Depending on how you do the math, anime fans have now been waiting somewhere between three and 20 years for the upcoming, and supposedly final, Evangelion movie. The franchise began as a TV series in 1995, with its most recent installment, the third film in the Rebuild of Evangelion reboot and/or sequel, having debuted in Japanese theaters in 2012.

A release date has yet to be officially announced for the fourth Rebuild movie, but a weekly Japanese news magazine recently published a quote from an industry insider who claims he knows when the last Eva film is finally coming out.

There’s a lot of A-list talent involved in the Rebuild of Evangelion films. First off, there’s series creator Hideaki Anno, arguably the most respected director in anime now that Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki is retired. There’s also Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who’s been providing Eva’s human art since the very beginning, and whose career as a character designer has lasted almost 30 years at this point.

Even the soundtrack boasts big-name stars, as all three of the presently released Rebuild movies have featured theme songs by Hikaru Utada, one of the most celebrated acts in Japanese music history. Utada’s commitment to the Eva movie series is so strong that even after the singer went into hiatus at the end of 2010, she still wrote, produced, arranged, and performed the song “Sakura Nagashi” to be used as the theme for 2012’s Evangelion 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo.

▼ The cover for “Sakura Nagashi”

On July 3, Utada announced through her blog that she has given birth to a healthy baby boy. She also revealed that during her pregnancy she was working on a new album, which would be her first in Japanese since 2008.

With Utada back in the spotlight, weekly news magazine Shukan Bunshun made the songstress the focus of an article in its July 16 issue. Included in the piece are quotes, attributed to “someone related to the issue,” claiming that record executives would like to release the new album as soon as possible, in order to best capitalize on the attention being garnered by the birth of the singer’s baby.

However, Utada herself is being particular about the quality of the album, according to the source, which seems logical considering that her last few releases haven’t come near the level of success of her earlier discs, which were pop cultural phenomena. “If things progress smoothly, the album will be released within the year,” the source says, “and if they progress slowly, sometime within the first half of 2016.”

Should things work out that way, it’d be great news for music fans, but the more exciting comment for anime enthusiasts came later, when the source expanded on Utada’s schedule by saying:

“Right now, Utada is in the middle of working on a new song for the final Evangelion that’s scheduled for release in winter of this year.”

Considering that November is part of autumn, and that January, from where we are now, falls under next year instead of this one, that would mean the fourth Rebuild of Evangelion movie should be in theaters in Japan in December.

On the one hand, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard a rumored release date for the film, so it’s probably best to take the information in Shukan Bunshun’s article with a grain of salt. On the other hand, having the movie ready for screening in 2015 would mean that it barely qualifies as part of Evangelion’s 20th anniversary celebration. We can’t think of a better way to mark the milestone, so while we’re waiting to see if the rumor pans out, we’re going to keep our fingers crossed that Shukan Bunshun’s anonymous source is actually named Hideaki Anno.

Sources: Minna no Eva Fan (1, 2), Jin, Hikaru Utada official website

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