Knights of Sidonia, Volume 1

シドニアの騎士 [Sidonia no Kishi] #1

by Tsutomu Nihei, Kumar Sivasubramanian (Translator)

“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.

Genres: Manga, Science Fiction, Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Seinen, Comics Manga

177 pages, Paperback

First published September 23, 2009

About the author

See also 弐瓶 勉.

Tsutomu Nihei (弐瓶 勉 Nihei Tsutomu, born 1971) is a Japanese manga artist. His cyberpunk-influenced artwork has gained a strong cult following. He has a relatively large community of fans in Germany where his manga Blame!, NOiSE and Biomega were published by Ehapa. Blame! was also published in France and Spain by Glénat, in the US by Tokyopop and in Italy by Panini Comics.

At first he studied architecture and later it is shown up in his manga works with drawing huge structures. This became one of his general theme that makes his manga unique. His works are usually in black and white. He is also an avid fan of the video game series Halo, as he mentions in his commentary section in the Halo Graphic Novel.

Taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_...

Reviews

[Jokoloyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a space opera mecha manga for YA. For the first volume, as usual there are a lot of character introductions, starting sub plots, etc. Promising? Yes.

Sidonia is a huge giant self-sustained colony ship. Reminded me of Rama the giant ship of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama but built by human race. The mechas are the "knights" using javelin-like weapons that could kill regenerating space alien enemy race.

So far, I haven't seen anything mind blowing, but I will continue to read.

[Seth T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I do occasionally dabble in the sci-fi genres, I tend to avoid anything involving mechas. Besides not being particularly interested in battle comics, I think oversaturation in my youth led to mecha-fatigue. Two series of Voltron and a religious devotion to all three Robotech seasons left me a bit spent. Throw in some Battletech gaming as well as all the giant-robot stuff that littered the culturescape of my youth (Transformers, Tranzor-Z, Johnny Sokko) and it might not be difficult to see why I might weary of the stuff. Around 2003, after about a ten-year abstinence, someone convinced me I should give Neon Genesis Evangelion a shot—that didn't go so well and I basically gave up on mechas for good.

Obviously, this was unfair and premature—like saying I don't like country music just because I haven't heard any country music I've ever appreciated.

It's easy to propose—on purely rational terms—that prejudices are always unfair. It makes sense. The argument is valid and cogent. Of course, that doesn't stop every last one of us from building lives on irrational presuppositions and convenient generalizations. I haven't questioned my belief that mecha stories are substandard fare because, well, primarily that would give me one more direction in which to apportion my already far-too-small disposable income. Also: though I read comics all the time and spend at least six hours per week writing about them, at least I don't read the ones with big robots on the covers because that's infantile.(1) So when I sat down and read Knights of Sidonia and had my worldview shattered? That was a feeling both delicious and terrifying. After all: I am now someone who reads and enjoys mecha manga.(2)



For a reluctant reader such as myself,(3) Knights of Sidonia has a number of things working in its favour.

(It wasn't an instant sell. I hesitated to pick up the first volume. It wasn't my thing. I read the first chapter. And then the second. It had some intriguing sci-fi ideas,(4) but mere ideas aren't enough to buy my interest any more. So a few more chapters. This is kind of weird but kind of neat. And I like these characters. And some of the mystery of what's going on. So I pick up and read the second volume and Wow! Suddenly I'm sold on these characters and invested and Oh yes and Oh no and What Is Going to Happen Next WHERE IS VOLUME 3??)



To its credit, Knights of Sidonia is both conceptually smart and plenty imaginative. Series lead Tanikaze is one of the few humans onboard the Sidonia who cannot photosynthesize and requires regular meals of actual food. As would be scientifically likely, the fact that he has a diet at all means that he'd smell differently from other members of the ship's ecosystem. All over the ship are hand-holds and bars on which crew and residents can attach carabiners for when the ship turns and gravity changes. In the first chapter, we find that cloning is commonplace, and by the second we're introduced to Shinatose who's neither male nor female but can reproduce with either sex.(5)

The series as well features a kind of lo-fi elegance to its art. Illustrationwise, Nihei maintains good control of his visual space. While there is sometimes a lot of activity in panels (especially when in battle with the Gauna(6)), it's generally not difficult to determine what is going on. (Though to be fair and honest, my critical sense tends to disengage during battles. I find myself rushing through to get back to the good stuff, the interpersonal junk.) At any rate, all remaining interpretive difficulties were smoothed away on a subsequent reading. And it says something worthwhile to note that there was a subsequent reading—and that there will likely be more to come as I return to re-acquaint myself with the story-so-far as future volumes are released.



Initially there was one thing that kept me at distance from the book. Nihei posits story moments in a kind of staccato kind of articulation. The cuts from one piece to the next are crisp and rely only on thematic shifts in the art (rather than employing narrative bubbles). The effect was a bit jarring on my first read and I felt that I was missing things. A second (and then third) reading proved that more likely I was reading carelessly—as I no longer felt that estrangement from the plot and had no such issue with the second volume. It may also be that I have grown accustomed to Nihei's style of visual storytelling.

If you're looking for some interesting sci-fi, it may be that you won't go wrong to check out this series. Remember that when I recommend this, I'm a reader who's just as invested in mechas as I am in bicycles or tricked-out lawnmowers or tandem strollers or any number of other things I don't care about at all. This is a mecha book that doesn't really feel like it's about mechas.(7) Knights of Sidonia feels like a series of character studies in what would be a drastically different social environment from our own, only punctuated by colossal acts of violence. And so far, it's pretty keen. I'll grant that I'm only two volumes in and it's entirely possible that the book could go catastrophically wrong (like 90% of television series as the seasons wear on), but for now Knights of Sidonia excites me in a way that I hadn't expected. I want to know what happens to Tanikaze and Shinatose and Hoshijiro. And I'm especially interested to see which character gets the privilege of breaking Kunato's neck. That bastard.

