Shinseiki Evangelion: Koutetsu no Girlfriend 2nd
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days

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"Imagine a Neon Genesis Evangelion where dating the right girl is more important than saving the world." As soon as I saw this one, very simple, sentence, I knew (thought) that this would be my all time favourite manga....ever. However, three volumes in I realized that this is possibly the worst manga I've ever read...worse than even Kingdom Hearts.

Story: Wow....where exactly to begin? Asuka likes Shinji, but she won't admit it. Rei likes Shinji...and will admit it...after a while. Touji and Hikari ARE together and provide a sort of...parallel relationship. Kensuke likes Asuka but Asuka cannot stand him at all. ... Shinji, of course, completely indecisive and has to spend an incredible amount of time being annoying before deciding exactly which girl he has his heart on. That's it...the entire story. Oh, wait. Sorry. Kaoru is in....love with Shinji? Yes....yes he is. That is is. The entire storyline is completely one layer deep. They try to throw in the Angels and the Eva's...but the attempt is terribly conceived and the "battle" is quite poorly drawn. All the complexities that made the original Evangelion are gone...and the only thing that's left is a terribly flimsy premise for a manga. The ending is terrible as well. How many of you saw the ending of the show and went "What...just...happened?" Well...this is kind of like that, only there wasn't a great beginning or middle part. And as for which Shinji picks....take a giant guess....95% of you will be right. I'll give you a hint...if you're hoping for the same person I hoped for...you're wrong.

Art: The only reason why the characters are recognizable is because they are referred to by name so often. I don't understand at all why someone chose this guy to do this manga. He completely, completely butchers EVERYTHING in this. I kept looking at Shinji and Rei (especially Rei) going "who the HELL are they?" There are almost no backgrounds at all, except when there's a scene change or when the artist decided to draw a window or tree. I don't mind having pages mainly blank, but the art that's in here is almost insulting. I could rant almost forever about how terrible the art in this is...but it would be a lot easier for you to download a chapter, preferably in volume 3-6 (that's when the art REALLY crumbles apart) and view it for yourself.

Character: During this entire manga I spent my time reimagining what it would be like if this manga was more like Evangelion....and honestly, the version in my head was a LOT more entertaing (at least to me) than what was on the page. Every character in here is practically stencilled from every harem manga ever made. Shinji is, of course, completely indecisive. He gives the illusion that he's debating between the two, Rei and Asuka, but he knows which one he goes with. The characters have absolutely no depth at all. Even Kaoru, who people STILL debate about, is so shallow and weakly developed that even I was feeling so bad for him.

Enjoyment: I finished this manga....I barely read the last 3 volumes, by the end of the second volume I had stopped hoping that it would improve. It never did improve....In the hands of almost anyone else, this manga would have been incredibly amazing. I was so suprised by how terribly handled this manga was. It'll stand on my bookshelf as the worst manga I have ever purchased and read....and that includes Kingdom Hearts (I've mentioned that before)

Don't read this, unless you're really curious. If you hate it in the first volume and think that it might improve, I am telling you right now that it won't. This has nothing to do with evangelion except for the name and the characters. There is absolutely no appeal in this anime. Don't get me wrong, I was HOPING so badly that was going to be amazing. I thought that this was going to be my favourite manga...my favourite series. Sadly, it vastly underperforms. So...read it, or don't read it. Just please, don't be like me and expect it to be amazing because it has the name "Neon Genesis Evangelion" attached to it.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days is, simply put, a high school romantic comedy version of the original Evangelion anime. When I first learned about it, I thought that it might be a fun alternate version of a series that I consider to be brilliant or, on the flipside, a laughably bad retelling with little of what made the first series great. Unfortunately, it turned out to fall into the latter category.

Doubtlessly, most anime and manga fans are familiar with the original Neon Genesis Evangelion’s story. Angelic Days share the basic plot – teenagers are chosen to pilot giant robots and learn about growing up in ... the process – but little else. There’s none of the weirdness that you might expect, and certainly none of the depth. All the story really has to offer is a straightforward tale about kids and giant robots. It still has some of the mystery that comes with the mecha genre, but nothing about the plot stands out, especially when you remember that the original Eva did it better. As for the romantic elements… well, they’re nothing to write home about. Gendo and Yui, who star as students in a sidestory that takes up all of volume five, have a nice little love story, but other than that none of the character’s love lives are particularly interesting, and certainly not unique. Really, Angelic Days boasts no unique or even notable plot elements.

The artwork, which could have improved my opinion of this series, did exactly the opposite. It’s very sparse in terms of detail, and not at all attractive. The best way to describe the main fault is that it’s quite… droopy. Most of the characters have almost limp posture, clothing, and hair. In addition, there’s something that bothers me about the character’s faces; at any given moment, they seem either lifeless or annoying. It’s just not a very good-looking manga.

As for the cast… well, quite frankly, the cast of Angelic Days sucks. All of the unique characters that made the original Evangelion interesting are replaced by one-dimensional shells of characters. You have the average joe main man, the shy new girl, the grouchy but loving childhood friend, and more. If you’ve ever read a romantic comedy manga, you’ve met these people already, just not inhabiting the Eva cast’s bodies. While arguably an alternate universe has the right to reinvent characters, they should at least be reminiscent of the originals in ways other than name.

