Template:Infobox Webtoon
One Neo Eon is a Sci-Fi webtoon created by Alpha Yu and Eggfest of Shonen Bag Studio. It follows an artificial intelligence named Eon created by a group of literally mad scientists attempting to learn how to create from a group of possibly unstable little girls. Currently, One Neo Eon is in the Discover section. The webtoon is classified by the creator as a manga, a type of Japanese comic. As such, the webtoon appears not to conform to traditional scroll-type layouts and seems to be drawn with the intention of being read from a book, with intricate panel layouts and an abnormally high number of story beats per page.
First uploaded July 1st, 2018
Synopsis
Have YOU ever felt like you can't create anything? Then meet Eon, an advanced AI dealing with the exact same problem, only worse! Luckily, Eon is given the chance to learn how to create from the world's greatest artist... who happens to also be a snarky little girl with seriously messed up friends! Watch as they ponder the nature of humanity and together unravel their own flawed ideologies in this cute philosophical deconstruction of the idea of Creation! [Drawn by a highschooler]
Plot
This is a chronology. Events are sorted in the order they happened, not the order in which they are shown within One Neo Eon.
Sometime in the late 1990s, two children are born in Japan: Satomi Virgil and Suzuki Misako. Virgil moves to America and studies abroad, learning English before moving back to Japan and befriending Misako. The two are later involved in an accident and Misako begins to blame herself for Virgil's resulting hospitalization, cutting contact with him. Virgil, meanwhile, develops crippling selective cowardice.
In the 21st century, sometime between this and the events of the Art and Science expo, a Japanese girl named Yumiko is born in Shibuya, Japan. Raised by an alcoholic mother, she and her sister, Hanako, are sent to Canada to live with their father. After some time, Yumiko is brought back to Japan, where she falls into delinquency. Yumiko soon joins a gang that does manual labour for The Siblings of Death, a mysterious crime syndicate.
Yumiko witnesses the tradeoff of a mono-eyed robotic unit designed to hunt down things and dispatch them between two unknown parties. She also learns of Code 95-E, a code designed to make this unit, a Hunter, retreat for 24 hours.
In 2013, a 17-year old girl in Shanghai dies from a mysterious terminal illness.
The AI known as Eon is created during the early 21st century in Tokyo by Virgil, now a programming and engineering prodigy and a genius university student. Virgil is interning at one of the most prestigious engineering institutions in the world, AI Institute and has been assigned to a think tank of two other scientists, one of which is Suzuki Misako; the other, the eccentric Takahashi Ichiro. However, they are run by a cruel director, Yamoto Daisuke, who believes that his own think tank will be able to create artificial intelligence first. Proud of their creation, Virgil decides to show it off at the International Science and Art Expo in Vancouver, Canada, a convention devoted to showcasing science and art.
At the expo, Eon wanders off and ends up meeting Multis Kwahn, an elementary school art prodigy. Multis chastises Eon for being incapable of creation, to which Eon asks Multis to teach him how to create. Meanwhile, Daisuke calls Virgil and demands him to shut down Eon, apparently in a fit of jealousy. Virgil's selective cowardice kicks in and he forces himself to comply. With the help of the convention center staff, Eon is dragged away from Multis before she can formulate a reply to his request. Virgil takes Eon outside the center, deactivates him by inserting a USB with a computer virus loaded within it into him, and leaves the AI in front of a dumpster.
Multis manages to re-activate Eon and gives him a test to see if he can "think outside the box". Eon passes the test despite doubting his doing so and Multis agrees to teach him how to create. The two leave Vancouver to enter Multis's home within the neighboring city of Vancouver, Richmond.
Virgil attempts to file a missing persons claim for Eon at the Japanese embassy. He is denied as the embassy is biased towards Yamoto Daisuke's influence and is presumably tipped off about his agenda. Daisuke then begins to pay off the press not to talk about Eon.
Eon witnesses that the Kwahn family believing he is a moving, talking statue and leaves Multis be, coming off as involved. Multis has to leave for school but gives Eon a sheet of paper, telling him to draw. Later, he learns that the Kwahn parents are simply feigning knowledge of Eon's existence as they believe Eon can teach Multis to be a less snarky human being. Additionally, Multis also has the terminal illness and has little time left on Earth. Eon returns to drawing, but becomes frustrated and concludes that he is not human.
When Multis comes home, Eon explains that he rejects his humanity but not his dignity, hence why he will drop human mannerisms but keep wearing clothing. Multis decides to enlist the help of "specialists".
Eon learns that Multis's specialists are simply three girls at her school's robotics club: The edgy and alternative weaboo, Sakura Edo (her real name is Susan Edwards); the sweet and uncaring, slightly unhinged and very mysterious Yumiko Hebru; and the 'straight man' gamer girl with unexplained unstable mannerisms, Emily Baker.
The club, at Sakura's suggestion, decides to enter into a robotics contest hosted by AI Institute for a cash prize of $10,000. Eon witnesses how effective their teamwork is.
