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Evangelion: 2.22 Film's DVD/BD Pre-Orders Top 800,000 (Updated)

The Nikkan Sports newspaper reports on Tuesday that over 800,000 copies of the DVD and Blu-ray releases of Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance (Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Ha) film have been pre-ordered. The film's Japanese home video distributor King Records will ship its release on May 26. According to King Records, Evangelion: 2.22's 800,000 pre-orders far surpasses the 500,000 copies in the first shipment for last year's hit film, the manga-based live-action Rookies: Graduation (Rookies ~Sotsugyō-).

This second film in Hideaki Anno and Khara's four-part remake of Gainax's Neon Genesis Evangelion science fiction anime series was released in theaters last June under the title Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance. The film's "2.22" version is the extended Blu-ray/DVD cut with deleted scenes.

Even before it ships, Evangelion: 2.22's has already appeared several times on SoundScan Japan's Blu-ray sales ranking chart on the strength of pre-orders alone. The amazon.co.jp retail website announced that it alone received 88,000 pre-orders within a week of February 8, the day it started accepting orders.

Funimation released the first film in the remake, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone (Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Jo), in North America last year in theaters and on home video.

Image © Khara

Update: The Asahi Shimbun paper's syndication of Nikkan Sports reports that over 450,000 of the film's pre-orders are for the Blu-ray version. Moviegoers spent 4 billion yen (about US$42 million) to watch the film in theaters 2.9 million times. The first film in the remake project sold over 600,000 copies on DVD since April of 2008. The current record for first-week shipments of DVDs and Blu-rays in Japan was set in January by Michael Jackson's This Is It's 2 million+ copies.

The LAWSON convenience store chain launched an augmented-reality project and a convenience store makeover at the former high school and neighborhood that inspired the the fictional Tokyo-III setting of the anime on April 23. However, LAWSON had to cancel both campaigns after just three days due to the huge number of visitors disturbing the local residents. The gymnasium at the school will still host the advance screenings of the film's extended version on May and 9.