#asuka and rei are okay they just left a bit earlier

[revsabyss]

This is how Super Robot Wars goes right (read from right to left)

Based on this - https://twitter.com/JoeyYamitaro/status/1744449255777984875?s=20

[literaryeagle]

For my sixty-ninth Evangelion book review, here is Eva Extra 04. The first three issues of Eva Extra were free magazines to promote the Evangelion: 2.0 movie, and then the fourth magazine (shown above) was sold in Japanese theaters when the movie came out. Eva Extra 04 collects some of the material from the first three issues and also includes more art, plus it comes with additional goodies and is all packaged in a plastic slipcase and folder. I'll show you some of that stuff later in this review.

By the way, there were more issues of Eva Extra after 04, to promote stuff such as the Evangelion: 2.22 DVD/Blu-ray, and the Evangelion: 3.0 movie. Some of them were magazines, and some of them were videos instead... and nowadays Eva Extra is a mobile app that has content from the previous issues plus keeps adding new stuff in order to promote the upcoming Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.0 movie. Times sure have changed! Anyway, even if you already have the mobile app, hopefully you will still enjoy this review to see what the physical magazine and included goodies are like.

This magazine is not available in English or French (although there are a few bits of English text here and there), but there are plenty of pictures. Most of the illustrations are in full color, and there are a few sketches as well. Eva Extra 04 starts with foldout pages of Asuka, Rei, and Mari, all drawn by Kazuya Tsurumaki. Here is what the Asuka page looks like:

Keep reading for the rest of the book review, plus a few more pictures… actually, more than just a few pictures.  This post is going to be image-heavy!

After the three foldout pages and the title page, the magazine has a two-page spread called "Playback Evangelion: 1.0", which summarizes Evangelion: 1.0 by showing a whole bunch of small screenshots from the movie (although most of them are not in chronological order). Then it proceeds with the main topic, which is promoting the Evangelion: 2.0 movie! There is a two-page spread with the movie's English title, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, and then Asuka, Rei, and Mari each get a page with screenshots and a small quote. For example, here is the Rei page, which shows her saying "Oishii" ("Delicious") in reaction to some soup that Shinji made:

Next, there is a beautiful foldout page of Evangelion Unit-01 drawn by Ikuto Yamashita (the art on the front cover of the magazine is a shortened version of this picture). This is followed by several pages of sketches and screenshots of the Evangelions in this movie: Unit-01, Unit-00, Unit-02, Unit-03, Unit-04 (Since we didn't get to actually see Unit-04 onscreen, the magazine simply shows a picture of an explosion!), Unit-05, and Mark.06. Here's a piece of a page that has Unit-01 sketches accompanied by some pretty shades of purple:

Many of the screenshots in this section are arranged in very cool and artistic ways. For example, check out how these screenshots of Evangelion Unit-00 are displayed in shapes that give a feeling of movement and speed:

Pretty nifty!

After the pages devoted to the Evangelions, there are three "About Evangelion: 2.0" articles that were originally published in the previous issues of Eva Extra. These articles are accompanied by some photographs, and screenshots from the movie. Here is a small sample of screenshots, showing Rei, Shinji, and Kaworu:

After the "About Evangelion: 2.0" articles, there is a two-page spread with a colorful sketch of an explosion, and then several pages of screenshots. Some of these screenshots are set up in artistic arrangements, like the Unit-00 screenshots I showed you earlier. This two-page spread makes me think of stained glass windows:

The magazine comes to an end with another quote from the movie, and lyrics for "The Final Decision We All Must Take", plus a few pages of credits. But wait, we're not done yet! Now it's time to talk about the extras that come with the magazine. First, there is a flyer advertising some Evangelion-related stuff on both sides. I'll show you one of those sides, which is an ad for the Evangelion pachinko game "~Saigo no Shisha~ The Beginning and the End" ("~The Final Messenger~ The Beginning and the End"):

