In November 2022, the crew behind Evangelion revealed following the events of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time that the franchise would continue via a brand-new stage play. At the time, we knew Belgian-Moroccan Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui would direct and choreograph it under the title Evangelion Beyond, with a script written by Seiji Nozoe. Still, the crew remained tight-lipped on any details beyond this until February 1st, when they announced that this would be an Evangelion project, unlike anything anyone had seen before.
After so many years and iterations as anime, manga, video games, and shaving commercials, how could this new version of Evangelion be any different from what fans have grown to know and love over the last several decades? Simple, by altogether ditching all the main characters that we’ve learned to love, or at least tolerate (sorry, Shinji), and tell a completely original story with brand-new characters set in the Evangelion universe.
While we don’t know what impact any of these characters will have on the main plot of the play (see below), the crew announced the names of these lead characters along with the actors who will play them (character names first):
While we don’t know what impact any of these characters will have on the main plot of the play (see below), the crew announced the names of these lead characters along with the actors who will play them (character names first):
Sо̄shi Watamori: Masataka Kubota
Yū Mizuho: Shizuka Ishibashi
Tan Hasumi: Nijirō Murakami
Masatsugu Sugо̄: Tetsushi Tanaka
In the new stage play, the setting is still Earth, and there are still Eva units piloted by 14-year-old children (rather, 20 to 30-something actors with three of the above roles). But rather than working for NERV, they will work for Mensch. Also, rather than fighting against angels, the pilots will fight against Ikimono or giant creatures who come from underground. At least they don’t have to team up with Godzilla.
The play will be the debut production of the brand-new Theater Milano-za performing arts venue in Tokyo’s Kabukicho Tower. It is scheduled to debut its first run from May 6th to May 28th in that venue before having two more short runs in the Matsumoto Performing Arts Center in Nagano (June 3rd to June 4th) and finally at the Morinomiya Piloti Hall in Osaka (June 10th through June 19th).
Sources: Anime News Network [1], [2], SoraNews24
