In the Shinji Ikari Detective Diary, Shinji is still a high schooler who tries to stay out of things he thinks he doesn’t belong in and things that could end poorly. They manage to pull off their personalities very well, despite the ridiculous plot, but there are very few other connections to the original. But this is Evangelion in name only the characters are the only thing they took from the original series. It turns out that it was as fun as I expected it to be, perhaps a little more so with the introduction of some interesting concepts. Shinji, the fully 3-dimensional protagonist of the Evangelion series, trying to solve mysteries? Sounds like a manga that I could have quite a bit of fun with. When I heard about the Shinji Ikari Detective Diary, I was quite interested in the concept.
It is a huge series to get into with various manga surrounding the series, including the original Neon Genesis Evangelion manga and spanning other entries into the series like Campus Apocalypse and The Shinji Ikari Raising Project, which takes place in alternate universes, it is truly a massive fandom. But I watched every episode of the original series, and watched the first two movies as soon as I could get my hands on them. Now, I’ve been a fan of Evangelion for only a short time, compared to some people.