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With Evangelion 2.0 comes another theme song from my future wife and the mother of my un-born child Hikaru Utada. Her song “Beautiful world” (which also featured on her 5th Japanese studio album Heart station) was the main theme to Rebuild of Evangelion’s first film Evangelion 1.0: You are (not) alone. And a remix of same song features as the theme to the second film Evangelion 2.0: You can (not) advance. I’m usually weary of remixes. When I think remixes I tend to think really bad dance music and over echoed vocals. But this right here is pretty awesome. The song is remixed by PLANiTb: who also remixed Hikaru’s theme song “Simple & clean” for Kingdom Hearts.

Listen: Beautiful world (PLANiTb acoustica mix)

© 2009 EMI music Japan

Now THAT is what you call a remix! I love how how the tone of the original version was just completely flipped with the new instrumentations. It would’ve been nice to have had Hikaru record all new vocals. But I’m such a stan that this’ll do for me.

I do hope for Evangelion 3.0 that we get a new song though and that we don’t keep getting remixes of “Beautiful world”. I love the song, but 4 to 5 different remixes of it is a bit much. Shit, who am I kidding. I’d lap ‘em all up and love ‘em regardless. Because I stan for Hikaru like that.

Damn I love this woman…

PS3 owners in Japan got a very special treat yesterday in the shape and voice of Evangelion’s Misato Katsuragi. Katsuragi Misato Hodo Keikaku is a new program for the PS3 which got released this past Saturday, its a virtual news program called Nerv News 24, anchored by the lovely Misato from Evangelion.

A voice synthesizer reads your favorite news and divides the virtual show into segments by topic. Think of it as the Wii’s News Channel on steroids. Unlike your usual news program Katsuragi Misato Houdou Keikaku shows you some… less orthodox shots of the news anchor such as a leg shot and a back shot which, if you ask me, are essential in better understanding the news.

The flow of Evangelion branded products can’t seem to be stopped. This time around we’ve got some Evangelion winter clothing that is official, unlike that other one. For around $800 bucks (or $1600 for both) you could be the proud owner of an Eva-00 snowboard or a snowboarding outfit designed after Rei Ayanami’s plugsuit. It might be a steep prize but consider this, not only will you be teh rei, but you’ll also be a sad girl in the snow. Two memes for the prize of one, you cant beat that.

[Official Site / Via ANN]

What you see above is probably one of the best pieces of Evangelion themed-clothing that’s ever been created. With a color scheme and shapes that are completely reminiscent of the Eva 01, this jacket would be a stylish piece of Evangelion merchandise. That is, if it wasn’t utterly unrelated to the series.

Reader Rob sent us a link to this jacket he found while browsing the interwebs which is brilliantly similar to the Eva 01, but since it really isn’t, its just a hideously neon jacket. Someone send an email to Gainax, we’re missing out.

Thanks Rob!

[Drjays]

Japan is awesome for origami, and hell, they ought to, they invented the freaking thing! And so here we have a video of someone doing the Eva 01 from Evangelion with a single sheet of paper. It looks terribly complicated and at some points my mind cant comprehend the difference between careful folds and just crumpling the fucking paper around but the end result is pretty impressive, considering its a single sheet of paper.

[JP]

A couple of months ago we posted about the Evangelion Longinus Spear replica which would be up for auction in Japan later that month. Well reports from ANN say that the thing sold for 13.7 million Yen, which is about $120,000 USD. That’s a lot of cash to blow on a replica, even if the scary lady holding it was included. To whoever bought that, I swear I’ve got a stain on my wall that kinda looks like Rei Ayanami if you look at it at an angle… while drunk, I’m willing to sell it for 10 grand, cheap!

[ANN]

A short clip of Hikaru Utada’s PV for her theme to Rebuild of Evangelion has been released on her official website and interestingly it does not feature Hikaru at all! The PV instead includes a montage of clips from the film itself. This will probably piss off fans who were hoping for a brand new PV which featured Hikaru. I doubt she’s fussed though. She’ll still get a big bag o’ money and a number 1 hit single on the Oricon charts at the end of it all.

The first film in the series Evangelion: 1.0 – You are (not) alone is released September 1, 2007 in Japan. Hit the link below to get a sneak peak at it and to hear Hikaru’s Utada’s theme song if you haven’t heard it already.

[Hikaru Utada's official website]

The cover of the latest issue of the recently launched Rolling Stone Magazine Japan, features Rei Ayanami on the cover and a feature article entitled Does Evangelion Save Us? which makes an argument about the new Evangelion movies being about ecology. There’s also a Rei Ayanami poster inside the mag. Sure beats the hell out of the latest cover of the US version which features the aging rockers from The Police.

[Rolling Stone Japan]

The most recent edition of Newtype Japan announces that Petit Eva: Evangelion @ School, the chibi styled series which places Evangelion characters on a high school setting, will be made into an animation. Adding to the money making strategy of Gainax, this series is sure to generate more money than many small european countries.

Petit Eva takes place on Nerv School where not one, but 3 Rei Ayanami “sisters”, a really small EVA-01 as well as an even more helpless Shinji are under the command of teacher Misato and principal Ikari Gendo (aka most badass principal ever).

The video adaptation will inevitably lead to an onslaught of merchandize based on these characters, which already appear on the Evangelion Doritos we saw a while ago. There is no stopping Gainax now, they have Akihabara under their command.

[Petit Eva Official Site]

We all know the fame anime themed videogames have, as well as videogame themed movies. . . they tend to suck really really bad. We had our taste of sailor moon fighting game, Sailor moon beat’em-ups and Dragon Ball Z fighters on the SNES. They weren’t awesome, and weren’t THAT crappy. Well, in fact they were really crappy compared to the originals (final fight or street fighter), but at least they made an effort.Then, after the anime boom in the U.S. at the beginning of this decade even more anime themed videogames have been around us, now with 3D-ness and cel shading of the newer generations, these games have become somewhat acceptable graphically, but when talking about gameplay and replay value they always keep short.

Now, take the N64 era for example, it was a period of transition between the total 2D(SNES, Genesis) and the total 3D(Dreamcast,Gamecube, PS2, XBOX). In that transition, we got the Sega Saturn, the Playstation, and the N64, with shitty polygons, awful sprites and excessive loading times. . .only on the first two. But it was a generation that HAD to be lived in order to get the awesome graphics of today.

Now, if a N64 game has really made use of the horsepower of a console to the maximum, apart from being an Anime themed game, it’s Evangelion for the N64. See for yourself, you’ve got the angels, the Eva’s and the backgrounds with excellent detail, even voices. . .VOICES. This was something so few N64 games managed to use (due to the lack of space on the cartridge). We even got some anime sequences going on. Oh why wasn’t anime that popular in the U.S. at that time, I’d have loved to play this on my N64.

Here, Humbert21 shows us the intro sequence and the 1st mission of the game.

See!? This is awesome, being a past generation game and all. . .