[Merch] Evangelion book review blog

For talking about all other entries in the Evangelion franchise: from the various manga and video games to merchandising and various video/audio releases.

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Literary Eagle
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Postby Literary Eagle » Fri Apr 03, 2015 4:56 pm

Thanks for the kind words, robersora! I'm glad you're enjoying the reviews. ^_^

Okay, I posted my 22nd book review today! This time, it's Kaworu: Evangelion Photograph, the final volume in a series of four books that each focus on a different Eva pilot. Like the previous three books, this one contains full color pictures and filmstrips from the TV series, but it also has sketches! Cool!

Well, that takes care of all four volumes of the Evangelion Photograph series of books. My next review will be a photograph book of a very different sort... prepare for a little Eva racing, and a lot of fan service!

NEW POST

I posted my twenty-third book review today! This time, it's Evangelion Racing RQ: Sentou to Nichijou, which contains photographs of the race queens from the official Evangelion Racing team of 2012. As Misato would say, there's plenty of fan service. This book is a special item that had a very limited print run (they only made enough copies to fill the preorders), so don't miss this review of a rare book!

Speaking of missed reviews, the first post of this thread is updated with links to all of my previous Evangelion book reviews, so you can always check there to see if there are any reviews that you may have missed. Feedback is appreciated, and if you have any questions about these books, feel free to ask me!
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Postby robersora » Fri Apr 03, 2015 8:01 pm

Well, with no poetry added from Ishida (or even better) Ikuhara ( :devil: ), this Kaworu book really seems like a quick cash grab. I'm looking forward to what the new Kaworu book will have to over. @Evangelion Racing RQ: I wonder if the wondrous manifestations of Eva merchandise will ever reach a point where it finally creates a black hole.
Thank you for making me aware this weird little gem exists :)
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Postby Literary Eagle » Sat Apr 04, 2015 10:14 am

Yeah, the All About Kaworu Nagisa book is much better than the Kaworu: Evangelion Photograph one. I hope the upcoming Kaworu 2015 book will be good as well!

As for the Evangelion Racing RQ book... yes, "weird little gem" is a good description, heh. It's a fun one, and the rarity of the item makes it interesting to talk about. :D
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Postby AR-99 » Sat Apr 04, 2015 2:54 pm

How many pages is the RQ book?

$228 on Amazon JP. Yeah. :uhh:
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Postby Literary Eagle » Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:17 pm

The Evangelion Racing RQ book is 84 pages, plus it comes with a DVD. And yeah, the prices for it on Amazon JP are just crazy. I understand the book is rare because it had such a limited print run, but still... yeesh. I'd better be super careful to keep this book in good condition, because I wouldn't want to pay that kind of price for a replacement. :cringe:

NEW POST

I posted my twenty-fourth book review today! This time, it's Kaworu 2015 -Nagisa Kaworu Shashinshuu-, which is a collection of full color images of Kaworu, including pictures of Kaworu merchandise. This is a new book that just came out (I'm really surprised the book arrived all the way from Japan this quickly!), so I hope you enjoy the review. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to post them here!
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Sat Apr 11, 2015 8:02 am

Thanks for the review!

The one question I have is does the book have artist credits for individual illustrations?
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Postby Literary Eagle » Fri May 01, 2015 8:00 pm

Ah yes, the book has credits at the end, including image sources. I edited the review to include mention of that, in case anyone else might be wondering about the same thing. (See, this is why feedback is important! :D ) Thank you!

NEW POST

I posted my twenty-fifth book review today! This time, it's Mode EVANGELION: EVANGELION girls project by mobacolle, which focuses on fashion and cute merchandise. It comes with some nice bonus items as well, including a Spear of Longinus tote bag. Pretty cool! Also, actress/singer Shoko Nakagawa had some involvement with this publication, so be sure to check it out if you're a fan of her work!

NEWER POST (May 1, 2015)

I have two updates this time! First, I wrote an Evangelion analysis article that looks at both the anime and the official book The Essential Evangelion Chronicle: Side B, in order to dispute the notion that Kaworu was evil and/or manipulating Shinji for the purpose of breaking him: Space Jesus, Take the Wheel. It incorporates ideas that I slowly put together and refined over the course of various posts I've made here at EvaGeeks, which is why some of the wording may end up looking a bit familiar. Many thanks to those of you who put up with my ramblings as the elements of this article were born!

Next, I posted my twenty-sixth book review today! This time, it's Evangelion Original III, which contains the scripts for episodes 19 to 26 of the TV series. These scripts are from before final edits were made, so there are some ways in which they differ from the actual episodes. One of the differences is about Rei in episode 21, and it was quite surprising. Be sure to check out the review to see what I mean!

Feedback and questions are welcome! Also, for the sake of making everything easier to find, in addition to keeping the first post of this thread updated with links to all of my book reviews, I'll also add links to any Evangelion analysis articles I write that end up including information from official books. So far there are two: the new one mentioned in today's update, and my Teammate, sympathy article from way back before I even started doing book reviews. ^_^
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Postby cyharding » Fri May 01, 2015 11:07 pm

Great review. I have always been interested in the production side of the show, so I found these bits extremely interesting. There might be one point I want to raise regarding your article on Kawrou, but I need to iron out the seams of my idea first. Keep up the good work.
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Postby Literary Eagle » Sat May 02, 2015 10:39 am

Thank you very much, cyharding! Your input is always welcome here. :kawaii: Yeah, it's fun to see the differences between the scripts and the actual episodes. That bit about Rei really surprised me!
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Postby Sailor Star Dust » Sat May 02, 2015 6:16 pm

That stuff about Rei would have been infinitely creepier...and certainly led to a lot more speculation about Eva-00, etc.

