| 1 - About Neon Genesis Evangelion : R. |
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These are general questions about Eva:R. All of them can be answered on the site, so we advise you to look there and read the fanfic itself first. The basic points are:
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| 1:0 - Where can I find Eva:R and Eva:R'? |
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Either from the main web page at http://www.eva-r.com or the mirror site at http://yoda.zoy.org/eva-r/.
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| 1:1 - What is Neon Genesis Evangelion? |
An anime television series made by Gainax (http://www.gainax.co.jp), who have also produced Nadia: Secret Of Blue Water, Gunbuster and Wings Of Honeamise amongst others. The original is in Japanese. The English translations (sub and dub) are available from AD Vision (http://www.advfilms.com). The manga by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto is published by Kadokawa Shoten and the English translation is available from Viz Communications (http://www.viz.com).
Strictly speaking it is NOT necessary to watch the whole of Neon Genesis Evangelion before reading Eva:R, but it will help immensely and we advise you to do so. If, for some reason, you cannot get hold of all the episodes, you may wish to read one of the many synopses available on the web. The Anime Web Turnpike (http://www.anipike.com) has a good list on its Evangelion page.
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| 1:2 - What is Eva:R? |
Image by Maher Al-Samkari |
The full title is Neon Genesis Evangelion : R. It is a fan-produced continuation, and alternative ending, of the anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Eva:R is NOT a video series, movie series, or television series, and it is neither endorsed nor sanctioned by Gainax Co. LTD. or its affiliates.
It is presented in the form of a series of illustrated episode scripts, plus various other multimedia components like the original .MP3s and CGI movies. A manga version is being drawn by fans of the series. All of the items mentioned above are available from the Eva:R web site.
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| 1:2:0 - Why write Eva:R? |
A good question, perhaps the best explanation is a little history...
Neon Genesis Evangelion : R began, originally, as an email from the author (Maher Al-Samkari) to the plot consultant (Ben Wallace) upon reading a script synopsis, then viewing an imported copy of DEATH/REBIRTH and THE END OF EVANGELION.
The email was, basically, a jumble of ideas, notions, interpretations and character outlines all resulting from what the author called a "severe lack of catharsis" from viewing the movies ("catharsis" meaning "completion", in an emotional sense) that was so great it incited the first vestiges of the story in his mind...
Unfortunately Ben was, of course, entirely baffled by his friend's ramblings about AT fields, a girl with a blue spirit, and white-haired a boy in a tube.
Nevertheless, Eva:R began, from the outset, with the name "EVANGELION : RESURRECTION". Although, it was little more than a week before the author realized that the subtitle had to be a bit more inspired... and considering that there were so many emotions the plot was to touch upon, he decided on a way to work it into the story as meaningfully as possible... by giving multiple meanings to a single letter amalgam of all these emotions, then carefully hiding them in the motif, symbolism, and dialogue of the text. Also note that the Eva:R screenplay bears the title Annihilation / Resurrection.
(As it happens, there is another fanfic called Neon Genesis Evangelion : Resurrection, written by Patrick Budmar, which is in no way connected with Eva:R despite the design of its site! Ah well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... However, this was NOT one of the reasons for changing the name! ;).
After the first 3 episodes were finished (totalling a whopping 30 pages), it soon became obvious that it was time to seek out readers with an almost obsessive knowledge of the series, who would be better at spotting faults and errors within the fictions lines of text.
It was not long until the author found his readers, on a hard-to-reach, and sometimes even hard-to-find site which contained the "Rei Ayanami's Room Evangelion Message Board". It was here that the story was exposed to what would become its primary audience for a time, a resourceful group of Eva fans who offered helpful criticisms, comments, consultation, and most importantly, compliments.
The way that each episode was distributed to its readers was, initially, limited to LARGE e-mail attachments. Each was a .ZIP file, containing the episode (each genesis was referred to as a "phase") all the illustrations in BITMAP format, and the first hand-made CG movies in AVI format... these were, as result, huge files, some eclipsing 9- 10 megs in size.
Many of these readers eventually joined the Eva:R staff (Charles Caranam, David Adams, Harvey Chang and Chris Stoffel) to add help everything from HTMLing, to localization, even to Eva design (MARI, with Chris).
(Unfortunately, a number of the message board's notables, most notably Harvey Chang, have moved on to other things, and no longer post in Rei Ayanami's Room. A good sampling of the rest still hang out there, although the topic is seldom restricted to Eva these days...)