If you’re a fan of the original Neon Genesis Evangelion anime or manga, you’re probably going to check this out regardless of what you hear. Still, keep your expectations low, because Angelic Days is nothing like normal Evangelion, and not in a good way. Even if you’ve never seen or read Evangelion, however, do yourself a favor and read one of the hundreds of other manga that cover mecha, romance, or both in a more original and enjoyable way.

Art:
The art is probably my least favourite aspect of this manga. However, this mainly comes down to personal preference as I am personally not a fan of the early 2000s anime style such as the artstyle of Clannad or other anime from the period. The art itself is competent, although sometimes during the fight scenes it is a little hard to follow what is happening (this may be because I'm a bit dim lol)

Story:
The story here is probably the best thing. At the start it seems to just be a continuation of the AU seen in episode 26 of Neon Genesis Evangelion - however it ... develops into a much deeper plot than that.
The characters develop very well, and, in my opinion, are infinitely more likeable than their NGE counterparts.

Characters:
Asuka:
In NGE, I found Asuka to be very annoying. She was borderline hateable in my opinion and never showed any softer side. She wasn't a tsundere in my opinion, she was just a bitch. However, in this manga, she was more of a confused girl under a lot of stress. She could act out and even be annoying at times, however she did show a softer side and she was kind when it counted. When Shinji does something to help her, she thanks him.

Shinji:
Shinji felt like a relatively typical romance manga protagonist, and again I felt he was more likeable than in NGE, although I didn't really have a problem with him in NGE (I hated him a lot in EoE however)

Rei:
I didn't mind Rei in NGE, but she was a bit boring. I expected the whole time for her to reveal a kinder side to herself, however she never really changed at all. Rei here starts with more emotions, however she feels quiet and unusure - as you would expect from a girl who only ever knew scientists who were studying her.

Tohji + Kensuke:
In NGE, these two felt like background characters and I did not care one bit about them. In this manga, they were developed more and I came to like them.

Overall:
There were a lot of things I preferred in NGE to this manga, but there were a lot of things I preferred in this manga too.
I feel like an ideal situation would be a mix of NGE and the plot of this manga - and I hear that the NGE manga is like that with better character development and such.
Give the manga a try if you're like me and wanted to like NGE but couldn't. This isn't a perfect manga, but it was rather enjoyable. I haven't finished it yet because I can't find volumes 5 + 6 online but I will consider buying them and maybe I will update my review when I read them.

This manga was made for the only purpose= fan service (but not in a bad way.)
The art can look a bit strange sometimes, but in general it's good (Shojo style).
The best part is that you learn more about the side characters, and in general its more written like a typical Shojo manga.

I think it's good that the reader is not overloaded with naked skin and forced situations,(like in other spin-offs series)
Also, Nagisas shines here. He is the best character in Koutetsu no Girlfriend.

If you like 2000s Shojo and NGE you got the perfect manga for you! But don't expert that the story gets ... real deep tho

Evangelion spin-offs are unfortunately well-known for being almost completely unlike Evangelion itself. Iron Maiden the 2nd, Girlfriend of Steel 2 or Angelic Days, however you wanna call it, is no different. This doesn't mean it is completely worthless, however, as the standard of Evangelion spin-offs is in fact so low (see Piko-Piko) that this is, quite possibly, the best Evangelion spin-off manga of them all.

This is a cute, fairly straightforward shoujo romantic drama/comedy story. Shinji is rewritten in a mostly standard shy shoujo protagonist, unaware of Asuka's growing affections for him. Asuka is the most well-developed character here, she is also reformed into a mostly ... standard tsundere, but she gets some interesting development with Rei and Kaworu. Rei, as you might expect, is unrecognizable and is instead a pretty standard moe girl, more and more interested in Shinji and jealous of Asuka. Kaworu is slightly present as a sort of inter-dimensional matchmaker, though he doesn't appear much, another common feature of Eva spin-offs. All of them fight for Shinji's attention, and, amazingly enough, this is the only Eva spin-off in which one of them does win his heart. Touji, Hikari and Kensuke are also present, and have some development among each other, and not just around Shinji. Much drama and some minor Eva mind-screwing does happen before that, of though. But if you are looking for anything deeper, your only bet is either the NGE anime itself (the manga's success at this is debatable) or even some fan-made stuff like RE-TAKE.

The art is okay. Nothing exceptional, but not at all bad or subpar. What might initially surprise readers is that it is *extremely shoujo*, which might come as a particular shock since most Eva fans would be accustomed to the more shounen style present in ISRP or Sadamoto's manga. Some pages are really beautiful and the characters do have a lot of expressiveness, but it does take some getting used to.

I could be wrong, but this look like it was one of the artist's first professional works, and it seems to have been successful enough to have launched her into a successful career. Overall, this is a quite enjoyable manga, if you are looking to have the Evangelion cast in a lighthearted setting and just enjoy seeing them together.