Early development and delays The film was announced alongside
Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo for release in 2008 as the final part of the
Rebuild series under the working title
Evangelion: Final. After delays of the first three films, production on
Evangelion: Final formally started in 2009, with a release date expected in 2015. However, in 2014, following the troubled production of the third film, director and producer
Hideaki Anno became depressed and announced that the film would be further delayed to an unknown date, stating publicly in 2015 that he could not work on another film. As part of his recovery, Anno had also worked on
Studio Ghibli's
The Wind Rises under his mentor
Hayao Miyazaki.
Toho (which co-distributes the film in Japan with
Toei) also approached Anno with an offer to direct a reboot of its
Godzilla film series,
Shin Godzilla, which also contributed to the delay on
3.0+1.0. Getting Toei and Toho in the same film had been a long-standing dream of Anno's. After Anno formally apologized, animation director
Takeshi Honda stated that the last film had resumed development after the production of
Shin Godzilla ended in late 2016, with Studio Khara tweeting on April 5, 2017, that development was going smoothly. In May 2018, the studio put out a job listing for animation staff to work on 3DCG, VFX, and 2D animation starting on June 30, 2018. Animation was going through the final check by October 2, 2020. Dialogue recording wrapped on November 19, 2020. On December 16, 2020, Studio Khara announced that compositing and editing work had finished. Financial troubles also played a part in the film's delays. In 2014, Anno's
Studio Khara loaned his former company
Studio Gainax ¥100 million ($916,400). In 2016, Anno filed a claim for
debt collection, fearing not only for the return of the money but also because of Gainax selling production materials to third parties, after a precedent of other sales of intellectual property without informing him. This was part of several legal issues surrounding Gainax and
Evangelion.
Development Anno was very reluctant to return to work on the film in 2016. In 2018, Anno had asked for the opinion of voice actors like
Megumi Ogata (Shinji) on how to move the plot forward after
3.0, Anno himself had intended to go to Paris for
Japan Expo 2019, but the film's continuing delays in production prevented him. Anno had often visited the film's music composer
Shirō Sagisu, who lives half the year in Paris, and wished to pay homage to the city in the opening 10 minutes of the movie, entitled
AVANT1 ("before" in
French), seeking to surpass his earlier depiction in
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. At the event, Ogata also recounted Anno had asked what ending she preferred "as Shinji". Dialogue for Parts A and B, set after
AVANT, started recording in March 2019. As there were several changes to the plot, many voice actors had to come back and record lines again. In 2020, due to the pandemic restrictions, production slowed down further and recording was mostly done by the voice actors separately as many dozens of takes were necessary: Ogata first notified the recording as almost finished in February 2020, but as production slowed down, staff began retouching several aspects of the film, and Ogata later noted recording to be finished in November 2020. The voice actors organized themselves through a
Line group. This created a bond between the cast that was unprecedented in previous productions. At the end of recording, Anno thanked the cast for their contributions.
Yūko Miyamura, who played Asuka, was instructed to treat her character as completely separate from the series'
Asuka Langley Soryu, and the last thing asked of her was to write the character's full name in
cursive herself to be used in the movie. She had lived in
Australia for the past two decades, but was still unsure of how to write "
Langley". Miyamura expressed her surprise at Anno's behavior near the end of production, in contrast to his behavior during the making of
End of Evangelion: "Anno-san is amazing. He has become an adult". Anno sought to bring in new talent and people outside the usual
Evangelion core crew, like
Darling in the Franxx creator Atsushi Nishigori, a protégé of his, while other core staffers like chief editor Masayuki largely stepped down in order to allow new talents to gain more experience. and saw the sponsorship of new creators as a prime way of achieving this, as well as the promotions of events backed by Studio Khara like the
Japan Animator Expo. Director
Mahiro Maeda recounted Anno wanted him to figure out specific details of the plot on his own when asked. Similarly to production in the series, Anno would take ideas from staffers but have the final word in plot decisions. Anno had also been an advocate of employing new and innovative
animation technologies, combined with extensive use of
motion capture and
computer-generated imagery, and employed them in the film. Maeda and others noted nonetheless that Anno seemed to be directing the film more like a
live action film than animation, including in the way he directed the voice actors, taking cues from theatre techniques, after his previous experience outside
Evangelion, despite the staff's own limited experience, something he had previously attempted in
Cutie Honey. He thought Anno "wanted to get out of here the most", but expressed his feelings in film sincerely. Director
Kazuya Tsurumaki details Anno wanted to try a new process for the film. Instead of first creating
storyboards and then developing the animation based on them as is traditional, Anno proposed to first draw the animation
cels and then draw the scenes from them. This technique was generally referred to by staff as "pre-visualization". He was once more inspired from the usual process in live action, where scenes are first shot from multiple angles and then stories are created and then selected during
