An interesting thing about living in Japan as an adult is that a lot of things which I imagined were limited to my nerdy, nerdy childhood are absolutely all over the damned place.
I loved anime as a teenager, but lost interest as I moved through high school until with few exceptions I stopped watching it altogether. (Unless it was on Adult Swim, of course. God, those late nights in college eating Chinese delivery and watching Cowboy Bebop… We had it good.)
Now that I’m in Japan, a lot of the franchises I liked as a kid–Evangelion, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam, Sailor Moon–are still around in various forms. Once an anime achieves a certain level of popularity, it apparently becomes a semi-permanent part of the consumer-cultural landscape. Hokuto no Ken product tie-ins are everywhere, DBZ has a new series, and vending machines have Sailor Moon keychains and other crap. It’s interesting, to say the least.
So it’s not really a surprise, I guess, that this happened: Evangelion vs. Gojira (Godzilla). As far as I know it’s not an actual movie or anything like that, just a promotional thing connected with the new Gojira movie. But it’s pretty sweet.
Art by Takashi Murakami
The Angry Scholar 