Oh wow, that's Evangelion Unit-04! Usually that Eva gets blown up before we ever get to see it in anime form, however Unit-04 has appeared in a few video games such as this one.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, Eva Extra 04 is packaged in a plastic slipcase and folder, so I'll show you those next:

If you open the folder, you will see four clear pockets. The pocket on the far right is for holding the magazine, and the other three are for holding large postcards that are included as bonus items:

Each of the card pockets actually contains more than one postcard, so now I'm going to take all the cards out so you can see them. Here are the first four cards:

So in the above photo, the images in the four cards are (starting with the upper left card and moving clockwise): A screenshot of Unit-01 that was used as the cover for Eva Extra 01, a picture of Asuka drawn by Kazuya Tsurumaki (the same illustration as the foldout page shown earlier in this review except the background is different), a pic of Unit-01 drawn by Ikuto Yamashita that was used as the cover for Eva Extra 04, and another screenshot of Unit-01.

Okay, now here are the next four cards:

In the above photo, the images in the four cards are (starting with the upper left and going clockwise): a screenshot of Rei that was used as the cover for Eva Extra 02, a screenshot of Mari that was used as the cover for Eva Extra 03, a picture of Mari drawn by Kazuya Tsurumaki, and a pic of Rei drawn by Kazuya Tsurumaki.

Overall, Eva Extra 04 is a nice souvenir of the Evangelion: 2.0 movie. Even though I usually prefer Evangelion books that contain mostly "new" illustrations instead of mainly screenshots, a number of the screenshots are arranged so stylishly that I still find this magazine very enjoyable to look at. The foldout pages, spiffy packaging, and included postcards are pretty cool as well.

Now that Eva Extra is a mobile app, I guess owning the magazine is kind of unnecessary for many people. However, if you would still like to add it to your collection, you can try checking websites that specialize in selling used Japanese books, such as Mandarake.

Well, that’s it for my sixty-ninth Evangelion book review. I have plenty more Evangelion books to discuss, so keep checking my blog for new reviews!

[literaryeagle]

For my fifty-fourth Evangelion book review, here is the Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone Complete Records Collection, published by Groundworks.  As you can see in the above photo, it's not just one book!  Instead, it's actually a cardboard box that contains three books, plus a couple of other little things.  This amazing set is full of pictures and information about the Evangelion: 1.0 movie... the story, how the movie was made, even a bit about how it was promoted.  They're not kidding when they call this a "Complete Records Collection", that's for sure!

This set of books is not available in English or French, but there are plenty of illustrations to enjoy.  Some of them are in full color, such as screenshots from the movie, pictures of the movie posters, and photos of merchandise. Others are in black-and-white, including design sketches, storyboards, and this fun drawing of Shinji and Rei eating soumen (thin wheat noodles):

Keep reading for the rest of the book review, plus a few more pictures... actually, more than just a few pictures.  This post is going to be image-heavy!

Okay, so let's start with the first book in the set. It's a large hardcover with a bound bookmark, and it comes in a nice slipcase:

This book also has a removable dust jacket, with beautiful art hidden on the other side of the jacket.  (I'll talk a little bit more about that later.)  Anyway, let's move on to what’s inside this book!  After an introduction page and the table of contents, there's a section called "film" which retells the whole movie using over 200 pages of screenshots, with bits of dialogue under some of the screenshots.  Yes, the entire movie... even the Studio Khara logo at the beginning, and the credits at the end, and the Next Time preview after the credits.  The. Whole.  Movie.  No wonder it took over 200 pages!  Here's a piece from one of those pages:

After that, we get a few pages of additional notes, including a music cue sheet.  Then it's onward to the next section of the book, called "archives", which has lots of design sketches.  Check out these drawings of Misato, which also include a color guide:

This section of the book doesn't stop at sketches of the Lilin characters, though!  There are also plenty of drawings (and sometimes CG models) of Angels, Evas, vehicles, weapons, equipment, locations, and even logos.  It really makes you appreciate how much work goes into creating an entire world in animation.  Also, this section includes some design ideas that didn't make it into the movie, such as these different suggestions for Kaworu's coffin on the moon:

The next part of the book is called "art", and it's devoted to lovely full color paintings of some locations from the movie, such as these:

So pretty!  Moving on, the book has an "interview" section, featuring some of the people who worked on the movie.  There are 25 interviews in this part, so there's a lot of text.  However, there are also plenty of illustrations, so there's nifty stuff to look at even if you can't read Japanese.

