Manga Monday: Celebrate 20 Years of Evangelion Manga!

Written by: Carl Horn
Source: DarkHorse.com
Dated: May 15, 2017

On the right is the very latest Neon Genesis Evangelion manga to be published in North America, Legend of the Piko Piko Middle School Students by Yukito and Yushi Kawata—now in direct market comic shops, and coming to your local bookstore later this month. On the left is the very first Neon Genesis Evangelion manga to be published in North America, the original one by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. I had the honor to be editor on both of them, and I'm proud to see how Evangelion has found an audience with a whole new generation.

The two sides of this photo show the history not only of Evangelion manga in English, but the English-language manga industry—because the first thing you notice is that the title on the left, from 1997, was in comic book format. Those of you who are longtime manga readers will know that in the 1980s and 90s, manga was published here in the way that American comics generally still are—that is, one chapter per month as a comic book, before later being collected as a graphic novel. Although it may seem a strange method now, it was true in its own way to how manga are typically published in Japan—also one chapter at a time (although in an anthology magazine instead of as an individual comic book) before being collected.

Now, right back to the present! Of course, today, in the super-science 21st century, manga are published straight to graphic novel. You can see, though, just looking at the cover of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Legend of the Piko Piko Middle School Students, how Yukito, the artist, is channeling the original series artist and character designer, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. In fact, as Yukito explains in the back of vol. 1, this is a deliberate tribute, as growing up his small town didn't even have a video store, and he discovered Evangelion through Sadamoto's manga before he ever got a chance to see the anime.

Look more closely at the cover of Piko Piko, and notice the difference between what Shinji is wearing, and what Rei and Asuka is wearing. Yes, Shinji, as is traditional in Eva, has a hard time of it in this manga—Misato and Gendo expect him to save the Earth, but won't even give him a real plug suit like the others. Like Star Wars or Gundam, Evangelion is beginning to enter that realm where the fans are a mix of those who saw the originals when they came out, and new generations getting into it through new interpretations. At Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, Evangelion takes its place among Godzilla and Attack on Titan as a full-immersion theme ride, while the tremendously popular series of Eva pachinko games has helped to support the Rebuild of Evangelion film series, whose fourth movie is now in production.

Don't worry—despite the comedy in Piko Piko, you can still expect plenty of action in this manga. For example, before you're 20 pages in, Asuka and Shinji have gotten into a fistfight with Gendo. It's all part of the combat training, as Piko Piko, written by Yushi Kawata, is also an honest-to-God Evangelion story, with the Angels attacking, piloting the effing robot, and, of course, Kaworu Nagisa, whose presence has been sorely missed (Kaworu is a major character in the series, and gets the whole cover on vol. 2.). I can only say that Legend of the Piko Piko Middle School Students is not only a worthy successor among Evangelion manga, but a work of true Eva fans that's very aware of the much bigger thing Evangelion has become in the decades since it first premiered. So get it in already!

—Carl Horn
Manga Editor