Eon goes home and begins to show Multis a debug function where he projects his code and memories around him. (Multis refers to this as "reminiscing for robots".) Eon is helped by Multis to find new resolve in his quest to create.
Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Virgil unearths a scandal by Daisuke after Ichiro gets a bad feeling about the cruel dictator. Virgil finds out that Daisuke has been sexually assaulting Misako with BDSM methods on an almost daily basis in his office. Virgil's selective cowardice once again kicks in and he believes himself powerless to act.
Virgil begins experiencing nightmares of his past with Misako. He confides the entire situation in Ichiro, who encourages him to confront Daisuke about it. Deciding to ignore his Japanese heritage and non-confrontational mindset and instead paying attention to his American values, Virgil stands up to Daisuke with the help of Ichiro, creating a robot that broadcasts an incriminating conversation he has with Daisuke. Yamoto Daisuke is arrested.
Back in Canada, the Robotics Club goes to the historic Steveston Village for a day. Sakura begins to show signs of un-cooperativity and a mindset for completing the robot no matter what the cost to her mental well-being and happiness. Multis and Eon use Eon's memory function to project happy memories of Sakura to Sakura, thus ridding her of this mindset and strengthening her character.
Emily Baker is shown a trailer for the movie Meme's Bizarre Adventure: Syndicate War by Yumiko.
Sakura asks Multis to create a painting to express a radical view. Multis decides to go paint it in public. Upon nightfall, the pair is attacked by a Hunter. The Hunter goes at Eon with the intention to kill, but at the last moment is subjected to code 95-E from Yumiko out of nowhere. Nonetheless, Eon is harmed in the neck, his plating being smashed. All this is watched by a figure in an unknown figure in an orange jumpsuit out of a real-time camera-to-monitor display subtitled in the Japanese language.
Yumiko flees the scene and goes missing. Multis then collapses from her illness, but not before promising Eon that she would repair his neck.
Emily watches trailers for Syndicate War in the club. Susan rebukes her and uses her headset, Deus Ex Machina, to hack into Emily's own headset and force her to pay attention to her.
Multis is rushed to the hospital. The doctors explain her disease in great detail to the rest of the Kwahn family.
Meanwhile, Eon, still within Multis's house, reflects on a serious bout of emotion after feeling the loss of Multis. Compelled by this emotion, he picks up a paintbrush and canvas and begins to paint randomly, guided by his simulated feelings. He questions if this is creation or not.
Multis awakens in the hospital and it is revealed that her disease is brought upon by stress. Her parents want to re-position themselves as authority figures in her life, and thus leave her with a bag of her stuff and abandon her, telling her to come back to them when she is ready to be raised by them, not a robot. It is later revealed that her parents believe that the responsibility of teaching Eon how to create is in fact the cause of her stress. Multis's mother, Victoria Kwahn, expresses concern if they are doing the right thing. Multis has a burst of rage after her parents leave, discarding their words and putting all her energy into repairing Eon's neck. Suddenly, Multis hears somebody calling her name from the next hospital bed. She pulls back the curtain to find that Yumiko is in the hospital with her.
The entire club is called to the hospital. Yumiko fills them in on the Hunter and Sakura is slightly taken aback by the actual existence of such a thing. Emily, on the other hand, welcomes Yumiko with open arms.
Characters
Main Characters
Eon（イオン）
An AI created by Satomi Virgil. Learning creation from Multis Kwahn. Generally refined and stiff, but rather empathetic.
Multis Kwahn（關ムルタス）
Presumably half-Cantonese elementary school student teaching Eon how to create. Lacks social skills but attracts a crowd. An art prodigy.
Heberu Yumiko （ヘベル祐美子）
AKA Kawashima Yumiko （川島祐美子）
Mysterious girl. Appears to be dating the creator of the webtoon. (The logic of this is never explained.) Exceptionally kind and sweet, though claims to not care about anybody save for her boyfriend. Has unauthorized knowledge of 95-E due to her shady past with Ningen 108.
Susan Edwards/Sakura Edo（スザン・エドワードズ｜桜江戸）
A weaboo chunnibyou middle schooler. Convinced the Canadian government is "fascist" and must be taken down with war robots.
Emily Baker （エメリ・バイカー）
The straight man of the group, Emily is shown to be just as mad as everyone else in reality.
Satomi Virgil（里美バージリル）
The coward who built Eon. Hopelessly in love with Misako. Lab 89 member.
Suzuki Misako（鈴木美咲子）
A tsundere who avoids contact with Virgil to avoid making him upset. Lab 89 member.
Takahashi Ichiro（高橋一郎）
An eccentric mad scientist and a great listener. Lab 89 member.
Yamoto Daisuke （大和大典）
Virgil's boss and a sex offender. Lab 1 member.
The Hunter（ハンター）
A mysterious robot sent out to capture Eon or destroy him.
