

Shinji's character and personality, alongside various other characters from the series, such as Asuka Langley Soryu's, are also slightly different in the manga. The plot, however, features numerous small differences from the plot of the anime, including Toji Suzuhara's death, the omission of five Angels, and an earlier introduction of Kaworu/Tabris. Like the anime, the manga is focused on Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy who was recruited by his father Gendo to the shadowy organization NERV to pilot a giant bio-machine mecha named " Evangelion" into combat against beings called " Angels". However, in the early days, he was involved in some way up to the sixth episode by coming up with ideas, and in the 24th episode he was the animation supervisor. Sadamoto was the original character designer for the anime with Hideaki Anno as the supervisor and animated only part of the original anime for the purpose of writing the manga version.

It was initially released before the anime series of the same name by Gainax and Tatsunoko Production and was originally intended as a companion adaptation to that of the TV series. It consists of 14 volumes, each composed of several "stages" or chapters.

It began in Shōnen Ace in December 1994 and ended in June 2013.