Eva:R was completed in the summer of '98, with the release of its largest episode (52, which was over 200 pages total of annotated script). Though many helped push it along through its creation, the series has always had, and will (for now) always have one author... some sort of feat, considering this is his first fanfic ever! ^_^
Oh, and let's not forget the series' official #1 fan, Chrissy Woog, who apparently (unbeknownst to the Modus staff) was the most... er... VOCAL(!) on IRC about having to wait for each episode update! For example:
Image by Subi |
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@*(&@&(#$(&# YOU STUPID EvaR GUY!!!! WRITE MORE DAMMIT!!!
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(No wonder her nickname on DALNet was "Asuka" ;)
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| 1:3 - What is Eva:R' (Eva:R Prime)? |
Image by Maher Al-Samkari |
ANOTHER continuation! Hey, we don't want you to get bored. ;) And yes, this is all getting very metaphysical... (heh, wait until they get to section [3:3] of this FAQ! - Subi).
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| 1:3:0 - Okay, but why write Eva:R'? |
Simply put, there was much in Eva:R that was not told, due to time and plot constraints. Certain events negated the possibility of other events occurring, leaving SOME questions unanswered, even unasked, and answering these was the reason for writing R in the first place.
Eva:R' (Eva:R Prime), which is currently in production, touches upon an alternate series of events taking place after episode 49. And while the ending of the original Eva:R touched upon the plots of the two movies it was meant to serve as an alternative for, Eva:R' will have a totally different ending, one that, from the outset, the author had initially intended for the first series (had he allowed it to run for another 20 or so episodes!).
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| 1:4 - What does the "R" stand for? |
That's a secret. No, seriously, you must read the story to find out the true meanings (see [1:2:0]).
Hey, this is an FAQ, not a synopsis! ;)
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| 1:5 - Who were Orbit Productions? |
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Until 17th November 2000 Modus Productions went under the name of Orbit Productions. Hence the credits at the start of some of the older movies.
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| 1:5:0 - Who are Modus Productions? |
The group that produced Eva:R. "A conglomeration of fan writers, artists and musicians dedicated to producing both original and fan-orientated works with as intricate and professional a presentation as their resources will allow".
The complete memberlist of Modus Productions is:
For more information, check the Modus homepage at http://www.modusproductions.com.
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| 1:5:1 - What else have they done? |
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As well as Eva:R they have worked on Robotech : Evolution (http://members.tripod.com/~MRxL/) and are currently producing an original fantasy series called Faren.
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| 1:6 - What are the credits for Eva:R and Eva:R'? |
The full credits are as follows, please check the credits page on the Eva:R web site for an up-to-date listing.
| Writer, producer, director, designer and lead artist | Maher Al-Samkari |
| Mailing List Admin/ Head Proofread/ 'Mush and angst' advisor | Christina Woog |
| FAQ | Sam Brown |
| Editor and English consultant | David Adams |
| Editor, Japanese consultant and Rogziel angel design | Toshihisa Charles Nakamura |
| Reviewer, HTML specialist and FTP coordinator | Harvey "Hamster" Chang |
| Technical support and computer specialist | Eric Klinc |
| Additional Art and MARI design | Christopher Stoffel |
| | Maher Al-Samkari |
| Primary artists | Maher Al-Samkari |
| | Elaine Cardenas |
| | Sam Brown |
| Music | Dustin Morris |
| | Sasha Arnkoff |
| | Maher Al-Samkari |
| Character consultant and plot support | Benjamin J. Wallace |
| German consultants | Tobias Dieckmann |
| | Tiffany Grant |
| | Tyler Starline |
| French consultants | Olivier Thereaux |
| | Axel Terizaki |
| Chinese consultants | Yuan Chou |
| | Steven Wen |
| | Duke Do |
| CG animation | Maher Al-Samkari |
| Primary CG animation | Maher Al-Samkari |
| | James Chu |
| | Luciano Raggo |
| Eva 01 3D CGI model | Trung Ma |
| Writer and co-author | ACII |
| Publicity | Christopher Heilman |
| Site Mirror | Olivier Thereaux |
| Applications design specialists | Dead Pete |
| | Subi |
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| 1:6:0 - Who writes Eva:R? |
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All of the writing is done by Maher Al-Samkari, with the exception of Al-Aaraaf, to which Benjamin J. Wallace (the plot consultant) contributed to Yui's final speech.
