Neon Genesis Evangelion: Volume 12

by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (story and art), khara and Gainax (original concept), 187 pages

In an alternate future, the paramilitary organization NERV employs a select group of teenagers to pilot giant semi-sentient, semi-organic mecha called Evangelions (or Evas) in battle against the devastating attacks of other mysterious mecha called Angels. Fourteen-year-old Shinji Ikari is one of those pilots and his father, Gendo, heads NERV. Their relationship has never been ideal, and as his father's twisted goals begin to surface and the organization comes under vicious attack from even shadier government forces, Shinji must face his own weaknesses...or die...along with everyone else he has ever known and loved.

Not for the cheerful, this series. People die. A lot. In sometimes gruesome fashion. For stupid mistakes, in the heat of battle, or on purpose. Back when I first started these, I marathoned volumes 3-10 and had an awful headache afterwards from crying over all the gut-wrenching plot points; but I didn't resent the discomfort, as I considered it evidence of my investment in the characters, who were so well drawn (figuratively and literally) that I couldn't help but care about them. The story is complex, with its own world-building vocabulary and multiple nefarious conspiracies, and the frenetic action often takes center stage, but it's the psychological and emotional lives of the title's protagonists that give it life and hold this reader's attention.

The series is finally drawing to its dramatic (and traumatic, I'm sure) conclusion, but it will probably be another couple of years before we get to read it, as Sadamoto is notoriously slow to put out books. Having inadvertently seen (only) the surreal psycho-drama that is the final episode of the insanely popular, hugely depressing, genre-breaking animé (it and the manga started at the same time in 1995 or so, but differ on many points), I am prepared for all kinds of messiness but remain optimistic that this incarnation will continue to follow its habit of being ever so slightly more hopeful than its sibling. We shall see...in a few years....