Today finally marks the day that I have completely finished Blue Rose. On this page I have posted the final cleaned up and grammar corrected version of the story in its final form (there was one scene tweak in Chapter 2, otherwise the story itself is intact). If you've been here before you might also notice that there are new images on the site, including this new front cover image:. That image is an original artwork made just for this story. There is another commission or two coming in soon, and I will be sure to link the artist once that's in.I'll post this story also on the revamped EVAFICS.ORG site and also re-post on FFN.I have to say I'm really happy. This was a long time in coming and the story grew a bit from my original intention of a script from three years ago. Once I can get everything prepared I can not wait to start working on the next one.Oh, and of course, today just so happens to be my birthday as well, so that's a neat coincidence.
This weekend Anime Expo will debut the Evangelion 1.0 English dub, done by Funimation. This is a preview: the actual movie becomes available in November on DVD (no word on BluRay).It took nearly two years to get EVA to an official US release, which is really a tragedy considering how good the film is. I'm sure part of the delay is that ADV Films probably had the initial rights, but couldn't fork up the licensing fee. That put EVA in limbo until another bidder, such as Funimation or Bandai USA could pay what is no doubt a huge license for the film.Fortunately, the Hong Kong subtitle copy is quite good, and I got my copy months ago. This is very suggested way of getting this kind of media if you have a DVD player that can take Region 3 discs. Of course, not everyone has one of these....
The second Rebuild of EVA movie: 2.0, or You Can (Not) Advance, came out in Japan on June 27th to very good reviews. I read several of them, along with one viewer's detailed synopsis, and the conclusion of most of them was that the film not only honors the original EVA but takes it in an entirely different (and very unpredictable) direction. EVA fans who were worried about the new character Mary Illustrious detracting from the plot shouldn't: apparently she fits in quite well, and in fact many fans really liked her after seeing the film. I hope that it doesn't take forever and a day to get 2.0 in English, like with 1.0. Hopefully the Hong Kong DVD will be available within a few months and then I'll get to see it in all it's glory.
