It was a big deal when Netflix picked up the streaming rights to Neon Genesis Evangelion, since the critically acclaimed anime series (and its epilogue movies that explain/end the story) are both extremely important pieces of anime history and because they were impossible to stream anywhere else in the U.S., meaning the Netflix deal potentially introduced the series to countless people who otherwise might’ve never seen it. Of course, true NERV heads know that The End Of Evangelion isn’t really the end of Evangelion, as that’s been playing out in series creator Hideaki Anno’s Rebuild Of Evangelion movie series, which—at the risk of saying too much—is a… remake of the original series.
The problem with the Rebuild movies, though, is a problem shared by a lot of cool anime: They’re hard to find outside of Japan unless you pay for expensive Blu-ray sets. Much like HBO Max shelling out for the Studio Ghibli movies and Netflix recently licensing a number of old Gundam movies, though, Amazon Prime has stepped in to pick up the international distribution rights to all of the Rebuild Of Evangelion movies. We’re talking Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, and even Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time, which just came out in Japanese theaters in March—and yes, those are all the real names, because Evangelion is very cool and weird. The four movies will be coming to Amazon Prime on August 13, with Prime announcing the news on Twitter today with a little trailer for Thrice Upon A Time that will probably make absolutely no sense to anyone who hasn’t seen the other movies (and that includes people who have only seen the original series). The trailer does look really goddamn slick, though!