Harris Smith recommends Neon Genesis Evangelion
I have to admit, I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to Manga. Most of my exposure to Japanese comics comes from movies, and that’s almost exclusively confined to Akira and the amazingly awesome 1970’s live-action adaptations of Kazuo Koike’s “Lone Wolf and Cub” comics (for real, if you haven’t seen any of these movies, watch them immediately). There’s a lot of Manga out there, so much so that it’s intimidating. In less than a year, comiXology has added more than 108 Manga series published by Viz, with more coming in every week. Where do I start? It’s the same conundrum you hear from a lot of novices approaching a new medium or genre, whether it’s comics, Norwegian black metal or the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Now I know, though, if you’re going to take the leap into the world of Manga, you start with Neon Genesis Evangelion. The first volume on Neon Genesis Evangelion starts out breathlessly. The city is under attack by a massive creature called an Angel and the government has deployed a giant, human-piloted android to stop the threat. As the destructive battle decimates everything around them, depressed teenager Shinji is whisked to safety by an associate of his estranged father, a government scientist behind the development of the giant android, know as Evangelion, which Shinji discovers he is more connected to than he ever could have imagined…This, mind you, is all in the first third of the book, which is the first of a 13 volume series.
If, like me, you don’t know much about Manga, this is a great entry point, it’s got just about anything you could ask for from a comic. Like the classic Anime series Robotech (one of my few other points of reference for this kind of thing), Neon Genesis Evangelion deftly balances robot action with human drama. Now that I’ve started, I can’t wait to read the whole series, and instead of wondering where to start, I’m now asking myself, “What next”
[Read Neon Genesis Evangelion on comiXology*]
*Only available in the US & Canada
Harris Smith is a Brooklyn-based comics and media professional. In addition to his role as a Senior Production Coordinator at comiXology, he edits several comics anthologies, including Jeans and Felony Comics, under the banner of Negative Pleasure Publications. He’s also the host of the weekly radio show Negative Pleasure on Newtown Radio.