First of all, I'd like to thank ZShade for mentioning this book in a thread of mine a while back.
Basically, I bought this primarily as a resource for my Eva fanfic. Reading through it (well, looking, actually...
), I've come to realise that this is a great book for Eva fans in general."So what is it?" you ask. Well, it's a collection of the lineart used during the production of the television series; such as character, mechanical, and location designs. The book is 178 pages, with the first 98 in full colour, and the remaining 80 in black, white, and purple. It's 29.7x23.6 cm, or slightly wider than an A4 standard book. I think the best way to continue is with a list, so here we go...
The Good Stuff:
- * 74 colour pages of artwork, such as pieces that appeared in Newtype magazine.
* Jacket Gallery showing the Laserdisk, CD, and CD-ROM covers.
* An eight page episode guide (all Japanese).
* A four page section called "Neon Genesis Move!!", which looks to me like a 33-page proposal or outline for the series done by GAiNAX. The small pages are pretty much all text, but many are overlayed above production artwork done fairly early during the planning stage, including some interesting images of characters and the Evas. I can't locate our kanji dictionary at the moment, so I can't tell what it is for sure.
* Nine pages of colour lineart, featuring character and mechanical designs.
* 70 pages of black and white lineart, divided into the following sections:
"Artificial Man" - Covering the Evas and their related components and equipment.
"Complimented People" - Covering the series' charaters (major and minor) and the different clothes they've appeared in.
"Cruel Angel" - Covering each of the Angels.
"Stage of the Myth" - Locations depicted in the series.
* A six page section called "The Voice for EVANGELION." This is all text, and is divided into sections dated by months through the airing of the series (October 1995 - April 1996). I have no idea what this section is, but it could be some kind of documentation of the production as the series was airing, and from the title sounds like it concerns the voice cast.
What's especially notable about this book are the little details and facts that you discover. Some of the info highlights include:
Early production designs for the Evas, kinda like Bubblegum Crisis meets Dunbine...
Excellent images of EVA-01's head minus armour (with one colour and missing the mouth) and bandaged, and a rough sketch of what appears to be an Eva without any armour at all.
An image of all the charaters lined up next to each other (Gendo looks to be the tallest adult, while Keel is the shortest adult).
The little things Eva pilots wear on their heads are connected and called an "interface headset."
Excellent floorplans for both Rei and Misato's apartments (one of the reasons I bought it).
Numerous detailed lineart for Tokyo-3, the Ceiling City, NERV Headquarters, and the Geofront (which is 13.75 kilometers in diameter).
And much, much more.
There are a few downsides, though. First is that it isn't totally complete, as there are a few things that are kind of absent or are lightly depicted. Another problem are the Japanese text sections. Here I am feeling like there's a virtual goldmine of information in this book, and I can't access any of it because I don't speak Japanese. It's quite frustrating...
The last is it's possible availibility. Some might get lucky hitting their local Chinese districts (that is, if you have them), while most will probably have to look around the Internet Store arena (I bought mine through HobbyLink Japan) so you might have to look around, since it might be a little hard to find.
But as long as you don't pay too much for it, I'd really recommend this to any Eva fan. It's a really fantastic tome and resource.
