid to fight against an equaly enigmatic enemy with no prior experience or training;plus to top it all off his dad is a major prick. However there isint mucht to say after “It starts out strong, with lots of big robots killing lots of ugly monsters” seems you have SVS, if you watched this series strictly for the action you will be sorely dissapointed. Id finaly like to add that while ROE wont be as the original you should be thankfull that anno did decide to dumb down his beloved series, at least for the first movie.