First of all, the author, Miyamura Yuuko, is _NOT_ the same person as the voice actress who played Asuka in Evangelion. I just wanted to point that out because I wondered about it, too, when I first saw the name.
Somewhat unexpectedly, at least to me, this isn't the original work. Anime is. I haven't seen the anime yet, but based on comments by the author, this novel series appears to be a combination of side stories and parallel stories. I'm assured that reading this first will not spoil the anime, so I'll continue to read on to the next volume.
To use the book's lingo, I'd say that this book is meta-weird. It's geeky in a cute kind of way. To me, though, it's not quite geeky enough in that some of the technical details aren't very clear. Except for the supernatural parts, everything else could've been explained more realistically. I guess maybe that would put off less technical people. I'm not really complaining either way, anyway.
The only real complaint I have is that the narrator keeps changing, and I found myself getting confused as to whose thoughts I was reading, especially early on. Overall, I'm not all that fond of the phrase structures used by the author. In a way, maybe that goes along with the technical details. I suddenly find myself missing Akiyama-sensei's writing style.
One last thing. While I was reading, I thought Yahagi Sayuri would be absolutely perfect as Fumie. I mean, there she is, "shougakusei oyaji!" Then I was disappointed to learn Sachiko Kojima plays Fumie. But I don't really know her very well, so maybe she's also a good fit for the role.