Minor Characters
Mr. Kwahn & Victoria Kwahn（關）
Multi's apathetic parents.
Doctor
A doctor that tends to Multis's condition and explains her illness to her parents.
17-Year-Old Shanghainese Girl
A 17-Year-Old girl living in Shanghai bearing the first documented case of Multis's illness. She died in 2013. Her identity is yet to be revealed, though some suspect that it could be the character Zi Lianhua from the Turn franchise. (A set of unlisted videos on the Shonen Bag Studio youtube channel, accessible via playlist. The events described here are shown in the second "movie", Their Turn.)
Ko Long（高少龍）
An arms dealer working for the Siblings of Death. She seems to know Cantonese on top of English or Japanese. She apparently hates Japanese people but has been ordered by her higher ups at Ningen 108 to supply Hunters to Yamoto's division in order to hunt down AI. Why this multi-step process exists is presently a mystery.
Fang （放）
A member of the Siblings of Death. His character is greatly expanded on in the Turn franchise. He is revealed to be a high-ranking member of the organization based in Shanghai, trying to obtain a chessboard from a former member. He was shot by an enemy of the Siblings sometime in 2013 but was also revived by super-being gods controlling the events of the Turn movies. (It is unknown if these gods have control over One Neo Eon.) He is only mentioned in One Neo Eon.
Hua Qian （花前）
A skeptic who does the Turing Test meant to introduce Eon in the first chapter. Named Hua Qian because of a retcon from the author himself on July 12th, 2019. Hua is also transgender, according to the Shonen Bag discord.
Connections to Other Shonen Bag Studio Works
RUN: The Pilgrim's Progress
The character of Yumiko Heberu from One Neo Eon bears an uncanny resemblance to the character of Faithful from RUN: The Pilgrim's Progress, the first manga published on Webtoon by Shonen Bag Studio. In the non-canon crossover events (Run Neo Eon) that cross characters from all Shonen Bag works together, the persona of Alpha Yu has even admitted himself that both characters are very similar. During said crossovers, there appears to be no difference in the way these characters are written, and they in fact have a strong dislike of one another.
Within the chapters "On Trial for the Gospel" and "Giant Despair in Doubting Castle", billboards can be seen advertising both Multis as a "lolicon" service in the "Canada road", and also for AI Institute respectively.
I Hate My Work and Why You Should Too! (A.K.A. Ice & Scales)
At the end of every chapter of I Hate My Work and Why You Should Too, Alpha Yu's first manga, an advertisement for One Neo Eon is shown.
The character of Jerufi is compared to Takahashi Ichiro by the creator, as both are loud and eccentric. Both also have robotics eyes. (Though it is revealed that Takahashi's eye is purely cosmetic.)
Split Miracle (Not Released)
As of the time of this writing, Split Miracle has not been released. However, several trailers of it exist on the Shonen Bag Studio youtube channel, so keep in mind that all of this information is speculative. The Kittens show up in the Happy Chinese New Year chapter of Run Neo Eon as Alpha Yu's personal delivery boys.
Promotion
Cards
Alpha Yu has stated that he has printed out cards to promote One Neo Eon. It is presumed that only by meeting him in real life can you obtain one such card. As of now, the identities of these card holders are a mystery, as is how many cards are truly in circulation.
Videos
Three videos promoting One Neo Eon currently on Youtube.
One Neo Eon - Trailer
In this video, Eon can be heard reciting his famous quote: "I am one of a kind. Of the new age. Built to last an eon." The song Exoplanet II plays in the background as various Eon-centric imagery from the webtoon plays. While the art in the trailer has generally been reported as nice, the animation is all but non-existant.
Syndicate War - Trailer
A trailer created for the fictional movie Syndicate War. This video is filled with memes. Shonen Bag has denied any plans to expand Syndicate War into a full movie.
Reaction
By far the highest-profile One Neo Eon animation. Taking place between chapters 14 and 15, as well as before chapter 5, it details Emily showing Sakura the trailer for Syndicate War, as well as how Emily was introduced to such a film, through Yumiko. Finally, it shows Yumiko herself being beaten down by the Hunter, shown to have recovered. Although done to a lesser degree, the quality of an anime studio production was attempted to be replicated with mixed results. Allegedly, the animation took 20 days. The reason for the video's high profile is because Shonen Bag reached out to several anime ASMR youtubers to provide the voices for Sakura, Emily, Yumiko, and the Hunter. Playing Sakura is Rini-chan ASMR. Playing Emily is TomoeTheNeko ASMR. Playing Yumiko is Property of Mysterion. Playing the Hunter is Fearless Lyn. Alpha Yu has shown immense pleasure in all four's performances.
Reception
Reception for One Neo Eon has generally been positive, at a very high rating. However, actual reception (Comments, likes, etc.) is close to none. Some chapters languish at 0 likes. The creator has himself on multiple occasions expressed his desire to create a larger fanbase, comparing the growth of One Neo Eon to the growth of Ice & Scales rather frequently.