Eva Movie Promotions
Wallpaper © GAINAX・カラー/Project Eva.
Over the years, many comments on blogs and forums have said that Neon Genesis Evangelion is a cash cow for Gainax and that Gainax is not ashamed of constantly milking it. Well, according to this short post by the Anime News Service (look for the article…”9-1-07 (9:39PM EDT) - EVA’s Economic Impact”), here are some estimates (to use another animal metaphor) straight from the horse’s mouth:
“GAINAX figures over 6000 merchandise products have been sold to date based on its Evangelion property, generating around 150 billion Yen of revenue. 15 million+ copies of the manga and over 10 million CD and video copies have been sold. Over 600,000 units of pinball slot machines and 100,000 of 3 flavors of pinball slot machines have been successfully marketed. 180,000 copies of the latest PS2 game Evangelion CR have been sold since the release in February.”
150 billion yen is a little over 1.3 billion dollars (US)…moo.
With the release of the 4 new movies, there are, as expected, product tie-ins and cross promotions including campaigns with UCC coffee and Pizza Hut. Now, add to this the auction sale of the Spear of Longinus replica by Gainax and the Evangelion Store. I had mentioned this in an earlier news article… Anime & Manga News (Late July/Early August). The Spear was auctioned through Yahoo Japan’s auction site. The high bid (out of 413 good bids) was 13,727,000 yen (about US$121,100) on September 7. Before the bogus bids were filtered out, the high bid (out of over 1000 bids) was 10 billion yen (about 88 million US dollars).
The Spear was part of the “Imagination of Evangelion” art exhibition which was held at Tokyo’s J-Art Project from July 21 to August 3. The steel Spear replica has a double helix design and is 2.2 meters long (over 7 feet) and 28 kilograms (a little less than 62 pounds). It was forged by artisan Kaoru Watanabe.
Photo from Yahoo Japan…© GAINAX・カラー/Project Eva.
ANS auction stories:
9-2-07 (3:03PM EDT)—- Lance Of Longinus Auction Hits 10 Billion Yen
9-7-07 (9:06AM EDT)—- Lance Of Longinus Auction Wraps
ANN auction story:
Human-Sized Eva Spear Auctioned for 13.7 Million Yen
To be fair, not everything Gainax does is for profit. They have taken advantage of a new Yahoo Japan program which allows people to make donations to organizations online through portal subsites. Donors get an exclusive wallpaper as a thank you. Gainax has partnered with Make a Wish Japan, and is offering the Shin Seiki Evangelion Souryoku Tokushuu (New Age Evangelion - All One’s Energy Feature) wallpaper. As of September 22, they have raised 1,459,973 Yen.
Wallpaper sample © GAINAX Co., Ltd.
ANS story:
8-2-07 (2:46AM EDT) - Yahoo Anime Fundraising
Sake News
Next, cross promotion on a smaller scale…Illustrator Taraku Uon (Onegai Sensei! light novel) has created illustrations for 2 labels for a new line of sake being offered by Lake Kizaki…naturally the line is called Onegai Sake!. Locations in the Onegai series are supposed to be based on those around Lake Kizaki.
Label for Seishu Oneti
The two varieties of sake being offered are Seishu Mizuho (2100 yen) and Seishu Oneti (1785 yen). Both are sold in 720 ml bottles. The 19.8 year vintage sake is brewed by Hokuan Jouzou of Omachi City and sold at the Lake Kizaki campground vending station as well as by direct mail.
Label for Seishu Mizuho
ANS Stories:
8-1-07 (11:59PM EDT)—- Onegai Sake!
8-6-07 (3:44AM EDT)—- Onegai Sake Roadtrip!
Digital Television and Anime Quality
Japan is scheduled to fully convert to digital TV terrestrial broadcasts by 2011. While there are many advantages of digital over analog, there are a few drawbacks. One (and this, perhaps, is just nostalgia) is that digital TV represents another nail in the coffin for cell animation.
It is true that cell animation has been replaced by computer graphics in almost all TV anime. In fact, there is only one show which is still entirely animated using cells and that is the anime based on Machiko Hasegawa’s manga, Sazae-san, which has been on the air since 1969. Another long running series, Doraemon (1979 - present), switched to computer graphics in 2002.
Yoichi Tanaka, head of production at Eiken, the studio which produces Sazae-san, explained why the company has continued to use animation cells:
“A TV cartoon created with cell pictures adds warmth to the footage” and “That offers a sense of comfort to viewers”
Image from Slovenian site slocartoon.net
However, there are technical issues with cell animation and digital television. According to a story posted by asahi.com:
“Digital broadcast shows even the dust attracted to cells due to static electricity. Also, the thickness of cells can cause a disparity in colors or can blur lines when cell animation is broadcast digitally.”
