CBR Tony Takezaki’s Neon Genesis Evangelion

Is this the best Evangelion manga, or what?

Well, I believe it probably is!

Fly me to the moon, and let me review Evangelion among different mediums:

 Neon Genesis Evangelion (anime) - The End of Evangelion
Neon Genesis Evangelion (manga)
The Iron Maiden 2nd / Shinji Ikari Raising Project / Petit Eva / Campus Apocalypse / Detective Diary
Evangelion Comic Tribute

Comic title: Tony Takezaki’s NEON GENESIS EVANGELION alternatively also known as Tony Takezaki presents NEON GENESIS EVANGELION
Art & stories by Tony Takezaki

Published by Kadokawa Shoten (Dark Horse Comics in the USA)/Studio khara 
From 2015
Lineup Evangelion series/parody manga
Format: Tankōbon/Manga-sized softcover trade paperback.

Considered by many anime purists a seminal work of fiction. Love it or hate it, you have to admit Neon Genesis Evangelion is a cult classic vintage anime that covers so many subjects and tropes now common to the entire medium. In fact it was designed by creator Hideaki Anno and the rest of the crew at GAINAX as their ultimate tribute to everything they loved growing up.

Giant robots. Giant monsters. Post-apocalpytic science-fiction. Fanservice. And deep physiological interrogations about life! Along questions regarding God, mankind as a species and some oedipal issues and you got an idea of what Eva is about.

Over the years, after the success of the TV series, there's been various spinoff manga series. After a shojo manga, The Iron Maiden 2nd, an ecchi comedy series, Shinji Ikari Raising Project, a comic strip parody, Petit Eva, a more straightforward shonen, Campus Apocalypse, and a detective series, The Shinji Ikari Detective Diary, and an anthology parody collection from several well-known popular mangaka! 

Well that last one proved so popular with the fans, they made another one!

The Evangelion Comic Tribute proved to be immensely popular with the fans of the series. There was a lot of experimental stuff and ranging from various types of art styles and comedic tones.

The author who proved most successful with this experiment being Tony Takezaki, creator of Space Pinchy and A.D. Police. Not only did his jokes really nail everything you know, expect and love about EVA, but he also mimicked Yoshiyuki Sadamoto's art to the point.

Having produced a lot of content for the previous comic tribute, he was brought back to fill in an entire manga by himself.

Tony Takezaki presents NEON GENESIS EVANGELION is a second parody collection which was originally published by Kadokawa Shoten in the monthly magazines YOUNG-ACE and SHONEN-A in 2015. It even outsold the other more serious Evangelion mangas!

In America it was translated and distributed by Dark Horse Comics.

The book collects about 23 chapters of all sorts of random comedic stories. Some just one page jokes, others a couple of pages to 25 pages. 

It's about 200 pages worth of content!

It's a fun collection of Evangelion parodies!

Most of these stories spinning out of control off a few memorable scenes of Evangelion.

Riffing on cult fan favorite scenes, giving us a "never seen before" look at some of Evanglion's biggest mysteries.

Rei Ayanami breaking off character, Shinji and Kaworu taking on a comedy career, secrets Misato keeps to herself and more! My favorite being the chapters that reveal "the true origin" of NERV, back when it was just Gendo Ikari, Fuyutsuki and mini-Rei, as well as the days back when Ritsuko joined them as an intern!

If these names don't tell you much, then this book is not really for you!

The artwork is some of the best I've seen in a serialized manga!

Tony Takezaki is very talented. His work is consistent and well detailed. Perfectly capturing the original art of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. Only he gets to put these characters in very silly situations and making fun of the whole thing.

The book is hilarious and it's a pretty quick read!

The situations are really funny and the art is just fantastic. The author even throws some fanservice in there to either mock the audience or throw the reader off (I'm looking at the "Fuyutsuki scene" here..).

I loved a lot of the deeper inside jokes, which only those with familiarity with animes and Japan will get. But nevertheless it was such a treat!

We even get to see a very fun story that deviates the series into a 1960s tokusatsu TV show! S

Thanks to the artstyle and the tone of the show this manga captured, it feels like a really funny parody. 

Everything seems familiar on a first glimpse, but the cast is all twisted, acting out of character.

Overall, Tony Takezaki’s Neon Genesis Evangelion is an hilarious manga parody collection any fans of Evangelion should totally have a look at.

It's hilarious, with amazing art and it's just really funny!

I can't say this is really as enjoyable if you just have a passible familiarity with Evangelion, but long time fans will have a blast! It's just great!

This comes Highly Recommended to any otaku out there!

I give it:

2.5 / 3 Bobobos!