tl;dr: A solid though repetitive and generic rom-com, though one that would be better to consider it’s own thing despite having NGE in the title.
This is a really bizarre alternate take on Neon Genesis Evangelion. The manga itself really isn’t bizarre at all, rather it’s incredibly generic. But that itself makes the manga bizarre because it’s basically Evangelion stuffed into a really basic and standard rom-com mold. The world this spin off is set in, the Impacts, Angels, and what we know of as Evas don’t seem to exist. Rather the world seems to be running just fine. NERV still exists and is working on
...
some sort of high-tech research, and SEELE exists and is trying to stop them, though it is not made clear at all what is being researched or why someone would try to stop it. All that really matters about NERV is that it’s everyone’s workplace. As such, plot wise the manga is essentially just about Shinji, Asuka, and Rei going to school while working part time at a lab.
In addition to getting rid of all of the plot elements, this spin off also gets rid of all the angst. Both of Shinji’s parents are alive and love him, with his father in particular being a very doting father. Asuka’s mom still isn’t all that great of a mom seeing as how she’s an airhead that spends almost all her time in her lab working, but in the little time that they do spend together it is clear that they have a pretty positive and healthy relationship. Rei seems to be a normal girl without any cloning or anything like that involved. Misato and Kaji’s dark past seem to not be a thing and both are just happily working as teachers at Shinji’s school. The love polygon stuff around Shinji, as well as the one around Shinji’s dad, both still seem to be there but are played entirely for laughs without any drama. Touji and his sister are completely okay and Kaworu in what little we see of him seems to be a somewhat eccentric but otherwise reasonably normal guy doing fine as well.
As a result of the changes to their environment, Shinji, Asuka, and Rei are very different characters as well in that they’ve been made incredibly shallow and generic. Shinji is still really indecisive, but not in a dark and complex way, but rather in a harem protagonist way. He also very much embodies the lucky lecher trope to the point it becomes one of the core aspects of this manga. Asuka is now Shinji’s childhood friend and violent tsundere who’s clearly in love with him but constantly hitting him, often a result of the lucky lecher aspects. And Rei is now just a really shy girl that falls in love with Shinji but can’t express herself.
The vast majority of the manga is just short unrelated situations as they live their lives with a bunch of a comedy and ecchi thrown around. It’s a really standard rom-com in every way. There’s not much in terms of character or relationship development. There is what seems to be relationship development at times, but it never sticks. That’s pretty normal when it comes to long running rom-com manga, but what makes it especially weird here is that it goes through pretty much the exact same situations multiple times but treats it as if it’s the first time happening each time. As such, this felt more repetitive than most manga that follow the same formula. Still, all in all it is pretty good at what it’s trying to do, so if you take it slow it’s pretty enjoyable.
With that said, I have no clue why this is an NGE spin off. The only things it takes from NGE are names and designs as well as some really broad concepts. It is distant enough that if the author had made a manga with different names and designs but kept everything else exactly the same then I don’t think anyone at all would consider comparing or connecting the two. The manga in and of itself isn’t bad, but it being NGE feels like a blatant crash grab. I also think that it’s resulted in the manga being received more negatively than it should because of people reading it for NGE rather than for it appealing to them on its own merits and then ending up disappointed. I can absolutely understand wanting to see the characters that went through all the pain and suffering in NGE just living happy normal lives and think that’s a really solid idea for a manga, but this does not seem like a good execution of that idea as it’s taking far too little from NGE for it to really resonate.
The art starts somewhat weak but definitely improves and is pretty solid for most of it. Character designs are from NGE, so they’re good as you would expect. The translation is kind of bizarre in that it’s a really loose translation that’s clearly changing things up a lot and even throwing in a bunch of really specific references and expressions that I think only Americans of a certain generation would be familiar with, while at the same time not translating a bunch of Japanese terms for which English equivalents clearly exist. Overall, I can’t say I was much of a fan of how it was handled.
 Alternative TitlesJapanese: 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン 碇シンジ育成計画 More titlesInformationType: Manga
Volumes: 18
Chapters: 133
Status: Finished
Published: Apr 26, 2005 to Feb 26, 2016
Demographic:
Shounen
Serialization:
Shounen Ace Authors:
Takahashi, Osamu (Art) Statistics Ranked: #153462 2 based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded. Popularity: #2192
Members: 9,227
Favorites: 168 Resources | Reviews
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Nov 23, 2023
tl;dr: A solid though repetitive and generic rom-com, though one that would be better to consider it’s own thing despite having NGE in the title.
This is a really bizarre alternate take on Neon Genesis Evangelion. The manga itself really isn’t bizarre at all, rather it’s incredibly generic. But that itself makes the manga bizarre because it’s basically Evangelion stuffed into a really basic and standard rom-com mold. The world this spin off is set in, the Impacts, Angels, and what we know of as Evas don’t seem to exist. Rather the world seems to be running just fine. NERV still exists and is working on ... |
