Evangelion Tokyo-3 Event report: 5/08/10
YOU CAN (NOT) ADVANCE ON BLU-RAY IS SO AMAZING IT'S DISGUSTING.
AGAINST ALL REASON, I ACTUALLY TEARED UP DURING THE BIG ACTION SEQUENCE PORTION THAT ALWAYS TAKES MY BREATH AWAY, BECAUSE I JUST COULDN'T BELIEVE HOW IMPOSSIBLY GORGEOUS IT LOOKED ON BLU-RAY.
The sound system they set up in the gym was insane, too! It was clearly state-of-the-art surround sound setup, which was so funny to have in a middle school gym! Even though the screen they were showing on wasn't that big, between the Blu-Ray visuals and the surround sound making me jump a few times, I felt like I was seeing it in IMAX.
They claimed the version we saw was different from the DVD version, but I don't really trust GAINAX on that point (I think it could be just one shot that changed). They inserted a lot of shots here and there (a bunch of scenery, and a few to pump up the action scenes more), but there were only two brand-new scenes... One was with moar Kaji, YAY.
(There's now hidden SPOILERTEXT in the comments, people who have style?=mine set for browsing, be warned!)
I never went to bed before the trip. Luckily Hakone is far enough away I was able to get in a decent amount of sleep on the trains. *v*
The weather was beyond stunning. This event would have been absolutely miserable if it had rained, so it was really lucky. I got to Hakone a little early, and there were about thirty guys, mostly in otaku standard uniform, and no girls waiting at the bus check-in area. I was like, "WHAT," because Eva is not exactly unpopular with the ladies! I was like, "Please don't tell me I'm going to be the only girl!" Once more people started trickling in, though, there was a pretty decent balance of girls.
We loaded onto the buses and I sat with a girl whose name was Rei, and we chatted and hung out for a fair amount of the day. She totally had the aforementioned Eva phone!
The bus tour guide was super peppy. She said, "Of course we will be passing all kinds of landmarks on the way I could explain to you about like a proper tour guide, but since all of those things should have been destroyed in the apocalypse and that would just take you out of the Eva experience of being in Tokyo-3, I have been instructed not to mention them." Hee!
On the bus, we got a certificate with our names printed on them confirming us as official residents of Tokyo-3, and an Eva map of Hakone showing how Tokyo-3 would be plotted out in the landscape. The certificates had an ID number on them that we were told to keep track of. We also got Tokyo-3 pins with a leaf logo and told those were our passes to the event and had to be worn in plain view of the staff.
The abandoned school site the event was taking place at was way, way up in the mountains. I've been to Hakone before, but it was all for tourist stuff, and was much later in summer. But seeing the ordinary non-touristy side of it, it was so gorgeous! We went up all these winding mountain roads, past these totally stunning brooks and valleys... The school was in a valley with mountains all around.
When we watched the movie, I was like, "Wow, they really did make the landscape Hakone, it looks so much like outside in the big fight sequences..."
They replaced the sign outside of the school (really real-looking replica!! until we looked at it super up close we didn't realize it was just a painted wood cut! the paint sparkled like gold and everything!):
Then you got inside the grounds and there was a Dolby Eva truck that was playing the DVD "Tsubasa wo Kudasai" promo from the website on constant loop, and the Eva racing car next to it.
You walked through the soccer field and then went to take your shoes off outside the gym...
(Goods on the left, gym on the right.)
They gave us little baggies for our shoes to carry them, along with our NERV seat cushions and a cute bag with Rei in yukata posing in front of Mt. Fuji. :)
Then we went into the gym. They had taped up the lyrics to "Kyou no Hi wa Sayounara" and "Tsubasa wo Kudasai" as if they were the school theme songs, and little school-like signs admonishing us to be quiet during the showing. They also had a cutout of Rei hung up in the above room watching everyone.
We checked our numbers on our resident certificate. The gym was taped off into partitions and you sat on the floor in the partition assigned to your number.
Rei and I were in different partitions so we dumped our stuff, and then took our shoes to go look at goods. The goods tables and food were set up like booths at a school bunkasai. :)
By the way, the Eva Lawson's was down the street from the school and I think the original plan was to have us kill time before the movie by lining up there... But it had been canceled.