After that is the "advertising" section, which has pictures of the movie posters, and also screenshots from the movie trailers.  Then there's a section called "the other" which shows some additional promotional art and merchandise, including stuff from the movie pamphlet, a soundtrack CD, and the DVD.  The drawing of Shinji and Rei eating noodles (shown earlier in this review) came from this part of the book as well.

At the end of the book is a part called "scenario" which contains the script for the movie (this section is entirely text), and then there’s a large foldout page of Rei, drawn by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto:

By the way, remember when I said that the book has additional art hidden on the other side of the dust jacket?  That secret artwork is a lovely sketch version of the above Rei image, printed in silver.  Very cool!

Whew, that was a lot of stuff, wasn't it?  But wait, we're not done yet!  This collection contains THREE books, so we still have two more to go!  These two remaining books are paperbacks containing storyboards for the movie. The one devoted to storyboards from the first half of the movie is labelled "A Part", and the book for the second half of the movie is "B Part".  Here's what the front cover of the "A Part" book looks like:

Since this book is completely devoted to storyboards, the illustrations are all rough sketches.  Most of the time, the drawings are still clear enough to recognize which scenes are being depicted, however there are some instances where the art is just slightly above "stick figure" quality.  But overall, this is pretty cool stuff if you're interested in the pre-production stage of the movie.  Besides, some of the sketches still manage to be very expressive and amusing, such as this one of Toji and Kensuke's reactions to the fight with Shamshel:

As you can see in the above example, the storyboards are divided into three columns.  The column on the left is the dialogue for the scene, the column in the middle is rough sketches of the visuals, and the column on the right is for additional instructions.  (If you would like to see some storyboards from the original Evangelion TV series, be sure to check out my twenty-seventh book review!)

Okay, let's move on to the "B Part" book, which looks like this...

...and for an example of one of the storyboards contained within, here's Shinji and Rei after Ramiel is defeated:

Well, that's it for the books, but guess what? We're still not done yet!  There's also this little pamphlet:

This pamphlet is full of advertising for various Evangelion-related merchandise, including games, jewelry, and these Revoltech figures:

Lastly, those who ordered the Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone Complete Records Collection early enough also received a filmstrip of a scene from the movie! Unfortunately, the scene that I ended up with is so dark that you can't see much:

Uh... yeah.  Oh well, at least I got a somewhat better filmstrip with the collection for the Evangelion: 2.0 movie (I'll be covering that in a future review).

Overall, the Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone Complete Records Collection is an amazing compilation of pictures and information.  I highly recommend it if you love the Evangelion: 1.0 movie, especially if you want to learn more about how it was made!  (However, if you're a fan of Asuka or Mari, please keep in mind that they don't appear much in this collection, because they weren't in this movie except for the Next Time preview at the end.)

The original release of this collection (the one that includes a filmstrip) is no longer in print, so if you’re interested in getting it then you’ll have to buy it used. You can find several vendors offering used copies on Amazon.co.jp

There is also a rerelease version that does NOT include a filmstrip, so if you don't care about getting the filmstrip and want to see if you can buy the collection at a better price this way, you can also find that at Amazon.co.jp, on this page.

For some reason, it seems that fewer used book vendors on Amazon.co.jp are offering overseas shipping these days, so you might have to use a shopping deputy?  Or, you could you try finding it on another site that specializes in used Japanese books, such as Mandarake (do a search for ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版 : 序 全記録全集).

Well, that’s it for my fifty-fourth Evangelion book review.  I have plenty more Evangelion books to discuss, so keep checking my blog for new reviews!