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Evangelion welcomes back Utada Hikaru for final movie’s theme song, vinyl collected release

Casey Baseel Dec 9, 2020
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”First Love” singer closes out Rebuild of Evangelion with “One Last Kiss.”

The fourth, and final, Rebuild of Evangelion movie, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, is finally on its way to theaters next month, and for the first time in a while there’s no telling what to expect. Up until now, a lot of the Rebuild remake sub-series has been repeating, or at least remixing, plot points from the original 1995 Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series, but the ending of the third Rebuild film, You Can (Not) Redo, took the core cast trio of Shinji, Rei, and Asuka completely off the map from where any previous iteration of the Eva narrative has gone.

So all bets are off as to what we’re going to see happen in Thrice Upon a Time, but we do at least know for certain one thing that we’re going to hear: the singing voice of J-pop mega-star Utada Hikaru, who’ll be supplying its theme song.

Utada was just 12 years old when Evangelion premiered on Japanese TV in 1995, and it wouldn’t be until 1999, two years after the anime’s second attempt at an ending, the End of Evangelion, that she hit it big with her breakout album First Love. But ever since Eva rose from its slumber with the first Rebuild movie in 2007, Utada has been singing the anime’s theme songs, filling that role for the second and third installments as well.

For Thrice Upon a Time, Utada will be performing a new song titled “One Last Kiss.” It’s a surprising title, since “One Last Kiss” would imply there was a previous kiss, and protagonist Shinji’s whole character arc is largely him trying to dig himself out of the emotional hole of depression he fell into by not receiving direct affection from anyone growing up, making it a struggle for Shinji to love himself even.

“One Last Kiss” will be released digitally on January 24, the day after Thrice Upon a Time’s theatrical premier, as part of a bundle featuring Utada’s previous Rebuild songs in remastered versions, with the currently available track listing still holding back a few secrets:
1. One Last Kiss
2. Track 2
3. Beautiful World 2021 (Remastered)
4. Beautiful World (PLANiTb coustica Mix) [2021 Remastered]
5. Sakura Nagashi (2021 Remastered)
6. Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words) [2007 MIX] [2021 Remastered]
7. One Last Kiss (Instrumental)
8. Track 8

Physical copies come out on January 27, with CD versions having Shinji on the cover, and the 12-inch vinyl version featuring Rei. Feel free to spend the next month and a half wondering what that means for the fate of Asuka.

Source: Khara via Otakomu, Apple Music, Sony Music
Images: Khara
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where Utada Hikaru’s “B&C” and “Time Will Tell” remain his favorite music to wash cars to.