Ask John: Will Renewal of Evangelion be Released in America?

Question:
Will Renewal of Evangelion come to America? The DVD’s at least?

Answer:
Now that Gainax Studios has announced plans to re-release the Evangelion animation to Japanese DVD for at least the third time, this time with fully remastered image and sound quality, there’s been a lot of speculation over whether or not this “Renewal of Evangelion” will be brought to America. While anything is possible, so far neither AD Vision nor Manga Entertainment has expressed any plans to localize the Renewal of Evangelion DVDs. From a pure financial perspective, the odds of the Renewal of Evangelion DVDs coming to America are probably relatively slim.

The Renewal of Evangelion DVD boxed set will be released in Japan on June 25th. This DVD boxed set will not contain any new Evangelion animation. It will include the full 26 episode Evangelion TV series, the extended “director’s cut” versions of episodes 21-24 that were never released in America but have been available in Japan for nearly 8 years, and the final edits of the Evangelion Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion movies. In Japan, all of this animation is distributed by Starchild. However, in America this animation is owned by two competing distributors, AD Vision and Manga Entertainment. For the full Renewal of Evangelion DVD boxed set to be released in America, two domestic anime distributors would have to co-produce a single DVD release- an event that has never occurred, nor even been considered in the 10+ year history of anime distribution in America. This itself is the first of several obstacles in the way of the Renewal of Evangelion DVDs coming to America.

Beside the aforementioned obstacle, perhaps the most likely reason the Renewal of Evangelion DVDs probably won’t be officially released in America is because the Evangelion series has already been available in America for years. The Director’s Cut TV episodes 21-24 were never released in America, according to common wisdom, because Gainax Studio sought excessive additional licensing and distribution fees for these extended episodes; fees that couldn’t be justified in order to acquire extended versions of episodes that were already available in America. It unreasonable to assume that the distribution rights to the Renewal of Evangelion will be inexpensive. Extensively remastering the series animation was undoubtedly an arduous endeavor, and Evangelion is one of the most profitable anime franchises in the world. Based on that, it’s only reasonable to expect Gainax Studios to request reasonably expensive fees for the translation and distribution rights to Renewal of Evangelion. From the perspective of an American anime distributor, it’s simply more logical to spend a given amount on money on licensing a totally new program than spend the same amount of money for the rights to re-release an old title that’s already exhausted the majority of its American market potential. There are certainly a few hundred or perhaps a few thousand hardcore American anime fans and cinema buffs that would spend $200 or more to by Evangelion on DVD a second time, but the odds are that most American consumers would rather buy an entirely new anime series on DVD than replace 10 DVDs with new copies of the same 10 DVDs. Relative to its probable acquisition, mastering and distribution costs, Renewal of Evangelion probably just doesn’t have enough sales potential in America to be a cost effective, profitable licensing option.