Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most popular and best-known anime franchises in history; it fits into both the shōnen and the seinen category. This mecha series helped popularize anime back in the 1990s but even after so many decades, the series is still quite popular around the world. This is why Studio Khara decided, back in 2007, to relaunch the series under the title Rebuild of Evangelion, which would include four theatrical movies that would retell the original stories as well as add some new narrative elements to the whole concept.
The authors had this to say about their initial idea of the “rebuild”: “It will be a work that can be enjoyed even if you have not seen the TV series. I want old hard-core fans and even fans who just know Eva from pachinko to view it as a single (i.e. stand-alone) movie. We welcome first-time viewers, so the contents will be simpler, but we don’t intend to make something on a level that can be understood just by spacing out and watching it. (…) When you say ‘Eva’ there are probably people who are reminded of a worldview steeped in mystery, but this time it looks like those types of elements will be kept to a minimum. (…) This is because techniques such as intentionally scattering difficult-to-understand phrases to create uncertainty are 12 years old. The essence of this project is to foil all expectations that everyone has towards Eva.”
This October 2006 interview sums up the original goal of the “rebuild”. Four movies have been released in Japan from 2007 to 2021, with Amazon Prime getting the distribution rights for the Western market. So far, the movies have premiered in the West several years after their original Japanese release, but luckily for fans of the series, the last movie, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time., which premiered in Japan in March 2021, is going to get its US premiere on Amazon Prime on August 13th, 2021.
With this, Rebuild of Evangelion will come to its end, but at least the fans of the series won’t have to wait very long as they did with the former movies.