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| 1:6:1 - Who draws Eva:R? |
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All of the artwork, unless otherwise stated, is by Maher Al-Samkari. Elaine Cardenas and Sam Brown are the other primary artists. The manga section was started later, and is, to quote Maher, "waaaay beyond what I was expecting" - Subi swears he'll draw the entire series before he dies (believe us, that's nowhere near as insane as what we suspect Maher plans to do with Eva:R - *knowing wink* ;).
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| 1:6:2 - Who does the CGI movies for Eva:R? |
The CGI is again mostly done by Maher Al-Samkari, although James Chu, the primary CG artist, helped create a couple of key models, such as the base Eva mesh used for the models for Evas 00, 02 and 06, the heads of Evas 02 and 00, and the NERV VTOL. The Eva 01 model was entirely created by Trung Ma.
The whole of Tokyo-3 and the GeoFront has been modelled, as well as all the Evas, angels and a few of the characters. Why? See [1:15].
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| 1:6:3 - Who writes the music for Eva:R? |
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Most of the music was composed by Dustin Morris of Alchemy Productions (http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Cabaret/1583/index.html), with the exception of the original four pieces by Maher Al-Samkari, and the ending theme "Touch Of Reality" by Sasha Arnkoff.
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| 1:6:4 - What about all the other things credited to people who aren't on the credits list? |
Stuff like the manga, the art gallery and the screensaver were created by fans of Eva:R after it was produced. Full credits are always given to whoever gives their time to create anything for Eva:R, usually next to their contribution and/or its link. The credits page is for the creators of the core project, hence extras like the manga and the art gallery are not listed. See [3:0].
However, for completists... ;)
| Introduction | Charles Caranam |
| Desktop Theme | DeadPete |
| Screensaver | Subi & Maher Al-Samkari |
| Desktop Backgrounds | Maher Al-Samkari |
| WinAMP Skins | Maher Al-Samkari |
| Mailing List Admin | Cristina Woog |
| FAQ | Subi & Maher Al-Samkari |
| IRC Channel Admin | The Cabbit (Kawaii_Cabbit[BOFH]) |
Manga (Episode/Scene/Page(s)):
| 27/1/1-3, 38/1/1, 38/2/1, 38/3/1-2, 38/4/1-5, 38/5/1, | |
| 38/6/1, 38/7/1, 38/8/1, 38/9/1, 38/10/1, 38/11/1, | |
| 38/12/1-4, 38/13/1, 38/14/1-5, 38/15/1-3 and 38/16/1-3 | Subi |
| 29/5/1, 32/9/1, 45/10/1, 46/13/1, 49/8/1, 51p3/24/1, | |
| Al-Aaraaf/13/1, 50'/20/1 and Bonus 1-3 | Elaine Cardenas |
| 27/3/1, 29/4/1, 50/12/1, 51p3/28/1 and 52/103/1 | Maher Al-Samkari |
| 29/7/1-2, 30/10/1 and 34/2/1 | Xiao Xuan Li |
| 37/14/1-4 and 51'/7/1-5 | Elizabeth Khoo |
| 50'/12/1 and 53'/7/1 | Jessica Polichetti |
| 51'/60/1-4 | Jean-François Labbé |
| 30/17/1 | Kaoru Nagisa & Kwong Wai Chun |
| 36/17/1 | Allison Anderson |
Fan art gallery entries:
| Meiharu Arashi |
| Andrew Babb |
| DES |
| Paul Edwards |
| Phillip Ekberg |
| Carrie Hall |
| Allison Skwarlo |
| Andrew Wong |
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| 1:7 - What are the CGI movies? |
Certain key scenes have been recorded as CGI movies. They are available to download from the Eva:R website as .AVIs or Real Video. The Indeo 5 compression codec is required to view the .AVIs. If you have problems, see [5:1].
Also, some rather LARGE movies are in the works, encompassing a far greater vision than those currently available from the site. Wait and see... (*knowing wink*).
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| 1:8 - What are the radio plays? |
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To enhance Eva:R's aural experience, certain key scenes are available for download as .MP3s or .WAVS from the Eva:R website.