Asuka's German in DC22 was ad-libbed by Miyamura, according to the Renewal/Platinum booklets.
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Postby Literary Eagle » Fri May 08, 2015 7:17 pm

Ah, I see. Yes, that would explain the instruction in the episode 22 script that words in German should follow... it was probably a note to Miyamura asking her to come up with some German dialogue for that scene. Thanks, SSD!

NEW POST

I posted my twenty-seventh book review today! This time, it's Shin Seiki Evangelion E-conte Shuu #5, which contains the storyboards for episodes 21 to 26 of the TV series (original versions, not the Directors' Cut versions). Some pretty nifty stuff here! If you're interested in the pre-production process for Evangelion episodes, I hope you enjoy this review!
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Postby robersora » Tue May 12, 2015 6:11 am

^
While I was gone, you shifted from amusingly strange books I've never heard of before, to some tremendously interesting publications. Keep it coming, I read all of your reviews! :)
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Postby AR-99 » Wed May 13, 2015 5:19 pm

@Literary Eagle: Been wondering where you've gotten your books.
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Postby Literary Eagle » Thu May 14, 2015 1:03 am

robersora: Thanks for your kind words, and welcome back to the forums! I still have plenty of books left to cover, so there will definitely be more reviews! :D

AR-99: I prefer to buy books new when possible (usually from CD Japan or Amazon), in order to support the artists. But in the case of older books that are out of print, I have to buy those used, and I often get them from vendors who sell used books through Amazon. Some of them sell books for as little as 1 yen each, so I'm basically just paying for shipping. Those have been my main sources, but over the years I've also gotten some books from Kinokuniya, anime conventions, and websites that sell used Japanese books (such as Suruga-ya).
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Postby cody727kirby » Thu May 14, 2015 2:41 pm

AMAZING work! Very detailed and engaging, will definitely be following your work. I never knew there were so many Eva books available. It makes me wish that more books would be translated for the States. Like that'll happen, lol Will you be preordering Side A and Side B this summer?

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Postby pwhodges » Thu May 14, 2015 5:11 pm

I ordered Side A in English from a company that offered it at little more than half the price advertised by others. They also gave a delivery date before the official release date. In fact, they emailed today saying it had shipped and would arrive on Monday or Tuesday.

Well, I'm perfectly prepared for something to be not right here, as they are either breaking some distribution restrictions, or are selling me something different (though they quoted the correct ISBN). It's a company I've bought from before, though, and got what I expected - I shall see next week presumably.
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Postby Literary Eagle » Fri May 15, 2015 8:42 am

cody727kirby: Thanks for taking the time to comment! I'm glad you're enjoying the reviews so far. Yes, I will be getting the upcoming English editions of Side A and Side B. I also have those books in French already, so I'll be able to compare both language versions when I review them.

pwhodges: Hmm, interesting! Let us know how it goes!
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Postby AR-99 » Fri May 15, 2015 2:54 pm

View Original PostLiterary Eagle wrote:Some of them sell books for as little as 1 yen each

O_o I will be paying more attention to Amazon. I've tended to default to YJA and Surugaya's on my radar too.

In terms of brick and mortar, so far I'm 2/2 on visits to Book Off (1 in Akihabara and 1 in San Diego), and got lucky at Mandarake with the first 2 movie Groundworks. I did see a Last Year of Ryohji Kaji at the Akiba Book Off for 108¥ which irked me at the time since I paid 800¥ for it from Surugaya. But I didn't think of getting it to offer for sale on this forum til after leaving Japan. :facepalm: I did find a 2.0 CRC for 5,000¥ or so too, but the thing weighs as much as a bowling ball and I was dreading lugging something of that size and weight around for the rest of the day after slogging through the rain the previous day with a load bag of Evastore pickups. And, I accidentally ripped the box when trying to open it to check the contents. Put it back on the shelf and got out of that section all nonchalant, no one else in the aisle even turned around thank goodness. -o-;

I try to go used whenever I can since the markup on new can be up to 50%, especially with Kinokuniya, although I've seen worse. :cringe:
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Postby pwhodges » Mon May 18, 2015 8:06 am

View Original PostLiterary Eagle wrote:pwhodges: Hmm, interesting! Let us know how it goes!

It's here; it's the real deal! I paid the equivalent of about $25 US.

Some initial pictures to prove it: [url]https://cassland.org/images/EG/SideA/[/url]

In terms of content, it's very like the RahXephon Bible, with its section on the people, then background information on each episode, then some stuff about merchandise. It's nicely printed on good quality glossy paper, so the somewhat small print and often tiny pictures remain suitably clear and easy to read.
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Postby cody727kirby » Mon May 18, 2015 9:25 am

Oh, awesome! Thank you for the pictures, looks like a great book. That's nice that it came in so early for you. May I ask where you purchased it?


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