Apparently somehow the day after it opened officially, people stole everything outside with Rei's face on it that hadn't been nailed down (how would you not notice that?!?! it's open 24 hours!) and Lawson's got pissed and took down everything and canceled the event completely. Though really, the place was so tiny, and there wasn't much of a parking lot, and it was on a really busy road. I think it would have been really chaotic to have all those people lining up, it wasn't a good location.
So they had invited Lawson's to the goods table to sell their stuff, I assume since they had to use up all their cute Tokyo-3 baggies somehow. I bought the potato chips, just because I wanted a baggie:
Also got a bento, which was 1300 yen despite being TINY.
Goods were really kind of boring, mostly Animate stuff I'd seen before... Oh, and Lawson's was selling UCC boxsets that had Eva canned coffee packaged together with a figure: Rei, Shikinami, and Mari. The coffee can was easier to see, and the coffee can had Shikinami in the slutsuit, BUT the figure was of the regular suit. DNW! I picked it up and when I saw the figure wasn't the slutsuit, I put it back. I kept seeing a ton of other people doing the same exact thing. GAINAX, WHY HAVE YOU CLOSED YOUR HEART TO SLUTSUIT MERCHANDISE?
I ended up getting a super overpriced t-shirt, but it's soooo nice! I really like the way it fits, wearing it now. Plus it's pleasantly secretly geeky.
We finished shopping and went to eat our bento outside by the soccer field. The bento was expensive because it came in a plastic NERV bento box you could keep!! But it was just rice with...I don't know what was on top, some kind of salty topping I assume Hakone's famous for? But basically, just rice, and it wasn't even tasty rice. I didn't finish mine since it was a little old-tasting. Gotta wash out my bento box for future use now that I'm home. Oh, and we got NERV waribashi too: :D
Rei had heard Lawson's was selling Shinji misoshiru, but they hadn't had it at the goods table while they had everything else. So we went to walk to the real Lawson's, where she found it. I bought a drink and some bread, because my allergies were acting up and making me really achy, and I needed food to take a painkiller with. We walked back to the school and came back in just 30 minutes before the movie would begin. They rang a school bell sound effect over the loudspeaker right then to remind people!
Then we headed back to the gym and took more photos of the interior cuteness, and got a stamp at the stamp table. :)
The floor was REALLY CROWDED and I had trouble finding where I'd left my cushion since everyone's looked identical. I sat down in the wrong place for like 10 minutes, realized I'd screwed up and taken someone else's seat, and tried to move over to my real seat and switch out our souvenir Rei bags (since I'd filled up the wrong one that didn't belong to me ORZ) in a subtle way. FAIL.
We were all packed onto the floor like sardines. They had said in advance the event would not have any talks from staff or seiyuu, but they had set it up so nobody ever got on the stage. We got all the cues from the screen. Startup was announced by the movie screen beginning a countdown clock ten minutes beforehand. Every minute the music would play a different song from the soundtrack. When they played...I don't remember the song title, but the wacky antics in Misato's apartment music? They added in Pen-Pen sound effects!
The countdown screen and all text for it were done in the standard Eva font.
The countdown also included an ad for Hakone pimping out the tour company stuff for the people staying the night, very Eva in how they were all about product-placement for their sponsors. Everyone laughed at the end.
Then the movie began...
Well, I had trouble enjoying it just because my allergy attack that came out of nowhere had me in ridiculous pain the whole run of the movie... I kept trying to shift around on the floor to make myself more comfy but we were really squeezed in and I felt so awful... ORZ
But the Blu-Ray was impossibly perfect. The surround sound quality was totally better than the theater had been. (Even in perfect sound quality, I still don't understand what Yamadera Kouichi is trying to say in English at the beginning when the subtles say, "Yoroshiku!" Though whatever it was, I'm convinced Kaji should have said, "LATERS!") But the sound quality was staggering, I jumped at the beginning because the LCL bubbles were so loud!
There were lots of pick-up-like shots to pump up action sequences. I'm so embarrassed to admit the big fight sequence in the first half got a tear out of me, but really, it was so beautiful in Blu-Ray as to be staggering! They also redrew a few facial expressions, but I thought most of the new shots were of scenery.
