Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days

Imagine a Neon Genesis Evangelion in which dating the right girl is more important than saving the world…

Yes, that's right.  There's a new manga out that has transplanted the angst-ridden characters from Evangelion into a shojo-ish manga.  That covers the first volume, anyway.  There are hints of what's to come.

Harried, harassed and harangued – that's Shinji Ikari's life in a nutshell.  Still, his days are fairly typical for a Tokyo teenager: he's got a pushy pal in Asuka who rudely rouses him whenever he's running late for school, and he's surrounded by the standard assortment of high school goofballs.  In fact, everything's just as you'd expect… until one day when Shinji bumps into a strange girl he's never seen before, and she promptly accuses him of peeking up her skirt!  But that's not the worst of it.  Strange dreams have been haunting his sleep lately – dreams of a robotic "Other" just beyond the horizon…

So, Shinji's no longer a self-absorbed loner and he and Asuka are childhood friends.  Their parents are all alive and working for Nerve, as are (it is revealed) their homeroom teacher Misato and the school doctor Ritsuko.  One day a perky (!) transfer student named Rei arrives and promptly becomes Asuka's rival for Shinji's affections.  (Yes, really.  It was weird to see Rei so animated.)  Several students from class are sent to Nerve to participate in an experiment that collects their bio-pattern data to use in developing "something that can accept and transport passengers."  Shinji and his friends learn in volume two that they're being groomed as Eva pilots when the mysterious Adam appears and the teens are sent into battle. 

It will definitely be interesting to see how much of the shojo aspect of the manga is kept as the series goes on.  After all, there's not much point in a remake if it's going to be the same as the original.  It seems as though the strained relationship between Shinji and his father remains for this new version.  Hopefully they work on a different origin for Rei, though, especially if they continue this romantic love triangle story.  :)