Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Shinji Ikari Raising Project vol. 15

There are those rare moments in fiction where a character manages to say exactly what you’re thinking about the work in question.  You get the feeling that whoever was responsible for those words just reached into you head and either put them down on the page or had them come out of someone’s mouth.  It’s a rare, but exhilarating feeling and I’m kicking myself for not being able to cite any good examples of it right now.  Naturally I’ll think of something later this weekend, long after I’ve put this post to bed.  I bring it up here because in the middle of the latest volume in this terrible series, Carl Horn’s English adaptation managed to do just that.

In the beginning, there was nothing to let me know that “Stage 89” was going to be one of my favorite parts of this “Raising Project.”  Shinji’s doing homework at his apartment residence while Asuka lazes about, and mangaka Osamu Takahshi gives us some token crotch and downblouse shots of the former because that’s how this series rolls.  The fanservice knob is turned up even higher when Misato shows up, takes her jacket off, bends over (to let the audience know that she is wearing underwear today), and goes on to rest her boobs on Shinji’s head while she tries to help him solve a hard math problem.  She then proceeds to molest the teen with her cleavage over the next three pages.

So far so not really different from the previous 88 stages of this manga.  A few pages later, Asuka is now helping Shinji with his homework, while Misato has decided to go read the manga Shinji borrowed from Kensuke.  Just as Shinji is getting terminally distracted by Asuka’s cleavage, Misato busts out with, “THIS IS THE WORST MANGA EVER!”  This was pretty funny on its own terms as everything I had read prior to here in this latest volume substantiated that claim.  Then she followed it up with, “Contrived, repetitive, nothing but fanservice — Wait, how many volumes is this?”  That’s when I realized that there was some particularly apt self-commentary going on here and my mind was blown.

Self-commentary isn’t quite the right work as it would imply that Takahashi is responsible for this.  It’s possible, but I don’t see someone who has been riding the “Evangelion” gravy train for over a decade now being so quick to throw his meal ticket under the bus.  I think it’s more likely that we’re getting Horn’s own commentary here.  He’s famed (or infamous in other places that are not here) for taking a rather loose approach to his adaptations of the translation of the original manga.  It means that what we’re reading is certainly not a literal translation of the manga, but his work is certainly a lot more readable and fun than those who do a similar job in other mangas.  A literal translation would never have given us this gem from vol. 5 of “The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service” involving a bunch of severed heads stored in gachapon style containers:

Karatsu:  “…What makes you think it’s murder?”

Sasayama:  “…I-I don’t know why I think that Karatsu… I… I can’t explain!  I never wanted these powers of FUCKING COMMON SENSE, all right?!”

It’s passages like that which lead me to believe we’re getting Horn’s own commentary in the latest volume of this particular “Evangelion” spinoff.  The point of view in these pages becomes clearer when Misato starts deconstructing the unnammed manga by checking off the tropes and going off about how people will defend series like this because they have “plot” and “character growth” but only because the characters are cute.  Some might see this as a kind of bitterness on the adapter’s part.  I’m actually with him here as the context of “The Shinji Ikari Raising Project” makes his argument quite compelling.  To wit:  After this scene, Asuka offers to clean Shinji’s ears in a traditional manner and it ends up with her on the ground and our protagonist groping her exposed breast.

Everything before and after this?  Complete and utter crap.  I was hopeful that an airsoft match between the members of the cast would enliven things, yet it eventually devolves into the same mix of pratfalls and fanservice that this series has become mired in.  It still manages to avoid being the “Worst Manga Ever” simply because it’s so boring.  There’s nothing like witnessing a legendary figure like Masamune Shirow disappear up his own ass in “Ghost in the Shell 2,” or seeing Kenichi Sonoda realize he has nothing left to say about his definitive creation and subsequently tear it all down at the end of “Gunsmith Cats:  Burst.”  At the end of the day, “The Shinji Ikari Raising” project is just another half-assed licensed comic.  It’s hard to get too worked up about its failings.  Except when I’m thinking about all of the Dark Horse Manga that I liked which didn’t make it as far as this one has in their serializations…

Still, if it wasn’t for Horn’s irreverent scripting I wouldn’t have experienced that one great moment of clarity here.  I can’t really recommend this particular experience to anyone else since to get the most out of it, you’d have to have read all of the previous volumes to deaden your senses and lower your expectations beforehand.  Better to just pick up a random volume of “Kurosagi” to see what the man is capable of when he’s working with quality material perfectly aligned to his sensibilities.  Horn’s involvement means this “Evangelion” spinoff is at least worth the paper it’s printed on, but nothing more than that.