Neon Genesis Evangelion, Vol. 14

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By Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and GAINAX. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialized in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Viz Media.

(This review contains spoilers.)

A journey that began in Japan back in 1995, and in North America approximately 2004 I think (it’s been so long), has finally come to an end with this final volume of Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s only out digitally for the moment, as the volume was only released last week in Japan. Print volumes should be arriving in February, but I can’t wait that long, so let’s swipe at our tablets and find out what happens. I think we all have the same question: we know the manga is following the same beats as the anime did, but is it also going to end with Shinji strangling Asuka on some godforsaken (literally) beach?

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Thankfully, the answer turns out to be no. Now don’t get me wrong – everyone still ends up in orange goo here. Makoto gets to see Misato before he dissolves, and Maya gets Ritsuko. Sadly, Aoba isn’t heavily crushing on anyone special, so he just gets dogpiled by a bunch of Rei clones. We see Gendo finally die, and it’s notable that he does NOT dissolve like everyone else – but wait till later. In the end, all is nothingness, and Rei presents this nothingness to Shinji as what Gendo has been shooting for – and what Shinji has wanted as well. To run away, to give in, to be accepted in the same nothingness as everyone else. No war, no hatred, no love, no peace – it’s all one. (There is a fantastic two-page spread showing Shinji seeing dialogue bubbles of the entirety of human experience – acceptance and rejection all in one.)

Shinji in the manga has gone through a lot of stuff, but in the end he rejects this world – and tells Rei why, in no uncertain terms. Rei describes it as a happy world, but Shinji points out that in a world that is nothing, happiness can’t exist. This too is familiar from the anime, but these scenes in the manga end up being pretty heartwarming. He recalls Yui telling him that he has to protect the happiness of everyone in the world – which means the sadness as well. After essentially saying goodbye to Rei (who I think makes it clear that if he rejects Third Impact she is not going to be around), we get one of the more iconic shots of Evangelion, which is Unit 01 emerging from Lilith’s giant eyeball.

The apocalypse gets to take up a good chunk of space, but when it’s over, and Shinji sees both Yui and Gendo in what looks like the afterlife telling him to stand on his own two feet (dammit, why a happy ending for Gendo? Grump), we see that Rei essentially rebooted the world, as things pick up with an older Shinji about to take a train into Tokyo for high school exams. This is, thank GOD, nothing whatsoever like the wacky romantic comedy universe of Episode 26, or even The Shinji Ikari Raising Project. Yes, he meets Asuka in a cute way, but it’s fairly reserved and there is no falling into anyone’s chest. It’s a new beginning, and is combined with his seeing Kensuke to show that this is what Rei and Shinji wanted. Here he can make new connections and form new bonds. Helpfully, there are also no duels in giant robots (we see the remains of the Evas describes as mysterious remnants), so it’s entirely possible that this will come to pass.

And that’s that. (There is a final chapter, which introduces Mari Illustrious Makinami as a high school classmate of Yui’s with a crush, but it’s pretty slight, and feels like an attempt to shoehorn the very popular Mari into the main manga series.) I’ve always read the manga wanting a somewhat less hopeless take on the human race. And that’s what we get here. It’s not Shinji and Asuka as Adam and Eve, it’s a chance to start anew, given by a girl who learned how to reach out and care for others thanks to Shinji’s empathy. Evangelion is a good story, well told, and I am happy that it ends like this. Well done.

A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 1

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By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve read this one in fan translation. Twice. This was before it was licensed, and there was a very good reason for that: I never, ever thought this would be licensed. The main series is 22 volumes + two short story volumes, and the ‘sequel’ is 11 volumes and counting. And while I knew Yen On was starting, I hadn’t suspected this. But here we are, with certainly one of the most demanded light novel series of all, now out in the West to supplement the already popular Railgun series that spun off from it. What’s it like to read, particularly for a fan who’s already possibly seen the anime it’s based on?

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First off, I want to try an amusing experiment, based on the fact that this has one of the casts from Hell.

Introduced in this volume: Touma Kamijou, Index Librorum Prohibitorum, Mikoto Misaka, Stiyl Magnus, Kaori Kanzaki, Komoe Tsukiyomi, “blue-haired guy”, “frog-faced doctor” (the latter two have no official names). For Railgun readers, this takes place during the “Level Upper” arc.

