Evangelion Anima Side Novel Gets Audiobook Adaptation
The audiobook brings a long-running text-only Evangelion side story to a new medium, with the original writer and a single narrator tackling a dense, technical novel that Yamashita himself worried might not work read aloud.
Reporting from 1 source: Dengeki Hobby Web.
The official Evangelion side novel Evangelion ANIMA, written by mechanical designer Ikuto Yamashita, is being adapted into an audiobook. Volume 1 is available on Audible, with subsequent volumes releasing from around August 2026. Narrator Sasaki Aitani voices multiple characters.
Ikuto Yamashita, the mechanical designer of the TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion, wrote Evangelion ANIMA as an if-story set three years after a divergence from episode 24, 'The Final Messenger.' The novel was serialized in Dengeki Hobby Magazine from 2008 to 2013, with all five volumes published from November 2017 to March 2019. Volume 1 of the audiobook is already on Audible, and volumes 2 and beyond are scheduled to release sequentially from around August 2026.
Yamashita said he initially worried whether the text, which he described as having long clauses and pseudo-technical terms, could withstand being read aloud. After hearing narrator Sasaki Aitani's performance, he said his feelings shifted to wanting to hear the rest himself. Aitani said she repeatedly watched the TV series to study each character's personality and way of speaking, adjusting pitch and atmosphere to stay close to the original voices without imitating them directly.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.