Dark Horse has announced the acquisition of Osamu Takahashi’s Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Shinji Ikari Raising Project, an ongoing five-volume manga loosely based on a computer game from Gainax (the studio that created Evangelion) in which players “raise” the character of Shinji by making decisions about the way he lives his life that alter his fate.  

The Shinji Ikari Raising Project manga series, which Dark Horse plans to release in the spring of 2009, appears to have affinities to the alternate universe presented in episode 26 of the Evangelion anime.  In the manga Shinji and Asuka are lifelong friends and Rei is Shinji’s love interest.

Like Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s Evangelion manga (published by Viz Media with Vol. 11 due in November), The Shinji Ikari Raising Project appears in Kadokawa’s Shonen Ace magazine.  Kadokawa also published a shojo NGE saga, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days, which was released in the States by ADV.  Even though it has been well over a decade since the release of the Evangelion anime series, this property remains unusually popular as do the manga series related to it.