Book Review: Neon Genesis Evangelion: TV Animation Production Art Collection

This book from Udon Entertainment is the English translated edition of the original Japanese artbook 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン　TVアニメーション設定資料集 that was published in 2015.

This 432-page hardcover artbook collects the concept sketches for the anime TV series that aired in 1995 and the animated films in 1997. They are only four chapters, namely Characters, Evangelions & Angels, Machines & Locations, and Movie. Content is self explanatory from the chapters.

The artworks in this book are all line art. These are sketches drawn to explore character designs. These can sometimes be rough and loose, unlike the anime art where all lines have to be joined and closed for colour fills. You need a lot of sketches to created an anime TV series and there are a lot of sketches in this book.

The characters should be pretty familiar to fans by now. Other than the character designs, there are also many sketches for the environment and props. There are interiors for the Nerv headquarters, the Command Room, chairs in the room, security gates (very similar to the gates at train stations), corridors, sick bay and the beds, Misato's apartment and more. Exteriors include the city, trains. Props include Nerv vehicles, ID cards, computers and other equipment. It's cool to see all the things that need to be drawn. This book probably has almost all the visuals shown on TV.

The artworks collected here are probably from the Groundwork series of Evangelion artbooks released in 2000 and 2001. I can't confirm since I don't have those artbooks but the sketches here are in the same style. This book does not cover Rebuild of Evangelion as the book title clearly suggests.

The captions included are just labels for the places and characters. There are no commentary from the creators or artists.

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