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Happy Second Impact!

by George Phillips,
Neon Genesis Evangelion, the highly controversial anime series by Gainax, claimed the Second Impact occurred today, September 13th 2000. The repercussions of this event lead to the storyline of one of the most bizarre anime series ever produced. Although the Second Impact is nothing more than a plot device created by Eva Director Hideaki Anno, many fans plan to celebrate today (or this weekend) with parties commemorating the ficticious catastrophic event in which nearly one-half of the worlds' population died.

There's no way to know exactly how much Evangelion affected anime fandom, both in the United States and abroad, but its influence remains strong, even 5 years after the original release in Japan. Newsgroups, chatrooms, and web forums (including our own) have discussed Evangelion and its influences and reprocussions.

"Classic" anime series such as Mobile Suit Gundam and Space Battleship Yamato carried as much attention with fandom as does Evangelion currently. Perhaps in another ten years, we can truly consider Evangelion a "classic" series, too. Of course, many fans today already consider Evangelion to be an equal product, if not a superior one, to these other series.

In honor of this day, Gainax is releasing a new CD called "EVANGELION -THE DAY OF SECOND IMPACT-". You can order the CD from places like CDJapan and AnimeNation.

This CD contains Cruel Angel's Thesis (Zenkoku no Tenshi no Thesis), Fly Me to the Moon, and various background themes.

Aside from the CD release, many fans plan to celebrate this day by throwing parties, running Evangelion marathons at club meetings, and dressing up as various characters from the series.

So, grab a drink, queue up some Evangelion episodes, pull out the Evangelion Drinking Game (or make one up yourself) and have a blast -- As R.E.M. puts it, "It's the end of the world as we know it!" and I know that I feel fine.

-George "Cookie" Phillips
Editor-In-Chief

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