Mostly I was really absorbed in watching the backgrounds, honestly. I was so lucky to be sitting up front, and I couldn't stop gazing at the incredible amount of detail viewable on the Blu-Ray. I really had thought, "Would Blu-Ray even be worth it for anime?" but this movie is, without question! It really looks like a whole different movie!
The DVD extras list refers to having the '"I Would Give You Anything' Scene: NOGUCHI Ver." as an extra. We were watching the Noguchi version of the movie, but I have no idea what that scene was... "I Would Give You Anything" sounds so intense, too...
2chan mentioned one new single quick shot that is foreshadowing something MAJOR and gives a big clue on how an event seen in the Q preview can take place, but I missed it! (...on second thought, I wonder if that could be the special shot that isn't on the DVD? It would be GAINAX-rashii to let only 1200 people at a two-day event see something so major, even worse I didn't notice the shot. *laugh*)
They showed a new sequence of Unit 3 being launched from America, strapped to a cross-shaped platform, looking totally evil and Jesus-y.
And, I hadn't noticed, but apparently in the old theatrical cut, Misato refers to "Suzuhara-kun and Aihara-kun." OOPS. WHAT A MASSIVE FUCKUP. How did something like that make it all the way to the theater?!?! Well, the scene was kind of intense so I can understand why it might be missed, but... Anyway, they rerecorded and fixed the mistake in the new cut, so Kensuke is back to Aida-kun again. :)
For all-new scenes with new dialogue and such, though, there were two.
The first new scene had Kaji getting to Tokyo-3 for the first time and running into the three stooges at the train station. He is looking at the map of the city and asks Shinji which train to take to get to the Geofront. Shinji gives him directions (apparently Kaji got lost and missed his norikae) and Kaji asks, "Is Katsuragi there now?" Shinji asks how he knows Misato-san and Kaji replies, "I'm an old friend of hers. You're not the only one who knows the weird positions she sleeps in, you know!" and then takes off and Shinji is like, "WTF?" and I was like, "OMG I THINK KAJI SHIPS THEM A LITTLE BIT TOO??? MAYBE?????"
The second new scene had the kids running synch tests! 懐かしい！！！ Asuka complains about how boring it is and stretches in a way best calculated to show off her rack. Misato is in the control room sitting on an office chair, and she spins around on the chair looking bored out of her mind, and it's SO CUTE! She says yes, it's boring, and they should be thankful that they get to relax enough to have enough time between attacks and protecting humanity to get bored at all. SUPER CUTE. And it's true, the movies always run from one fight sequence to the next, so there's never ever any time to just chill at headquarters the way people did in the TV series. Nice to see something quiet.
The movie finished, and we all applauded. The screen told us we were free to go for the final two hours before the buses came to take us home, but to meet back there a half-hour before boarding time to sing "Kyou no Hi wa Sayounara" together.
So we went outside, and there were some TV cameras interviewing fans about the event. I was quickly approached due to my foreign-ness, but I have already been outed as a JE wota at work. The last thing I need is for my face to be on TV as an aniwota, when I'm not even really one at all anymore (Eva's just special to me still). So I turned them down. Rei wanted to go to an onsen down the street but I decided to hang around.
I was walking around the grounds and this really peppy young woman with a press pass came up to me and started chatting. She asked about how I got into Eva and such, and said she works for Shueisha, and was there to cover the event for a pachinko magazine. She seemed a bit of a space case, but a very cute and sweet one who was very fun to talk to! :) She did ask if her photographer could take a photo of me for the article but I was like, "No, I'm already outed at work as a JE wota, I'm fine with that but I don't think I can really handle this on top of that being out there, lol," and she was like, "Oh, you like JE? Arashi?" and I said yes.
She said the photographer she was with that day had done all the Arashi CC Lemon adverts, and since she works at Shueisha, sometimes she ends up going to other shoots and stuff in a work capacity. She said, "Like for Hana Yori Danshi..."
I corrected, "Dango!" and she slapped her forehead and said, "I know, I'm awful, I work for Shueisha and I make that mistake even now. I've gotten in trouble with Kamio-sensei at meetings for saying it even, and she'll be like, 'DANGO!!!!' Isn't that terrible?" and I was like OMG this chick is that important?!
