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Fuji-Q Highland's Evangelion World Attraction Closes
posted on by Alex Mateo
The official Twitter account of Japan's Fuji-Q Highland amusement park announced on Monday that the "Evangelion: World" attraction, including the Life-Size EVA-01 Construction Project pavilion and store, has closed as of Sunday due to construction of a new large roller coaster.
Evangelion: World opened in 2010.
The pavilion's main attraction recreated the scene where the anime's main character Shinji Ikari encounters the EVA-01 unit in its 7th Cage hangar for the first time. The bust measured 9 meters (about 30 feet) tall and 16 meters (52 feet) wide. The pavilion also had a life-size Entry Plug cockpit of an Evangelion unit (from where visitors can pay to have their photos taken), life-size figures of the character Kaworu Nagisa and the Seele monoliths, a miniature video theater, a museum, two studio galleries for taking photographs, and a shop. The construction costs of the whole facility eventually added up to 150 million yen (about US$1.4 million).
Fuji-Q Highland is located near the foot of Mt. Fuji, and it previously hosted amusement park attractions based on the Gundam anime franchise in the past, including a life-size Gundam figure (lying down on the ground).
Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time (Shin Evangelion Gekijō-ban :||), the "final" Evangelion film, opened in 466 theaters in Japan on March 8, and sold 33.6% more tickets for 45.1% more yen than the previous Evangelion film during their respective first seven days.