Neon Genesis Evangelion 3-in-1 Edition vol. 2

I’ll admit that I didn’t have high expectations for this series when I started reading it.  Even though it did have a key member of the anime’s staff, character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, this was still going to be the same “Neon Genesis Evangelion” that I know from the TV series.  On one hand, that’s still very true here.  However, that Sadamoto has still managed to preserve  the feel of the series and remain true to the characters while making significant departures from its events is an impressive achievement.

(Minor spoilers for the anime follow because I’m assuming everyone here has already seen the anime.  Right?)

You’ll see this right away in the collection with the introduction of Asuka.  While the tense sea battle against an Angel that marked her arrival was certainly memorable in the anime, it’s actually scaled back significantly here.  The battle takes all of a few pages as Shinji and the rest of the crew at NERV are witness to the after-action report which shows that she took it out herself in 36 seconds.  Though you might think that it trivializes the event, showing it in this manner does an excellent job of showing that the “Third Child” is on a completely different level than the other two and is going to be a real asset to the team and make everything better with her arrival in Japan!

Of course, anyone familiar with the anime will know exactly what’s going to happen when Shinji, Toji and Kensuke actually run into her (without knowing it) on their way home from school.  While the latter two think she’s hot enough to sneak a peek at her panties, they get a rude awakening when she starts beating the crap out of the UFO catcher in frustration and then tries to shake them down for additional yen as a result of their voyeurism.  Things quickly escalate when the kids’ antics disturb some toughs at the arcade, but Asuka quickly takes them out herself before they can spiral out of control.  Once she finally meets up with everyone at NERV, the girl is all sweetness and light which begins a trend of two-facedness that defines her character for a good portion of this collection.

Asuka’s outspokenness and arrogance could’ve quickly been off-putting in the anime and here.  Yet in both it initially comes off as fairly novel in a work where the majority of the cast keeps their emotions and true feelings under lock and key.  That’s a feeling which can’t last forever but neither the manga nor the anime waste any time in trying to humanize this Japanese/German wunderkind.  Personally, I think that the manga manages to pull it off a bit better as Asuka and Shinji have to train together in order to synchronize their attacks to beat the next angel. Though the ultimate battle can’t hold a candle to the visual and auditory pyrotechnics of the anime, seeing Shinji and Asuka having to work out their issues here carries more weight.  Their initial inability to function as a team leads to the inevitable breakdown as Rei is shown to be able to fully synchronize with Shinji here, which causes Asuka to storm out in disgust at her apparent failure.

Now, you wouldn’t expect Shinji to be the one to save the day here but he does after some gentle prompting from Kaji who reminds him that this is the boy’s job as well.  He doesn’t deliver some big, inspirational speech that causes Asuka to rethink her mindset, but simply gives his own take on her behavior that initially seems to make things worse before leading to a thoroughly gratifying reconcilliation.  The end result of the battle is also slightly different from the anime, but it feels earned and better to the long-term health of the relationship between the characters.

Sadamoto’s departures from the manga don’t end with Asuka’s introduction as he also does some interesting things with Kaji as well.  His status as someone who knows all the answers but isn’t telling much remains the same here, and while those kinds of characters can be frustrating, the man’s interaction with the cast makes him an essential part of the story.  Though the man’s previous relationship with Misato provides a good deal of material here, it doesn’t really take the direction you’d expect.  It may seem that he wants to rekindle the spark they once had, but his real agenda here is to uncover the truth behind NERV and the agenda of those pulling its strings.  To that end he’s willing to share some of the truths he knows in order to spur others on into what will hopefully become their own quest to uncover answers as well.

That leads to one of the most interesting scenes in the series so far as Kaji has a conversation with Shinji which puts a compelling spin on one of the defining points of the latter’s personality from the anime.  Throughout that series, Shinji’s oft-repeated mantra was “I musn’t run away,” establishing him as someone who was completely out of his depth here but still determined to find some way to function  in spite of it.  Here, Kaji tells him that “You mustn’t look away from the truth.”  As the son of NERV director Gendo Ikari and of Evangelion project mastermind Yui Ikari, Shinji is told that he has a duty to know the truth and understand exactly what he’s fighting for.  Whether or not he’ll actually be able to do this… well, that’s where the dramatic tension is going to come from.

Now, there’s one bit of ridiculous (or even infamous, depending on your perspective) dramatic tension from the series that’s done away with here.  That would be revelation that Toji is the “Fourth Child” as Sadamoto takes a much more direct approach to this particular issue.  I always thought that the way the reveal was built up in the anime was a brilliant bit of self-parody and dramatic irony as it was completely obvious to everyone who was watching it, as well as most of the cast who the Fourth Child was.  Except for Shinji.  So when the Angel takes over Unit 04 and things go bad, we knew what was really at stake and seeing the revelation hit Shinji was no less impactful for it.

Here, though, Toji actually comes out to Shinji about being the Fourth Child and the dynamic is instantly different.  The once-confident high schooler is reduced to an emotional wreck as can barely process this responsibility while Shinji, of all people, is in the position of helping his friend rationalize it all.  He may be doing his best to offer words of encouragement, but they take on a very ominous tone to those of us who know how this situation is going to play out.  In fact, the actual battle is even more dramatic now that Shinji knows who is in the possessed Evangelion as the stakes are more personal and heartwrenching to see on the page.  Its outcome isn’t substantially different from the anime’s, but it is significant.  Even though I’ve seen the anime a few times and have a pretty good idea how things are going to play out, Sadamoto’s interpretation is such that I can’t say exactly what’s going to happen next.  That’s a very good thing as far as I’m concerned.

One other thing about Sadamoto’s work here is that while the look of the manga is as spot-on as you’d expect from the character designer of the anime, he displays a real talent for facial expressions here.  There’s this beatifully wide range of looks that the characters have for all situations that really draws the reader in due to their uniqueness.  Seeing things like Misato’s response to Kaji putting the moves on Ritsuko, and observing Asuka’s steadily growing exasperation at Shinji’s refusal to deliver her letter to Kaji is a real joy to behold and even Rei’s famed emotionlessness gets some nice shadings in his hands.  That Sadamoto is infamous for how long his adaptation has been taking, I’d have to concede that all that time was worth taking.  Of course, I’m also coming into the series as it nears the end of its 18-year serialization so my perspective may be a bit skewed there.

The manga reads as well as it looks thanks to the English adaptation courtesy of Fred Burke and Carl Horn.  There’s a liveliness to their work that you don’t get with most manga scripts as well as a professional feel as well.  While I’m glad to have most manga simply exist in English, as opposed to not having them at all, Burke and Horn show that the text doesn’t have to be simply workmanlike and can actually have real style and wit to them.  I honestly wish more localizers would follow the example they set here.

Even though this collection came out a couple months ago, it managed to stick with me to the point where I re-read it in anticipation of vol. 3’s arrival a little over a week from now.  Watching the anime was such a compelling, lid-flipping experience for me that I didn’t think any alternate telling of its events could have real merit to them.  The manga has done a good job of proving me wrong so far, but it’s now going to face tackling some of the anime’s more esoteric Angel battles and I find myself wondering how Sadamoto will be dealing with them.  After what I’ve read here, I’m also very much looking forward to it.