Evangelion creators and Studio Ghibli team up for a monstrous short film.
The trailer to the right is for Kyoshinhei Tokyo ni Arawaru (Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo), a live-action short film developed by Evangelion director, Hideaki Anno, directed by Evangelion storyboard artist, Shinji Higuchi and produced by heartwarming animation merchants, Studio Ghibli. The 5-10 minute film is being shown by The Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art as part of a special effects exhibition curated by Anno himself.
Aside from the whole “giant monster blows things up” angle, there’re two particularly cool things about this film. First, there’s no CG. All the visual effects in the film are achieved using classic special effects techniques, particularly miniature models. Think classic Godzilla or, if you happen to be around my age, Power Rangers.
The second cool thing you might have noticed is that the God Warrior in the trailer looks a lot like one of the Eva units from Evangelion. It’s actually the other way around: The God Warrior depicted in the movie is taken from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, a film directed by Studio Ghibli co-founder, Hayao Miyazaki. Hideaki Anno was a key animator on Nausicaä, and he later admitted he drew inspiration from the film’s giant creatures (alongside Super Sentai progenitor, Ultraman) when he was creating Evangelion.
The exhibition opened on July 10th and is running till October 8th. Hopefully once it’s finished, the movie will be released online for those of us don’t live in Japan.
Source: ANN