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| 1:9 - Who stars in the radio plays? |
The cast list is as follows:
| Rei Ayanami | Christina Woog |
| Asuka Soryu | Tiffany Grant |
| Aoi Tamashii | Allison Skwarlo |
| Tenkei (Ibuki/Akagi) | Rachelle Palima |
| Maya Ibuki | Michiru Kaioh |
| Seyoko Okazaki | Elaine Barlow |
| Lyn Anouilh | Peter Alderton |
| Shinji Ikari | Scott Kuban |
| Malachi | Allison Skwarlo |
| Misato Katsuragi | Laura Vasilion |
| Ritsuko Akagi | Sasha Arnkoff |
| Yui Ikari | Michiru Kaioh |
| Hikari Horaki | Elaine Cardenas |
| Yuri Furikawa | Michelle Sullivan |
| Toji Suzihara | Kris Wright |
| Shigeru Aoba | Douglas Weeks |
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| 1:9:0 - Is that REALLY Tiffany Grant (American voice actress who played Asuka in AD Vision's official translation of Neon Genesis Evangelion) playing Asuka? In a FANFIC?! |
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Yes.
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| 1:9:1 - How did you get / how much did you pay Tiffany Grant to act as Asuka in Eva:R? |
Maher was introduced to Tiffany through a mutual friend (Chris Heilman), and the two soon became friends themselves. Tiffany does all of Asuka's lines in Eva:R and Eva:R', and she did them for free. These lines in the radio plays are NOT ripped from the ADV dub of the original series, they were especially recorded for Eva:R.
There was initially a chance that Tristan MacAvery would reprise his role as Gendo Ikari, however he vanished from the net a while ago so a replacement had to be found. Still somewhere on the Eva:R web site is the one and only sample he was able to send, a brief .WAV of Gendo announcing, "Ready Eva-06 for launch". One hint: it is in the desktop toys section.
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| 1:10 - Do Gainax have anything to do with Eva:R? |
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No.
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| 1:11 - What's the history of Eva:R? |
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See [1:2:0].
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| 1:12 - What's with the links to .MP3s in the scripts? |
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Were this an anime (*knowing wink*), the .MP3s contain the music that would be playing whilst the scene you were reading was being shown (if that makes any sense ;). We encourage you to listen to them as you read, as we feel that they enhance the atmosphere.
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| 1:13 - Who hosts the site? |
Elaine Barlow of Mecca Publications makes this domain possible. Without her Eva:R would be stuck on a server with 5 megs of space and limited traffic, which is not exactly ideal for a site that is now over 500 megs of story, sound, music, movies, and pictures, making it, to our knowledge, the largest fanfic in existence.
There used to be a mirror site, located in France and which is maintained by Olivier Thereaux, but this has unfortunately had to close down.
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| 1:14 - When will the next episode be out? |
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When we feel like it. ;) The Eva:R script is finished, but new episodes of Eva:R' are out fairly regularly and everyone on the mailing list will be informed when this is so. Just remember Maher has a life to lead just like the rest of us, so be patient! ;)
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| 1:15 - What are all these hints that Eva:R is "more than just a fanfic"? |
Not telling. In fact, we can't tell, because only Maher knows the real truth and we can't get it out of him. Not with bribery, threats, kidnapping or a jackhammer. Not even Chrissy. ;) The best hint we've had from him so far is this:
"Of course, you may be asking - why all the fuss over the Evas, scenery, props and such? You'll see. Or, if you want a hint... here's a good one: When I put together a voice cast, I did NOT have a radio play in mind..."
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| 1:16 - Has anybody reviewed Eva:R? |
The Evangelion Fanfic Review Syndicate: http://www.eva.onegeek.org/efrs/reviews/r.html.
KARMA (Koi's Anime Report Manga Also): http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Dojo/5075/KARMA/karma-v1-i01.html.
Eva:R was also recommended by the Anime Web Turnpike: http://www.anipike.com
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| 1:17 - Where can I talk about Eva:R? |
Sadly, USENet has not been persuaded to make a newsgroup for Eva:R, but there is the mailing list (see [4]), and The Cabbit, Chrissy and Anetako run an IRC channel on DALNet called #eva-r. It hasn't been declared the official channel of Eva:R yet, but its the official mailing list channel according to Chrissy. And we listen to her. Oh yes. ;)
Check out the message board at http://animeforums.net/cgi-animeforums/forums/dcboard.cgi too.
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