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Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Manga Review: Knights of Sidonia, Volume 1, by Tsutomo Nihei


Rating (Out of 5): ~2.5-3
Publisher: Vertical Comics
Release Date: 2013
Volumes: 15.
Spoilers?: No.
Volume: 2.

Goodreads Synopsis:

“CORE EXPOSED”

Outer space, the far future.

A lone seed ship, the Sidonia, plies the void, ten centuries since the obliteration of the solar system. The massive, nearly indestructible, yet barely sentient alien life forms that destroyed humanity’s home world continue to pose an existential threat.

Nagate Tanikaze has only known life in the vessel’s bowels deep below the sparkling strata where humans have achieved photosynthesis and new genders. Not long after he emerges from the Underground, however, the youth is bequeathed a treasured legacy by the spaceship’s coolheaded female captain.

Meticulously drawn, peppered with clipped humor, but also unusually attentive to plot and structure for the international cult favorite, Knights of Sidonia may be Tsutomu Nihei’s most accessible work to date even as it hits notes of tragic grandeur as a hopeless struggle for survival unfolds.

Review:

I think maybe this is a slow starting series. It must be, given how much people like this series. Because this volume was slow and did not pull me in. Maybe I’m just not a sci-fi person, though.
We’re thrown into the story, a weird space-based world, where there are aliens to fight. Nagate has been living separated from everyone else, though, and doesn’t even realize that there are other humans around that could help him. He’s one of the few humans left who eat real food, and he has no real training with space-fighting and the machines, but he’s been using one in secret.
It’s odd to me how he’s been hiding without realizing there are other humans so close by, and yet he stumbled upon them all of a sudden now that he’s alone. Either way, though, he’s living in an odd world and pushed into helping fight. It gets bad, bloody and deadly, and doesn’t end well for them, either.
Maybe it is that I’m just not a sci-fi person, because I’m not really interested in picking up the next one. This one was slow and odd, and didn’t pull me into the story, world, or characters.

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