by Rollin Bishop

Surprise! There's more Evangelion on the way! More specifically, a new Evangelion series of some kind is coming from writer Yoko Taro (NieR) and directors Kazuya Tsurumaki (Rebuild of Evangelion) and Toko Yatabe (Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time) with music by Keiichi Okabe (NieR). Studio Khara and CloverWorks are producing it, whatever it might be called.

The announcement came at the conclusion of a 30th anniversary festival yesterday, and while the list of known creatives involved is already quite stacked, the announcement itself and subsequent teaser — which you can see for yourself below — have been met with some bafflement and general gnashing of teeth.

And look, I get it. The end of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time, the last of the Rebuild movies, feels pretty definitive. A poster even famously states, "Bye-bye, all of Evangelion," prominently. In a very real, explicit way, that movie came across as creator Hideaki Anno having his final say on what he'd built. All of that, as it happens, is still true! A new Evangelion series does nothing to invalidate any of that.

For a long time, I've associated Stephen King with my attitude on adaptations or continuations. Anything that leaves an original creator and creation behind, really. Basically, that no matter what an adaptation might do, it is simply an adaptation. The original remains. But it turns out that my memory is fickle and, in the 2017 Vulture interview I've hazily recalled over the years, it goes even further back as King actually credits writer James M. Cain.

"When I was in college, I read something that stuck in my mind from James M. Cain, who did The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce," King says when asked about his "very sanguine attitude toward adaptation" in the interview. "He did an interview near the end of his life where the reporter said, 'They ruined your books for the movies,' and Cain snapped his head around and pointed at the bookshelf and said, 'No they didn't, they're all right there.' In a way, the book is untouchable."

Getting bogged down in any debate of purity, what is and is not Evangelion enough, is a tar pit. There's not even enough there yet to get a sense of what's happening in terms of the facts let alone what they might then imply. Is it a sequel? A retelling? A spinoff? Something else entirely? I cannot stress enough that the great Evangelion franchise has gone further afield than you'd probably expect if you've just been paying attention to the core animated projects.

So, there is more Evangelion on the way. As before, all of the old Evangelion — the series, the films, even the wacky manga — will still be there. I just can't find it in me to join in with the gnashing of teeth. Even if Yoko Taro isn't your favorite creator, it's hard to imagine him not doing something interesting with the franchise. Will it fail? Maybe! Does it matter? Not really! Will it stop more people from eventually doing something else with Evangelion as a franchise?

No, it will not. And I am just fine with that. I've already said goodbye to Anno's Evangelion; maybe it's time to say hello to someone else's?

/out of frame

🫂 Rollin: Big congrats to Dropout for its very first licensed show: DON'T HUG ME I'M SCARED! The British puppet show, consisting of a web series and a sequel TV series, is a surreal experience that our own Tous previously described as "the demented British half-cousin of Sesame Street and the heir apparent to Wonder Showzen."

🌍 Kambole: Gonna spare a minute to plug my friend Ashley Clark's new book The World of Black Film, a written guide to films by and about the Black diaspora. That includes films like Kirikou and the Sorceress, so it's still relevant for an animation newsletter! Speaking of Black animation, Two Black Boys in Paradise won a BAFTA over the weekend, if you live in the UK, you can stream the short here. Lastly: I love the comic book series Head Lopper by Andrew MacLean, the animation journalist Catsuka today pointed out a pretty kickass pilot animation produced by MacLean and animated by Project Studio Q for a proposed and then scrapped adaptation.

🌀 Toussaint: I’m really excited for SCP: Gallionic, a newly announced 20-minute short film set in the universe of the titular collaborative fiction project. Clandestine organization, ineffable cosmic entities, existential threats juxtaposed with the banality of corporate bureaucracy — yes, please! Check out the film’s kickstarter campaign for more details.