Netizens complained that Shueisha's new manga "Monster No. 8" copied EVA, sparking heated discussions

The new manga "Monster No. 8" produced by Shueisha, which has been serialized for nearly two years, is becoming more and more popular, but negative news has also arrived as expected. Some netizens complained that the more they watched "Monster No. 8", the more they felt it had a taste of EVA, and the heroine looked more like Asuka from EVA. After posting the complaint, they did not expect that it would resonate with other netizens and cause heated discussions.

The angle of the chin...

"Monster No. 8" is a comic work created by the author Naoya Matsumoto. It was serialized in the electronic weekly "Shonen JUMP+" in July 2020. The story tells that in Japan, where the appearance rate of monsters is second to none, monsters ruthlessly ravage this country and trample on people's daily lives. The protagonist Kafka Hibino, who once aspired to become a defense member and now works in the monster cleaning industry, was affected by a mysterious creature one day and his body began to transform into a monster. The Japanese Defense Force, who is responsible for the work of defeating monsters, called him "Monster No. 8".

·The problem is, some netizens posted a post complaining that the heroine Shinomiya Chikoruo in "Monster No. 8" looks too much like Asuka, which directly ignited the anger of other netizens, and they followed suit to complain that many settings of "Monster No. 8" were plagiarized from EVA.

Not only are the characters similar, the actual story structure is also very similar. Netizens criticized that "Monster No. 8" is just a copy of EVA in a different shell, and that it doesn't need to put too much effort into the conception, just basking in the glory of EVA is enough to attract attention.

An industry insider said that nowadays many works cover too wide a range of topics, and it is inevitable that latecomers will collide with each other, causing controversy. However, it remains to be seen where the author's direction will be in the future. After all, no author will easily admit that he wants to plagiarize.