And these quality issues have caused Tanaka-san to say:
“If we receive complaints from viewers that the footage of ‘Sazae-san‘ is not as good as other TV cartoons, we will have to give up on animated cells”
Besides digital TV, cell animation has other challenges. Each episode of Sazae-san requires 1400 cells. The cell artist pool is shrinking due to age. Labor costs have forced much of the work to be outsourced to China. The decline in the creation of animation cells means a drop in demand for the paints that are used exclusively for cells. This, in turn, makes it difficult for the paint manufacturers. As an example, Taiyo Shikisai, a Tokyo based company which makes animation cell paints (used in several Ghibli productions like Kiki’s Delivery Service), saw its monthly sales drop from a peak of 20 million yen to around 500,000 yen now.
Still, there is hope for cell animation fans. From the same asahi.com story, Shigeji Kitamura, the president of Taiyo Shikisai, “said the company will continue to manufacture the paints because he regards the art form as an intrinsic part of Japanese culture”.
Asahi.com story (English):
Digital TV signals an end to cell animation
Dragon Ball Z Live Action Stuff
As promised from the Live-Action News, Part 2 article, here is what is known about the Dragon Ball Z live-action adaptation. Back in 2002, 20th Century Fox acquired the rights to make a live-action movie version of Dragon Ball, based on the manga by Akira Toriyama. After that, the project was on-again/off-again.
In June 2004, Ben Ramsey was hired (for $500,000) to adapt a screenplay for Dragon Ball Z. In September 2007, the Montreal Gazette reported that 20th Century Fox would be shooting 3 movies in Montreal with budgets of at least $100 million each…Dragon Ball Z, Another Night, and Fantastic Voyage. The paper also reported that all three should wrap production by July 2008. The fact that several big projects seemed to be green lighted appeared to make sense since there is an expectation that the three major Hollywood unions…Writers Guild of America (WGA), Screen Actors Guild (SGA), and Directors Guild of America (DGA)…will probably strike in the summer of 2008. However, in a note to IGN, 20th Century Fox said:
“that this report [Montreal Gazette article] cannot be confirmed as neither start dates nor locations are locked in at this point.â€
So it looks like the project is off again. Also, the Fox note seems to indicate that this is true for all three films.
If you really want to see a live-action version of Dragon Ball, you may want to check out the 1989 Hong Kong adaptation, Dragonball: The Magic Begins…
…or maybe not…
ANN Stories:
Live-Action DBZ Set to Shoot in Montreal
Fox Acknowledges Dragon Ball Film, Stays Mum on Details
Macross (Robotech) Live Action Film
I also mentioned in the Live-action News, Part 3 article, that I would go into more detail about the possible live-action adaptation of Robotech by Warner Bros. Pictures and Maguire Entertainment. As previously mentioned, Maguire Entertainment is the production company of actor Tobey Maguire (Spiderman movies), who, according to the Hollywood Reporter article, is interested in the lead role. In the article, Maguire was quoted:
“We are very excited to bring ‘Robotech‘ to the big screen. There is a rich mythology that will be a great foundation for a sophisticated, smart and entertaining film.”
It is not surprising that there is interest in making a live-action adaptation of Robotech since the Transformers adaptation was successful and there is a new Voltron project in the works by New Regency Pictures. However, there are some difficulties associated with Robotech.
Robotech was produced by Harmony Gold USA and Tatsunoko Prod. Co., Ltd. It combined three unrelated Japanese series (The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada) which were re-edited and re-dialogued. The reason which Harmony Gold gave for doing this was to create a show with enough episodes to be syndicated as a weekday series (minimum of 65 episodes). None of the three Japanese anime individually had enough episodes.
The main problem is a copyright dispute with Studio Nue and Big West on one side and Harmony Gold USA’s partner Tatsunoko Production on the other. This dispute has prevented the Macross elements from being used in recent Robotech projects.
Still, this Robotech live-action adaptation has more details available than the Dragon Ball Z project. The screenwriter is Craig Zahler (The Brigands of Rattleborge). Frank Agrama (Harmony Gold USA) will be the executive producer. The producers will be Drew Crevello (Supercool Hollywood BigTime Prods.) and Jason Netter (Kickstart Productions).
ANN Story:
Warner, Tobey Maguire Acquire Robotech Film Rights
Pocky Woes
Finally, a bit of bad news for Pocky fans. This is from another short post by ANS (9-6-07 (1:00AM EDT) - Less Punch In Your Pocky):
“Ezaki Glico has announced it’s cutting the content of its ‘Pocky Chocolate’, ‘Men’s Pocky’, and ‘Pocky Extra Fine’ products by about 10% (from 80 to 72 grams) as of October 2nd. The reason cited is the soaring prices of ingrdeients such as dairy products used in the chocolate due to the recent rises in the crude oil market.”
You may want to stock up…you still have a little time.
