Fumino Hayashi’s Neon Genesis Evangelion the Iron Maiden 2nd (Tokyo: Asuka Comics, 2004-07-31, Jp language manga) is set in the alternative universe (which Stripey calls the “bread” universe in homage to the piece of toast that Rei is biting on as she collides into Shinji) imagined by Shinji in Ep 25 of the anime series and is completely different from Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s more nuanced re-telling of the original. A doujinshi carried by a major publisher, if you will.
In this universe, Asuka is Shinji’s childhood friend who comes to wake him every morning. Shinji’s mom, Yui, is still alive as are Asuka’s parents. On a typical morning, Shinji literally runs into Rei who then turns out to be a new transfer student in Shinji and Asuka’s class with Misato as their homeroom teacher and Ritsuko as the school doctor. Touji, Kensuke and Hikari reprise their familiar supporting roles. Kaoru Nagisa is also a classmate and is rather interested in Shinji, to the point that Asuka, who fancies Shinji, feels a tad threatened.
Rei quickly puts the initial bad blood with Shinji behind her and attempts to befriend him. It’s quite clear that she doesn’t have parents and is lonely. And the six Children go off to do their Eva plug testing together. So yes, there are still giant robots but no tragic backstory and no Angels in this volume. Gendou is still an arsehole and creates angst for Shinji by hardly acknowledging his presence. Well, it’s nice to know some things don’t change.
In his honest, sincere and bumbling way, Shinji does small, kind things for Rei which touches her heart. This is how otherwise useless guys (like Bakayuki of Kiminozo) get cute (but seriously disturbed) girls. Asuka gets jealous and so hilarity ensues. But she also shows her righteous side. When some faceless female classmates covertly bully the blue-haired, red-eyed new comer who won’t try to fit in (e.g. she continues to wear the uniform from her previous school) by stealing her bad and trying to burn her stuff in the school incinerator, Asuka intervenes and goes through much trouble (and soot) to recover Rei’s possessions. A strange sort of friendship is thus formed (which the cover depicts well) but is immediately tested when Rei confides in Asuka that she is growing very fond of Shinji.
On the whole, this depiction of Evangelion did not disconcert me as much as I thought it would given how an angsty, pseudo-Christian, big robot and whiny protagonist anime was effortlessly converted into a rather happy, school-based boy-girl relationship manga (which also makes the Jp lang text easier to cope with). Having the bread universe in the original anime helped somewhat but I suspect it pandered well to my own desire for wish fulfillment - I grew to love the characters of the series and was quite appalled at how they were treated in the end. Out of unsatisfying endings comes fan fiction - ugh, that last thought just brought out the terror in me that this happy manga might warp into something akin to Jim Lazar’s The Garden of EVA.
I liked the art which was very expressive and enjoyed the light, fluffy story. Given what we know of the characters in the anime and given the new assumptions and parameters (mom still alive, everyone is less screwed up), it’s almost plausible. The antics of the Children, particularly the Shinji-Asuka-Rei threesome trio, persuaded me to get the other three volumes. Notes on Vol.2 soon!