IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!

Which means it's time again for our annual holiday round-up of reviews, where we review one new manga from today to Christmas, be they naughty, nice, or just somewhere in the middle.

That also means it's time yet again for our Holiday Review Giveaway!  The prize, as always, is a $25 gift certificate to RightStuf so that you can hopefully pick up some of the better books we cover for yourselves.  The rules are simple:

*Just comment (here or on Twitter) about the best manga you read this year.  Old or new, long or short, all are valid.

*The deadline for entry is 12AM on December 26.

*We will reach out to the winner via email or Twitter DM.

And that's it!  So enjoy the reviews, share with your friends, and if possible remember to share some of that love through the site's Patreon or Ko-Fi accounts!

Review: FULL METAL PANIC!

Let's take a look at another notable mecha series from the 2000s that made a much more graceful transition into manga.

FULL METAL PANIC! (Furumetaru Panikku!), based on the light novels by Shouji Gatou with art by Retsu Tateo.  First published in 2000 and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:

Kaname Chidori is a popular, smart young girl who keeps busy with her duties as class representative.  Everything would be perfectly normal for her if not for the new boy in class: Sousuke Sagara.  As far as she knows, he's a weird military otaku who follows her everywhere and treats everything like a major threat.  What she doesn't know is that Sousuke isn't just some gun nut, but an actual sergeant for the secret military organization MITHRIL.  He and his teammates believe Kaname possesses a strange power that malicious forces want to exploit for their own purpose, and he is determined to protect her at all costs.

Review: RAHXEPHON

Of course, after talking about an Eva manga, it's time to talk about the manga adaptation of the last of the red-hot Evangelion wannabes.

RAHXEPHON (Razefon), by Takeaki Momose, based on the series by BONES and Yutaka Izubuchi.  First published in 2001 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

For years, Tokyo has been a world onto itself.  The city is enveloped within a giant bubble, leaving those within unaware of the world outside.  That's certainly true for Ayato Kamina, who spends his days with his adopted sister Reika and living the ordinary life of a high school student.  One day Tokyo comes under attack and both he and Reika are saved by a member of the Terra Force.  They reveal that Tokyo was sealed away by a mysterious race of beings known as the Mu, and that Ayako is the only person who can pilot Terra's greatest weapon: the giant battle robot RahXephon.

Review: NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: LEGEND OF THE PIKO PIKO MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS

November means mecha manga here at the Manga Test Drive, and that means it's time once more to look at the latest Evangelion gag manga from Dark Horse.

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: LEGEND OF THE PIKO PIKO MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS (Shinseiki Evangelion: PikoPiko Chuugakusei Densetsu), based on the series by Khara, written by Yushi Kawata & art by Yukito.  First published in 2014 and first published in North America in 2017.

PLOT:

There are enormous, strange creatures threatening to destroy the world...at some point in the future.  In the mean time, the staff at NERV Middle School need to train students to pilot their ultimate weapon: the Evangelion.  It turns out that there are three (later four) perfect pilots, so it's up to Misato to train Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and Kaworu using the best method possible: video games.

Review: EERIE QUEERIE!

Ghosts are spooky, but badly, mildly offensive localized titles are possibly even more scary.

EERIE QUEERIE! (Gosuto!), by Shuri Shiozu.  First published in 1999 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Mitsuo is a lonely kid with a strange gift: he can see ghosts.  Because of this, he often finds him hassled by spirits desperate for attention and conversation.  Sometimes they'll even go so far as to possess Mitsuo's body, as Mitsuo learns the hard way.  When a dead schoolgirl does just this to confess to Mitsuo's classmate Hanasuma, he ends up gaining an unexpected partner who might be into Mitsuo more than he lets on.