editing. The latter half of the film, however, progressively returned to the traditional anime style. Tsurumaki noted the original intention was that "the first 80%" of the
Rebuild series would be a "compilation" of the original anime series, and the changes would only start with the last film, in keeping with earlier comments in 2006 by producer Toshimichi Ohtsuki regarding the intention that only the ending would be a major departure from the series, as staff felt
End of Evangelion could not receive a sequel, and the
Rebuild movies were not going to be "metaphysical" like the original anime, but rather "oriented towards entertainment". In 2006, Anno also stated in an interview that
2.0 and
3.0. a two-parter including a new-finale akin to
End of Evangelion, would both be released by 2008. Again he revealed his
Gundam inspiration, specifically from
Zeta Gundam New Translation, which had itself received a compilation/remake at around the same time. This eventually changed, and major changes started happening as early as
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance. He also noted that the previously stated goal of "destroying Evangelion" through the character of Mari was entrusted to an external party. Anno would ask the opinion of many parts of staff, including those not involved in the actual film like office staff for their opinions on several nuances. Anno's wife
Moyoco Anno provided early designs for some characters. Studio Ghibli also provided assistance to scenes set in the survivor's village. For the village itself, Khara had a
box model custom-built to orientate the artists, and Anno personally adjusted it to the smallest details like individual house layout, with road and utility posts to make it as realistic as possible. Staff consulted with multiple professionals and conducted research like
sky-diving for maximum accuracy. A
making-of documentary aired on Japanese broadcaster
NHK on March 22, 2021, with the crew following production for 1214 days.
BS Japan also broadcast an extended version of the documentary on April 29, 2021, totaling 100 minutes of runtime, featuring unused footage. Amazon Prime Video included the extended version of documentary in its international release of the film in August. When production started in 2016, Anno initially intended to not involve himself much in the film, wishing to delegate most of it to his directors, particularly Tsurumaki, generally considered Khara's second-in-command, but as the release date approached with mounting production problems he progressively took more control and took on more tasks directly, also driven by his perfectionism. Maeda was also not initially serving as a director, but was brought in the middle of production. Kim Morrisy of
Anime News Network described it as tumultuous: "There were several occasions shown when he decided that the work he had done at the time was insufficient and would scrap it entirely. The [final] D part of the script was eventually completed in early 2019, at the latest possible stage it could have been done to meet the deadline." In the documentary, Anno is depicted as frequently late or absent from the studio, or would often stay overnight adjusting individual scenes he was unsatisfied with. Part A had been rewritten 40 times due to the difficulty staff had in depicting it, and at one point Anno was so lost on how to resolve the storylines he considered restarting it from scratch after nine months of work. Anno told the documentary crew he would not miss working on the franchise and said everything he needed to, but felt finishing his work remained a priority, even at the expense of his well-being. He told Ogata later at post-production that he would indeed miss it.
Gainax co-founder
Toshio Okada criticized the documentary as "sloppy" and "propaganda" trying to make Anno look better, claiming Anno's live-action approach in fact took inspiration from
Hiroyuki Yamaga's work in
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise instead of being
sui generis as the documentary implied, and Anno noted the crew was in fact not present during the highly intense production of Part D for several months, nor did it cover him thanking the staff at the end. On April 12, 2021, directors Anno, Tsurumaki and Maeda, as well as Ogata, held another stage greeting. On June 26, 2021, Anno held a live stream on singer
Hikaru Utada's
Instagram page, and debated the film. The cast and directors also participated in the
All Night Nippon radio show on June 22, 2021. On June 27, 2021, another cast greeting was held. Mari's voice actress
Maaya Sakamoto explained she had been absent from the previous events because she felt apprehensive over the details she knew about Mari's character that Anno told her, but refused to share them: "I will take secrets to my grave". A last stage greeting was held on July 11, 2021. Anno felt he had now done everything he could with anime, and accordingly Khara denied reports that he was working on a reboot of a popular animation series. He also noted he initially attempted a shorter two hour runtime, but had to extend it. Anno had originally intended on making a new
Evangelion story since 2000 and has intended to open up the franchise in the future to new creators and turn Eva into a "new
Gundam", using the
Rebuilds as a foundation for this, The Animator Expo already featured three independent works based on the franchise:
Evangelion – Another Impact and
Neon Genesis IMPACTS, as well as
until You come to me, a short film intended to showcase the talent of younger Khara animators, not as an official trailer
. In an interview in August 2021, Anno stated other parts of the franchise and story might be revisited later. Staff also commented on doubts over this being the "end of the story". On the film's first anniversary on March 8, Khara held a livestream of the film and included a Q&A session with Anno and other staff reaffirming his future plans. == Music ==