Yesterday, a purported teaser for the fourth Evangelion movie appeared on YouTube. Loads of famous Japanese websites quickly ran the trailer, and some people got very excited. Too bad it was all a hoax.
“At last, the conclusion to the Evangelion series.”
This says there will be an announcement on the official site on 31 August 2016.
There was good reason to believe it was real. The trailer appeared on a YouTube channel that claimed to be from Khara, the anime studio behind Evangelion. Many Japanese sites picked it up (here and here, for example).
But as our colleagues at Gizmodo Japan pointed out at the time, there were questions as to the trailer’s authenticity. Khara does have a recruiting channel on YouTube that is known to be official, but there was nothing about the trailer there, nor was there anything on the studio’s Twitter or website regarding this alleged teaser. It all seemed fishy.
Newtype, the respected anime publication, reported that this teaser was unofficial and that it used existing footage (illegally, at that). It also added that Evangelion‘s creator is currently working on the the new Godzilla movie.
Still, if there was any doubt, Khara officially stated on Twitter that the trailer wasn’t real, saying the trailer and the announcement were not made by the studio and that “all the information and the like in it were completely untrue”. Khara also added that it only had one official YouTube channel and that one was for recruiting. It did not carry this bogus teaser.
Images via My Game News Flash/Hachima/Gizmodo Japan
Comments
8 responses to “The Anime Trailer Hoax That Fooled People In Japan”
Man did anyone watch 3.33? It was bat shit crazy. I mean Evangelion always has been, but I thought the first two movies really did well to condense everything into a cool movie that was mostly understandable. And then 3.33.
Undid all their good work smh
yeah 3.33 sorta went of the rails a bit. but I really like how it’s branched off from the anime. I mean, I like not knowing what’s gonna happen again!
also, it was beautifully animated. seeing the opening sequence in the cinema was incredible.
Oh Yeh I agree it looks amazing even if the action can be hard to follow at times, for me anyway. I just kinda thought they made these movies to simplify the plot and really trim the fat, but I’m probably wrong there tbh.
yeah. i got the impression that was the intent to begin with. evidently, the creator changed their mind at some point :p
I just hate the fact that Shinji’s character development disappeared from the end of the second movie.
Whenever a dude on the internet claims one thing undoes “all their good work” in a movie – it’s probably hyperbole. Movies are big and full of story in places you might not be aware, most people ignore 90% of it and still come out the other end with a crazy level of certainty in their opinion.
Ah I dunno if this was directed at my comment but anyway Yeh I know it’s just my opinion, I should have added an imo there somewhere. In no way do I think I review films and that my opinion is the “word”.
Would be nice if Anno / Khara would get around to that 4th film themselves. I get that he’s currently busy doing a stop-motion Godzilla film like he always wanted but it’s been over three years since 3.0 released – what are they doing?