{"id":64037,"date":"2026-03-26T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=64037"},"modified":"2026-03-25T17:35:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T08:35:04","slug":"giant-neon-genesis-evangelion-unit-01-statue-has-1-1-billion-yen-economic-impact-on-japanese-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/giant-neon-genesis-evangelion-unit-01-statue-has-1-1-billion-yen-economic-impact-on-japanese-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant Neon Genesis Evangelion Unit 01 statue has\u00a01.1-billion-yen\u00a0economic\u00a0impact on Japanese city\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The\u00a0Japanese\u00a0city of Hamamatsu announced on March 23 that its\u00a0\u201cShin Hamamatsu Project,\u201d\u00a0an initiative designed to attract visitors\u00a0by installing\u00a0a massive\u00a06-meter\u00a0statue of Evangelion Unit-01 from\u00a0<strong>Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/strong>, has amounted to an economic impact of 1.1 billion JPY (roughly $6.9 million\u00a0USD).\u00a0Costing\u00a052 million JPY ($327,000 USD),\u00a0mayor Yusuke Nakano\u00a0says\u00a0\u201cthe results have exceeded expectations\u201d\u00a0(source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.asahi.com\/articles\/ASV3R458PV3RUTPB001M.html?iref=pc_ss_date_article\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.asahi.com\/articles\/ASV3R458PV3RUTPB001M.html?iref=pc_ss_date_article\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Asahi Shimbun<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sections of&nbsp;Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time&nbsp;take&nbsp;place in&nbsp;Village-3, a small town near the destroyed Tokyo-3. Considering the fictional town&nbsp;is&nbsp;based on&nbsp;Hamamatsu,&nbsp;tourists flocked to the local city&nbsp;hall to&nbsp;catch a glimpse of&nbsp;the statue.&nbsp;Approximately&nbsp;51,800&nbsp;people&nbsp;in total visited&nbsp;Unit 01, with a majority of 34,700 coming on weekends and public holidays.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u30a8\u30f4\u30a1\u30f3\u30b2\u30ea\u30aa\u30f3\u300c\u30b7\u30f3\u30fb\u30cf\u30de\u30de\u30c4\u8a08\u753b\u300d\u7d4c\u6e08\u52b9\u679c11.1\u5104\u5186\u3000\u6d5c\u677e\u5e02\u8a98\u5ba2\u4e8b\u696d26\u5e74\u5ea6\u3082\u5b9f\u65bd\u3078\uff5c\u9759\u5ca1\u65b0\u805eDIGITAL \u9759\u5ca1\u770c\u306e\u30cb\u30e5\u30fc\u30b9 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KGRP37R5k3\">https:\/\/t.co\/KGRP37R5k3<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \u9759\u5ca1\u65b0\u805eDIGITAL\uff08\u7de8\u96c6\u90e8\u304b\u3089\u304a\u3059\u3059\u3081\u8a18\u4e8b\u3092\u304a\u5c4a\u3051\u3057\u307e\u3059\uff09 (@shizushin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shizushin\/status\/2036044340968243647?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 23, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on a survey conducted by the city, those who visited the statue included not just locals, but foreigners&nbsp;hailing&nbsp;from&nbsp;neighboring Asian&nbsp;regions&nbsp;like&nbsp;Taiwan and&nbsp;mainland&nbsp;China,&nbsp;to&nbsp;Western countries like the&nbsp;United States, Brazil, Germany, and even France.&nbsp;Those in City Hall also noticed that the nearby parking lot&nbsp;wasn\u2019t&nbsp;overly crowded, which&nbsp;suggested&nbsp;that&nbsp;the&nbsp;visitors&nbsp;also&nbsp;explored the&nbsp;rest of the&nbsp;city&nbsp;(as was the intention of the project).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The city also noted high sales of collaboration items at restaurants,&nbsp;which amounted to approximately 8 million JPY ($50,000 USD)&nbsp;and an increase of participants in the guided tours of the&nbsp;Tenryu-Hamanako&nbsp;Railway&nbsp;stations&nbsp;(which inspired some of the locations in&nbsp;Thrice Upon a Time)&nbsp;by 1.5 times the previous year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hamamatsu is already hard at work preparing more Neon Genesis Evangelion-themed attractions for the next fiscal year. In addition to new collaboration menus and products, a new \u201cMosaic&nbsp;Culture\u201d&nbsp;will allow visitors to create Evangelion-themed art using flowers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20230913-21601\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Evangelion: giant Lance of Longinus replica to pierce the ground of a park in Japan\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/hideaki-anno-was-the-only-one-who-understood-me-evangelion-and-danganronpa-actress-talks-about-her-struggles-in-the-voice-acting-business\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cHideaki Anno was the only one who understood me.\u201d Evangelion and Danganronpa actress talks about her struggles in the voice acting business<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Japanese city&#8217;s efforts to revitalize the economy through &#8220;Evangelion tourism&#8221; have led to results far beyond the local administration&#8217;s expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":64039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,65],"tags":[73,17],"class_list":["post-64037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-nongaming-news","tag-anime","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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