Anyway, she said, "Even though I work for Shueisha I've never read the manga, but I was able to go to a photoshoot for the drama..." and at that point I pricked up my ears like the tinhatting loser I am. She was like, "So first they were taking Inoue Mao-chan, and I was freaking out over how totally precious and adorable she is, isn't she cute?" and I was like, "YES OMG LOVE HER." She went, "Right? But then up comes Matsujun for his turn and it's like...ALL THE LIGHT IN THE ROOM GOES OVER TO HIM, SUCH IS HIS PERFECTION. I'd never really looked at him before but I was just awed at how gorgeous he was. SO GORGEOUS. Like I felt bad for Mao-chan because she was so utterly and completely overshadowed by his perfect beauty!"
Then she went on rambling about how she like tracked down a friend working the shoot, asking if she could see moar photos of Matsujun, and one of her friends works on shoots and does test Polaroid shots while they're setting up to check the light quality. Apparently her friend took more than she needed of Jun so she could have one to keep because of his gorgeousness. XD She said she chats with Shueisha photographers a lot, and they all say JE are the easiest jobs to shoot, because JE boys are so professional and used to it that you can often get the shot you need in one. And said she was surprised to hear Aiba counted among the professional types, since she thought he was such a spaz on TV, haha.
The conversation went back to Eva and she asked if I'd been able to sit up front. I said yes, and she said she was jealous because press was stuck in the back with the staff. She said she'd been next to ______-san who was in charge of the event (I forget the name but he must be the one who runs the official site blog) and I guess Anno and Tsurumaki were there too, with some of the animation staff with them? She said they had said "the director" had personally drawn a huge amount of the new shots inserted into the new cut, and that the staff was geeking out in the back over "how cool the director's stuff was drawn." Though I don't know if "the director" = Anno or Tsurumaki in that case. Probably Anno?
But going back to her cute spaceyness... She kept talking about how this one shot was brand new, and how there were more items on Shikinami's dressing table than there had been in the theatrical cut, and how badly she wanted the DVD to see what was on the dressing table because it must be important if they changed it! I was like, "...no, it was the same." She insisted there was shampoo there that hadn't been there before, and I said, "No, it was facial cleanser. I remember because the label was in both German and English and I thought that was interesting in the theater..."
She said, "But about the next movie, I think all of them are brothers and sisters!"
"Who are?"
"All the kids. The pilots."
I was like, O_________________O I mean nothing has changed in the movie to make that anything but TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE. I couldn't believe she was saying she was an Eva fan and enough of a fan to have seen this movie three times, because YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO PAY THAT MUCH ATTENTION TO KNOW REI AND KAWORU CANNOT BE SIBLINGS WITH THE OTHERS, AND SHINJI AND ASUKA HAVE TO HAVE DIFFERENT MOMMIES.
I asked her what made her come up with this *~amazing theory~*, and she mentioned one spoilery thing and then said, "And, because Kaworu called Gendou his daddy!"
And I was left totally at a loss for words, trying to come up with a tactful way to point out that this was probably more because Kaworu wants to take Shinji for a getaway weekend to someplace with a fireplace he can conveniently lay Shinji's quivering body down by, and thus he considers Gendou to be his in-law. AND NOT BECAUSE KAWORU IS SHINJI'S SECRET BROTHER.
It was almost time for the singalong and she had to go back inside to the back with the press people, and I went to sit back down in my old spot. When it was time, the screen started back up with another thirty-second countdown, and then the music played with the lyrics on the screen for us to sing. It was a different mix from the one used in the movie, a bit more peppy. :)
Then the song ended and the screen went black, and everyone was sitting around waiting to see if it was over or not (I think everyone was holding out hope for them to show a Q promo). So we were all just sitting there quietly, until finally a staff girl with a megaphone told us to leave the gym and kicked us out.
And then we got on the bus and back to the station. I slept the whole bus ride back, and then since I didn't want to spend money on the shinkansen, ended up going home the slow way which took almost three hours... ;w; I slept the train ride back, too. What an awful train ride. I almost regretted not taking the shinkansen, but since that would have put me on the wrong side of the Yamanote anyway once I got back to Tokyo, it really wasn't worth it for the price.
Then I got home and crashed hard, slept like twelve hours, and have been lazing around in bed all day since. And now I'm eating my Asuka potato chips in my new t-shirt. It's been a good day. :D
And, hey, TWO AND A HALF WEEKS UNTIL THE DVD! Almost there! :)