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this manga, i found almost outclassing the anime, if it were not for the ending. I know that the anime and the movie "the end of Evangelion"'s endings have caused much discourse for the better part of nearly 30 years, but out of all the endings thus far, the manga in my opinion has the poorest.

however, there were many things I loved about this manga. firstly, the art stays at an incredible standard throughout the entirety of the run, especially during third impact, and it also kept you engaged constantly. as well as this, many of the characters are handled better due the the ... chance to add more scenes than the anime. many of these scenes revolve around Shinji and Rei's relationship, resulting in significant development, especially towards Rei. this makes you feel more for her character before she sacrifices herself than you did in the anime. the relationship between Gendo and shinji is also fleshed out further, resulting in Gendo becoming more humanised than he appeared in the anime, due to the reader learning the reason he doesn't want to interact with shinj is for fear of tarnishing their relationship further. this also explains why he interacts with Rei more than Shinji, as he sees her as easier to interact with due to her lack of social skills, along with her resemblance to Yui, his wife.

sadly, the ending managed to ruin the entire previous experience of reading the manga up to that point, as the ending pretty much negates the entirety of the manga. the hero is not celebrated, no congratulations, not even a memory. yes, the ending of both the movie and anime are bleak yet hopeful in retrospect, but none of them wipe the main characters memories as well as all of humanities. it renders the sacrifices of Misato, Kaji, Yui, Ritsuko Rei and numerous NERV and UN personnel to nothing, as none will remember them. even shinji's personality has changed somewhat, with him being more cheery than usual. though this is somewhat comforting seeing the horror he had previously encountered, this ruins the experience as it basically says that all the previous 95 chapters were for nothing and were pretty much a waste of time for the reader, as a reader who was unaware of the previous chapter could just skip to the end, and believe it is where it begins.

therefore, i thoroughly enjoyed the majority of this manga, yet i had to mark it down from a 9 0r even ten, just because the ending leaves such a bad taste in your mouth.