The first manga from the series is Neon Genesis Evangelion, written and illustrated by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who also worked in the character designs from the anime. The manga closely follows the anime story with few changes made to the characters or certain events. The series is serialized in Shōnen Ace from Kadokawa Shoten starting in 1995, but it was put on hiatus. The manga restarted publication in the first issue from the Kadokawa's Young Ace on July from 2009. The chapters from the series have been collected into 11 tankōbon volumes which were published from August 29, 1995 to June 19, 2007. Volume 12 was finally released in Japan on April 3, 2010. Viz Media licensed the series for English release and has published the 11 volumes between March 24, 2004 and November 18, 2008.