American Evangelion fans who had purchased the recently released Neon Genesis Evangelion Collector’s Edition Blu-ray are being met with an unexpected surprise. The iconic ending theme “Fly Me to the Moon” was found to have not made it into the localized release and has instead been replaced by Rick Astley’s 1987 hit single “Never Gonna Give You Up”.

Evangelion’s ending was notable for having different covers of “Fly Me to the Moon” that would play after each episode. While the original animation is still present in the new Blu-ray release, all audio has been completely replaced with the Rick Astley song.

GKIDS, the distributor for the release in the US, stated that the change was due to licensing issues involved with getting “Fly Me to the Moon” into an international release. “Never Gonna Give You Up” was chosen as a replacement as the distributor felt it maintained the ending’s thematic contrast and would be known well enough that fans could still karaoke along to it.

While some fans were receptive to the new ending, many others couldn’t help but feel disappointed that the classic series had been altered from its original form and began voicing their frustrations in negative online reviews. With the previous release of Evangelion by ADV Films going for exorbitant rates on the second-hand market however, fans are not left with many alternatives if they want a physical copy outside of Malaysian DVD bootlegs

GKIDS has responded to the outcry by issuing an apology and stating that it was a mistake to have initially thought that it would have been possible to satisfy Evangelion fans.

“Looking back on it now, there was just no way it was going to happen,” GKIDS wrote on Twitter. “We should have never even attempted a modern release of Evangelion in the first place and we sincerely apologize.”

Fans continue to debate whether the new Blu-ray release is worth it, though at the time of reporting online discourse had largely shifted away from the changed ending audio to complaints over the version of the English dub included in the Standard Edition not being the one preferred by purists of the series.