NordRonnoc
Since: Oct, 2010
12/15/2016 00:00:00
You\'ve called the characters more psychologically fucked up a bad thing?
Millership
Since: Jan, 2014
12/15/2016 00:00:00
It's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, Dysfunction Junction is a trope, after all, and I understand its appeal. It's just that Eva sometimes handles the trope poorly, and to me it felt like some scenes were "craziness for craziness sake".
EDIT: And the problem I listed in the review is not the relative craziness of the characters, but the more explicit way it is depicted in the manga. At times it was too disturbing to read.
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The Manga: Evangelion as it should have been
The main strengths and weaknesses of the TV series stem from the fact that Eva is born from Hideaki Anno’s hatred for his own audience. While delivering this giant “fuck you” to the otakus, he raised mature themes, created an unique setting, interesting plot and a fantastic cast of characters. But doing so, he completely forgot about properly and naturally developing them. The message hinders the story. The manga adaptation, being a derivative work by a different author who puts more emphasis on the actual plot and characters, keeps the strengths and has none of these weaknesses.
All in all, the manga is a much more coherent and solid story. While keeping the general direction of the plot and essence of the characters, Sadamoto puts his own spin on them. There are subtle differences (Shinji, Gendo), expansions (Rei, Kaji) and one complete change in characterization (Kaworu), and they all feel like natural developments and only add to the story, enhancing it.
The main problem of the manga adaptation is that it’s a lot more psychologically fucked-up than its anime counterpart. There are a lot of disturbing things in the TV series, but being a part of a different medium (not to mention a different demographic), it had to deliver them with a certain amount of subtlety, however small. The manga just goes all-out with the craziness. But considering it is Evangelion we’re talking about here, it’s just a minor nitpick.
The ending is pretty straightforward (considering manga’s eighteen years’ worth of Schedule Slip, it might come off as unsatisfactory to some) and actually resolves the plot (which, keeping in mind how both of the TV series endings turned out, is a bit untraditional).
In conclusion, I highly recommend Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s manga adaptation. It’s a must-read.