The world can never have enough cute maids.

I agree. The local anime store has a Rei cardboard standee that I offered them money for countless times. If she was in a maid outfit, I would have just stolen it.

Sad.

Seriously....is this what anime has become??

I stopped watching it years ago, and it seems to me that now it is simply a parody of itself.....

Oh how the mighty has fallen...from saving the world to posing for coffee cans...

Gainax are absolute masters of whoring out their properties.

@FarmboyinJapan: Anime is just about feeling good, this is just the moe factor kicking in. It's only a beverage so if you don't want it don't get it but I personally think it's cool.

When in doubt... add maids?

I really never got what's so great about having a picture of your favorite fictional characters on the package of your food or drink.

I mean, I can get anime T-shirts as making it part of your identity and such, but what the hell is the deal with consumables?

@FarmboyinJapan: ..... anime has always been like this.

@The_Inquisitor: damn right

@Zenian: "When i have to get up at 5am to save Tokyo-3 from the ravages of the Angels, i need a little pick me up! Thats why i drink - UCC Coffee! Nothing gets my synch ratio up quite like it. What do u think Unit-00?"

"Mmm...warm and flavourful!"

- Rei Ayanami Feb '08

...and another 2 steps back for social progress...

...and use of Eva intellectual properties.

I hate coffee. Canned just makes it worse. Nonetheless, I almost bought a can of Votoms coffee last time I was there only because it had Votoms on the can.

you remember astro boy, he was always half naked and lived with an old man. this being said anime has always been perverted in one way or another. It dosent really matter because everyone loves maids.

And Hideaki Anno's famous psychological mecha series once again is trivialized with irreverent merchandising. Aside from his own personal reasons, I can understand why Anno distances himself from this type of thing.

Its just that, out of all the anime I have ever seen, I thought that Eva was in a league of its own. The character development, the semi-religious undertones, the story as a whole was extremely thought provoking and well done.

Fast forward ten years, and when I tell Japanese people that I am (or was) an Eva fan, the first thing out of their mouth is, "So who do you think is hotter: Rei or Asuka?"

@KeroseneClimax: Aye, it's sad that people want to distance themselves from their work because of merchandising. I wonder how long it will take Kishimoto to get sick of all the Naruto merchandise.

Eva and Naruto (especially Eva) give Spaceballs a run for their merchandising money.

if there ever was a case to 'jimmy' up your coffee, you're looking at it.

Honestly i prefer more the ecchi funny style anime then the one which try to made a big complex story so nobody ever can understand. The end(s) (both of them) of NGE was really bad...

Do you REALLY need to explain who Rei and Asuka are? Has it really been THAT long since Evangelion?

God I need a drink and it's not even 9am, here.

If all they ever do is clean, why are maids always so very, very dirty? A mystery of life.

PS. Evangelion = pure win.

Some of you guys apparently have no friggin' clue how this show has been merchandised in Japan from the beginning.

Hint: this is one of the tamer incarnations of Rei and Asuka that I've seen.

And it's been that way since 1997.

Shigeru, Pachinko, Eva, Coffee. Theres a winning combination right there.

@KeroseneClimax: Anno is just as guilty of this crap as the rest of the people Gainax. Heck, this is mainly happening because of the NEW Eva movies being released that retell the series. Anno himself, separate from Gainax, started all this by saying, "I want to retell Eva, in about four or five movies. Yes, let's flog this horse one more time."

I would buy this just to keep on a shelf... But I collect a ton of random crap...

I wonder if the coffee holds personality traits...
Asuka - biatch
Rei - Timid, un-emotional, but unusually endearing
Shinji - Incredibly self-concious and a penchant for enthusiastic violence..

Ooooh Misato Coffee :D

@IrisMR: i know. its sad.

its so so so sad! dammit!! WHHYYYY????!!!!

*sobs*

Dammit....dammit...want to drink it...so....bad......

*sobs*

I'd buy the Asuka one.

dammit...

i never liked pachinko but now i just have to go into pachinko parlor just for those 2 cans....

@GospelX: Whoa, wait a minute. Because Anno wants to give EVA relevancy in 2008 other than "Which bathing suit color the Asuka Langley figure sports is hotter?" he's guilty of whoring the franchise as badly as Gainax? The movies were Anno's attempt at restoring some of the series dignity, and anime as a whole, after 12 years of having no real competition (short of Rahxephon) of EVA's caliber in the psychological mecha genre. He brought EVA back due to demand, and to give it back some contemporary meaning to the anime industry after years of absence. Though Eva is Anno's brain child; Gainax owns EVA and have ran it in the mud while Anno had moved on to other projects.

"Anno is just as guilty of this crap as the rest of the people Gainax. Heck, this is mainly happening because of the NEW Eva movies being released that retell the series..."

The product above was released in 1997 and re-released in 2007. The gratuitous merchandising isn't mainly happening because of the new Eva movies, it's always been happening since the series was still on air. His comments reference that he's well aware of the tie-in's, and jokingly suggest that viewers allow EVA to be brought into their lives once again; but this time for something more substantial than [www.play-asia.com] or [en.wikipedia.org] .

@GospelX: This is different now from the rest of the anime industry how now? Hey look Tomino, feed us more of your Gundam! Kawamori making more Macross?! No wayz!

I wish I could have some. I love eva. Lol. They sure know how to advertise in japan.

@Shinryoma:
Ah, but you see... this is milk & coffee! It's quite different from normal coffee!

If memory serves me right, it's more milk than coffee... And is usually given to kids in Japan. Don't quoute me on that, though.

Actually, I'm glad they're doing this. Part of Eva's popularity is do to shit like this. Eva is just so unconventional. Do you think the mainstream anime crowd would have cared if there wasn't any merch or fan service?

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Hideaki Anno hates all the merchandise for this series, and especially those action figures and spin-off material, because it deviates from the intended story. Of course, he's rolling in Yen, but at a price.

I bought a slew of these in Akihabara a couple of months back when I visited. Man, talk about a geek explosion.

This only makes UCC Coffee more drinkable.

*YAWN* This is soooo 1990s.

Why did you say "Though!"?

Do want. I drank a whole bunch of these when I went in August last year.

I suggest a new tag: "Maid In Japan".

fack! this means i have to roll down to that pachinko parlor i saw with an eva banner outside this past weekend... "the angels have returned again" or something like that...

Wow.
When they came out with the new Evangelion movie there was so much selling out I couldn't believe it. Now there's maidcoffecans?
UCC is good, though. I mean, I like it.

Maids make everything better huh?

I await the day Gundam Maids appear in the media in some form.

@KeroseneClimax: I'm actually very happy to have found a bigger fanboy than myself. But let's face facts - Eva itself is already pretty timeless and I feel should be considered relevant no matter what. I am totally down with the update (and just got a hold of a fansub, finally), but was this necessary? If Anno is so brilliant, why does he need to revisit his surefire series? Why can't he create something new?

@Kyle81: Fortunately, the Zeta Gundam movies were really good, but I also found those to be an unnecessary addition to the anime scene. It's disappointing that the only stuff I get excited for now is over a decade old. This stuff doesn't lose relevance - and that's made obvious by the fact that people still talk about it. Let's how something Naruto stands the test of time.

Whoohoo! I have all three Rei Ayanami coffee cans! It necessitated ordering a box of 30 from amiami.com, but I was able to complete my collection!

[flickr.com]