50 Best Comics of the Decade (2010-2015) Thus Far: Part 6 (#25-16)
Kadokawa Shoten / Viz Media 25. Neon Genesis Evangelion (Kadokawa Shoten/Viz Media, 2010-2014, Volumes 12-14) Writer and Illustrator - Yoshiyuki Sadamoto Shortly after Hideaki Anno conceived the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime in 1993, he met with comics creator Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and together they collaborated on a manga adaptation that was set to premiere shortly before the anime to help boost interest in the television series. While the 26-episode series aired in entirety over just six months, the manga - which retold the same story, more or less - ran for nearly 20 years, not completing its run in Japan until 2013 (with Viz publishing the final volume in 2014). Being a mostly faithful adaptation of the greatest anime series of all time pretty much guarantees the manga to be solid as well, but what makes it so valuable to the Evangelion diehards is the little differences that set the manga's version apart. Sadamoto makes this story his own, consistently evoking different