Mari Illustrious (illustrated by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto ) from Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance graces the cover of Cut, a popular Japanese film magazine. One might recall something similar 2 years ago with Ayanami Rei on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine Japan. (image below)

The current issue of CUT features fairly in-depth interviews with the main creators of the film, Tsurumaki Kazuya, (co-director), Sadamoto Yoshiyuki ( character designer ), and the voice actors, including Sakamoto Maaya. ( voice of Mari Illustrious )

The highlights however, are the various illustrations by guest artists, as seen above. From top to bottom – Illustrators are : Matsubara Hidenori ( character designer, Sakura Wars ), Tsurumaki Kazuya, Hiramatsu Tadashi and Honda Takeshi. ( the latter two prolific Gainax animators that have worked on one too many great films to list here. )

(above) Sakamoto Maaya, the voice behind Mari. Evangelion 2.0 is currently enjoying a most profitable box office run in theatres here as we speak, ( 1.0 was the one of the best selling anime dvd of 2008 ) I guess we can expect the same performance when 2.0 is released on dvd/blu-ray next year.

(above) A print ad for Evangelion 2.0’s original soundtrack – I can’t remember what the music in 1.0 sounded like, is it the same composer this time round ?  (below) The current issue of the magazine also includes an interview with the director of “Summer Wars“, Hosoda Mamoru. (read this older article. )Incidentally, the character designer for Summer Wars is also Yoshiyuki Sadamoto.

Given the nature of the cover design the magazine will be sold out very, very soon. You can still get a used copy from Amazon Japan by following the link below –

“Cut Magazine Mari Illustrious Evangelion 2.0″ art book details :

Dimensions – 11.6 x 8.9 x 0.4 inches
Soft cover, 140 pages
Full color / Black & White

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