Neon Genesis Evangelion 12

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto – Viz – 2011 – 12+ volumes

Let’s see if I can connect the last several reviews I’ve done: So, Neon Genesis Evangelion is referenced/parodied in Genkaku Picasso. Genkaku Picasso is drawn by Usamaru Furuya, who has recently had his adaptation of Osamu Dezai’s No Longer Human licensed by Vertical. No Longer Human is central to the plot of the first Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime novel. How about that? Three unrelated works connected together. Though I think using Evangelion in that game is cheating. For more connections, how about the fact that, not counting reprints, Oh My Goddess and Evangelion are probably the two longest-running (time-wise) manga in English, and both are edited by Carl Gustav Horn?

Anyway, I’ve never read any other volumes of Evangelion, and I’ve only seen half of the anime series. This is incredible, given my otaku roots go back to 1998, when Evangelion was still something you watched lest you be ejected from the internet. It just wasn’t much my thing. Despite this, I know the characters and plot better than series I actually did watch back then, so I wasn’t completely lost when I picked this up.

Admittedly, I was a little lost, but it was pretty easy to pick up. NERV appears to be under attack by a rival agency, and most of the volume is spent trying to locate Shinji, convincing him to fight in the Eva unit, and also watching Asuka fight in her Eva unit despite being sick/injured. There are some really great character-to-character scenes amid all this action too, including a heart-to-heart between Gendo and Shinji that is later interrupted by Misato telling Shinji to do things for the exact opposite reason as Gendo. Gendo’s a great character as far as villains go, and his openly brutal psychological abuse is really something to behold. I liked him here, if only because I wanted to see just how bad his “motivation” was going to get.

The Gendo/Shinji/Misato scene is a good one, even without knowing much of the context for it, but the true highlight of the book for me was the wonderful scene between Misato and Shinji later, as Shinji is boarding his Eva unit. I was unsure whether or not Shinji really knew what Misato was doing, and I loved that after all that she did, Shinji’s Eva was surrounded by bakelite (?!) and was completely inoperable. Even though it was out of context for me, that scene was still extremely powerful.

I also like the art in this series quite a bit. I can’t comment on the character designs at this point since they are too iconic for me to really… critique, but I like Sadamoto’s linework and the background details he includes. There’s something very sterile about all the scenes in NERV (I’ll freely admit that this might not be NERV, I assume it is), and the detail isn’t very intricate, which goes with the idea that NERV is a military facility. The action scenes are very dynamic, and I was surprised by how clear and dynamic everything was. The fight scene with Asuka was another favorite part of the volume for me, and that was largely because the art was so good.

How close is the plot of the manga to the anime? How far is it from the end? I have no idea, honestly, but I did like what I read here. Do I like it enough to go back and read the rest? Mmm, probably not, especially after giving the anime a try, but I am happy that I read this volume, and I think fans of the series that have been waiting for this will be pleased. It’s a good one, even from a non-fan perspective.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.