Studio Ghibli’s Full ‘Giant God Warrior’ Short Appears Online [Video]

Whether you're an avid fan of Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga, its 1984 Studio Ghibli anime adaptation, Neon Genesis Evangelion or... just awesome things in general... you may want to sit down before watching the recently released Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo short. Commissioned by former Nausicaä animator and Evangelion writer/director Hideaki Anno for The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo in 2012 as part of a special Tokusatsu exhibition, the short was produced by Studio Ghibli (a live action first for the studio) and directed by Shinji Higuchi, known for his work as a writer and storyboard artist of the Evangelion anime and its related movies, and special effects director of numerous live action kaiju films. So yeah, basically the most qualified people in the universe made a horrifying short film about an army of enormous atomic-powered angel/demon-looking bioweapons in ceramic armor annihilating human civilization.

Miyazaki's God Warrior designs are a clear inspiration for the overall look of Evenagelion's EVA Units, and their overall world-ending functionality in this short is highly evocative of The End of Evangelion movie, which concluded the original anime series. In other words, this short is bananas both for being both an awesome Nausicaä tie-in and the closest thing Evangelion fans may ever get to a live action movie.

[Via Twitchfilm]