A six-meter-tall Evangelion Unit 01 statue is unveiled at the Hamamatsu city hall in Shizuoka Prefecture on Sunday. It is part of a local government tourism campaign through next February in the hope of cashing in on the city’s connection to the popular anime film.
The purple giant humanoid robot from the film “Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time” will tower over the lobby of Hamamatsu city hall in Shizuoka Prefecture until late January next year.
The local initiative, which celebrates the 30th anniversary of the original TV series, follows Evangelion-themed campaigns launched in recent years by Tenryu Hamanako Railroad Co and Enshu Railway Co. centered around the city’s Tenryu Futamata Station — a model for Village-3 in the 2021 movie.
The station has since been inundated with “anime pilgrims” eager to see a 3.6-meter-tall “Spear of Longinus,” a giant extraterrestrial weapon central to the story, installed in 2023 at its train depot. Evangelion-themed trains also run at certain times through the station.
© Kyodo
© Japan Today
