Books like Neon Genesis Evangelion 3-in-1 Edition, Vol. 1

I have an old memory, as a 14 or 15-year-old, when a channel in Australia called SBS started airing subtitled / subbed anime. Possibly their second show (after "Akira") happened to be a post-apocalyptic anime named "Neon Genesis Evangelion". I would be hooked on that show, and others of the medium from that point onwards.So, reading the manga pretty much elicited the same feelings of excitement, though tempered with a more adult view of things. Shinji Akari, the protagonist of this series, starts out as a very apathetic young man of 14 years (coincidentally, the same age as I was when I first delved into the world of anime). He's been living with his aunty and uncle, who has been caring for him since his father, Gendo Akari, foisted Shinji onto them. Compounding the rejection from his father, his mother is also no longer in the picture. So he's had to deal with parental rejection by shielding himself (and his heart) in a shell of apathy so that no one could ever hurt him emotionally.The world is also very much a traumatised one, where in the year 2000, a traumatic event dubbed The Second Impact, wiped out almost half of the world's population. 15 years later, in 2015, Angels have suddenly appeared once more - which is where the story begins.On a character level, I don't think that Shinji appreciates how much the adults in his life (primarily Gendo, but also Misato) have been manipulating him, rejecting him when he didn't want to be a pilot for the eponymous Evangelion, knowing full well that eventually, he would be interested enough to remain a pilot. For that matter, Shinji has also been testing the people around him, rejecting them as a way to prove that "see, they don't want you around anyways" before he connected too deeply, only to be rejected. I find that concept fascinating. Especially moreso since the need and desire for human connection and belonging is so much an integral facet of what it means to be human. Adding to that are the machinations of NERV, as well as the shadowy figures aiding Gendo Akari. I know that there's more to come, but I'm hoping that I'll finally obtain some sort of clarity as to what happens in the end. (I only watched the 26-episode series, and have never watched the OVAs: "Death and Rebirth" and "The End of Evangelion", having pegged them as being too gory for me to handle).At least the drawings by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto are aesthetically pleasing to look at, while I try to wrap my head around what I have found to be a very convoluted story... :)