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Evangelion-Style State of Emergency Announcement Billboards Go Viral on Japanese Social Media

A video showing the electronic billboards at the Nishitetsu Fukuoka (Tenjin) Station in the Fukuoka Prefecture has gone viral on Japanese social media. The billboards display Japan's state of emergency announcement with a font and style very similar to the ones shown in the Evangelion anime series.

The tweet was posted on January 21, and has since accumulated almost 20,000 retweets.

According to Huffington Post Japan, the billboards first began displaying messages in this style at the Nishitetsu Fukuoka Station on January 20. They then started being displayed in the Fukuoka city subway and the Tenjin station from January 21.

A representative of the Fukuoka Prefecture's coronavirus countermeasure department, who handled the electronic billboard initiative, commented: "We proposed this so that it would pull the eyes of the young demographic that gathers in the Tenjin area. We are extremely grateful that it has spread through social media." They refrained from stating whether the billboards were based on a specific anime.

It has not yet been determined how long the billboards will display the Evangelion-style messages. There are also plans for the messages to be shown at the Solaria Vision large-scale screen in the heart of Tenshin, as well as at the Jam Vision screen at the JR Ogura Station.

Japan declared a state of emergency in response to the high rate of new infections of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Tokyo and the neighboring prefectures of Saitama, Kanagawa, and Chiba on January 8. The state of emergency then expanded to the Osaka, Hyogo, Kyoto, Aichi, Fukuoka, Gifu, and Tochigi Prefectures from January 13.

The state of emergency will remain in place until Sunday, February 7.

Thanks to Gilles for the news tip.

Source: Huffington Post Japan (Kenji Andо̄)