There’s no question that this volume is absolutely tailor-fit to be a franchise. This volume wastes no time in stripping Index naked, there’s a typical “everyman” hero who’s actually super amazing but has fairly low self-worth (though compared to Hiroyuki from Accel World, Touma is an egotist). There’s a grumpy tsundere who shouts at the hero, though due to his nature she doesn’t hit him; instead the job of physical abuse goes to Index. Oh, and there’s a 35-year-old teacher who looks 12, chain smokes, and wears bunny footy pajamas. If you can get past the cliches, what you have here is a novel that examines the different “rules” of magic and science, and what would happen if they crossed paths. If your answer was “lots of cool fights and near-death experiences”, step to the top of the class.

It’s worth noting that when I first read the fan translation, I felt the style was overly complex and verbose, but put it down to translation issues. No, as the Yen Press version makes clear, Kamachi’s style is overly complex and verbose. Certain phrases are bolded, which appears to not signify anyone is shouting, but merely to note that something important has just been said or revealed. There’s also some expletives, which surprised me, but fit the emotions of the speaker. As you’d expect for a first novel, some of the characterization is still forming. Index is quite snarky in her first scene, and doesn’t really become the Index we know till she is healed after her injuries (specifically, as they walk to the baths, she seems to spontaneously become Index in front of our eyes). Even for someone who is “pretending to be a villain for her sake”, Stiyl is over the top in his attempts to kill Touma. And given how insanely popular she became, it’s surprising how little Mikoto appears in this first book, serving merely as a plot device to show off Touma’s abilities.

It’s hard for me to judge how well this would read to a new reader, since I’m so familiar with it. I think the translation reads as smoothly as it can given the author, and that fans of anime will certainly enjoy it. That said, it’s a slow start, despite all the battles, and you really need to be prepared for a lot of talking and explaining – yes, even more than the average. If you’re interested in seeing why the series really took off, I’d wait till the third volume, but this is certainly a solid beginning.

Gou-dere Sora Nagihara, Vol. 1

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By Suu Minazuki. Released in Japan as “Gou-dere Bishoujo Sora Nagihara” by Hakusensha, serialized in various Young Animal spinoffs. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I tend to try to read a lot of Volume 1s that are released by manga companies, even if the premise makes me sort of rear back a bit. Sometimes I find I’m pleasantly surprised, such as, say, Haganai. Sometimes I can’t quite make it through the volume, as happened with Monster Musume. And then there’s this title, where I made it through the volume out of sheer morbid fascination at how appalling it was going to get, and whether it could keep up its pace of sexual assault jokes with no breathing space. Unfortunately, the answer is “not really”, but it made a valiant effort, at least.

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The creator is better known over here for a series called Sora no Otoshimono, and I’ve no doubt fans would rather be seeing that series, but it’s 20 volumes, while this is four. This particular series revolves around a young nebbish man who spends most of his life being sexually attracted to the girls in his bishoujo magazines, particularly the star of Tama x Kiss (a thinly veiled parody of Kimi x Kiss and all those other ecchi visual novels), Sora Nagihara. Then suddenly, for reasons that are still not particularly clear, Sora comes out of the magazine and appears in his lap. Only this is not the cute, shy, soon to die heroine he’s familiar with. She’s a Gou-dere, which I think is a tsundere-esque word that means she’s crude and appalling (with a hidden depressive side, which we see towards the end of this volume). She desires to have her new “master” rule the world by sleeping with every girl around him.

And here’s where the part of this book that’s an over the top parody and satire comes in, as she proceeds to kidnap, strip, and sexually assault young women for her so-called master (who then gets the blame, arrested, and beaten half to death by the police officers in town). The assault *is* the point of the manga – the heroine is constantly carrying around little packages of milk in order to allow her to create “facial’ shots as she finds a new victim. There is a childhood friend of the hero’s, naturally, who is appalled at what’s happening but mostly just yells and screams at the hero to stop Sora. The other girl on the cover is the president of the boxing club, who is assigned to destroy our hero (he has a name, but makes so little an impression I feel reluctant to use it), and who Sora ends up magically giving huge breasts, because of course she does.

As I said, the key here is over the top. This is not particularly meant to be titillating, it’s meant to make your jaw drop. When it’s at its most appalling, I admit I had to admire its sheer effort. Unfortunately, it also tries to have a typical harem plot while also parodying it, and that’s a high wire act it can’t quite achieve. I don’t buy that all these girls are in love with this guy for any reason other than “the plot says so.” There’s also a hint towards the end that even Sora herself may have a more serious storyline in her, and I don’t really want serious stories in this series. It makes the service harder to take.

If you’re a young man, and want to see what a parody of the typical “ecchi Japanese harem” series is like (and most North American examples we’ve seen over here are far less explicit than this), then you may want to pick this up. For people who really like fanservice no matter what, definitely pick this up. For everyone else… I don’t think the parody is good enough to justify buying it.