Shinseiki Evangelion: Ikari Shinji Tantei Nikki (original) (raw)

I was browsing my town's library in the manga section and stumbled upon this silly manga series. I'm a big fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion so of course i checked it out and began reading it. To put it bluntly, reading this manga is... an experience.

I'm gonna be pretty honest here and say that this manga is bad. The characters are all of those from the original show (side note: i have yet to read the NGE manga), Rei, Asuka, Shinji, Kaworu, Kaji, Misato, Toji, Tensuke, and the class rep girl. All of them are pretty similar to the show but throughout this manga... none of them change at all, not even shinji. I'm also confused about shinji's love interest, is it Rei or Kaworu? Also the anatomy of the characters in certain panels looks really bad but that's what adds some to the charm.

The plot is, in all honestly, really dumb. I'm not gonna give spoilers in case you, the reader, wishes to read this manga. I will say, however, the concept of Evas exists in this universe of NGE but they aren't robots, they're angsty adults who get summoned from magical stones which i was wildly caught off guard by.

One thing i did find interesting is how many references were made to original NGE lore, in the first few chapters Kaworu mentions the first ancestral race and the seeds of knowledge and power. (Lilith and Adam) Also the 'Evas' have names that are very similar to the number of Eva the kids piloted in NGE. (Rei's is called Zero, Shinji's is Uno, Asuka's is Deuce, and Kaowru's is Cuattro)

All things considered this is only worth a read if you have patience to spare and like really silly things that don't make much sense or have much substance.

4/10 from me.