[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad.]
___________

Footnotes
1) I mean, not really, but that's the feeling I always had for mechas and giant robots, kind of a reverse nostalgia.

2) Or at least one particular example of the genre.

3) Or even moreso, like my wife who is still less willing to pick up sci-fi than I am. I tricked her into reading Knights by saying how little I cared for the genre and then expressing how excited I was to read future volumes. I mean, I guess that's not so much a trick as it is just a flat statement of How Things Are. In any case, she reluctantly picked up the first volume and happily picked up the second. So there's that.

4) ...Interesting ideas that may very well be old hat for rigourous fans of the genres (those who may be well-accustomed to the common tropes), but at least for a reader who only occasionally encounters sci-fi, Knights of Sidonia had quite a few interesting future-concepts at play.

5) I haven't yet sussed out what pronoun they use to refer to Shinatose. Since she seems paired to Tanikaze as a possible romantic association, I imagine she'd take the female pronoun because he codes heterosexual and masculine.

6) So far, the alien Gauna are the series heavies—though I wouldn't be surprised for there to be some sort of reevaluation or reversal in later chapters.

7) To be fair, I suppose it's possible that 98% of all mecha manga aren't really about their giant-robot-looking vehicles. That would be really kinda cool, I guess—though I'm not then sure what the point would be.

[Maya · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star seems like a harsh rating for this and I'm kind of hesitating between 1 and 2 stars, but, in the end, I was simply very disappointed with this book and even though it is not horrible, I "didn't like it".

Sidonia is a post-apocalyptic story, in which humans fight for their survival against aliens. This is nothing too special or creative, but could always be an entertaining story. However, nothing quite worked for me in this book.

First of all, there's the fanservice. The series starts with the male main character running into the equivalent of a female changing room. Later on, you get an officially androgynous but basically looking like a flat-chested girl character who manages to jump in a way that the main character's head ends up between his/her legs, as well as girls with expressions that look like arousal when using urinary catheters. Uhm, no, thank you.

Fanservice like this is something you unfortunately (imho) see in every second manga, but it really doesn't fit the serious tone of Sidonia.

More importantly, the characters, who could make me overlook such things, are not intriguing in any way. They're boring. And from the way Kunato acts in this volume, it seems that there will even be some kind of teenie-mobbing of the talented newcomer by the jealous popular guy or something similar.

The series is also quite violent and has some pretty gory images, which doesn't help my non-enjoyment. I also don't care for mechas in my SciFi series, they look ridiculous.

Nihei's works always look good. His backgrounds evoke a dark and depressing atmosphere and there are lots of details. However, the characters' facial expressions are always kind of "void". I guess this is mostly because their eyebrows never move, and eyebrows play quite a big role in letting our expression convey our emotions. It looks very weird to have a character who is surprised with his mouth wide open while his eyebrows stay as the perfect arcs of a neutral expression.

I've tried some of the authors other works and I didn't really get into them either. Somehow, they just seem to be lacking something to get me attached to the characters and/or interested in the story. Sidonia is shiny on the outside, but for me, there are no emotions on the inside.

I suppose that Nihei's work simply isn't to my taste. Other people might very well enjoy them. Especially if you like dark and violent SciFi and don't mind the fanservice, you could give this a try.

[Tarot · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars

There's so much disappointing about Tsutomu Nihei's latest manga series, Knights of Sidonia, I'm face-palming just trying to decide where to begin to write this review.

The first thing I noticed was the art was less detailed than his previous manga series, Blame! and Biomega . Some may say it's cleaner, but considering his style is known to be heavy, gritty, and cyberpunk-inspired -- similar to the excellent original Battle Angel Alita series -- it just felt too light. The characters also looked too similar to each other, especially the faces, which makes it hard to form an attachment when you're constantly wondering, "Who's that?" So by the time one of them dies, I didn't even know who it was, nor did I really care.

Second, Nihei just cannot write a good story. The appeal of Nihei's work is the sheer weirdness of his monster-saturated apocalyptic worlds and his aforementioned established art style, not so much the story, but Knights of Sidonia is just plain bad because it seems like his attempt to create a sort of twisted Macross or Evangelion for mainstream appeal instead of sticking with the less popular niche genre of cyberpunk. He could bring his work to a whole other level if he'd collaborate with a writer and draw his interpretation of the story, as many manga writers and artists do.

Though the first volume of Knights of Sidonia probably has more dialogue than all the volumes of Blame! combined or Biomega combined, too much is yet again left unexplained -- a huge flaw consistent throughout his work that leaves many readers unfulfilled. And not just unexplained -- implausible, unbelievable, ridiculous. I'm not going to accept that the people on Sidonia, a ship that's been floating in space for a thousand years after the solar system was obliterated, somehow have enough resources of things that no longer exist in the universe to make tons of giant mecha, specialized weapons, wooden pagodas, and fancy kimonos. And I'm not going to accept that, like too many other cliche Japanese manga, a bunch of angsty, hormonal, stick-figure teenagers are going to save what's left of humanity. Oh yeah, and they're all magically Japanese -- not a single person or name from another culture even though some of them have light-colored eyes and hair.

Which leads me to the third major flaw of Knights of Sidonia: unabashed "fan service" (as another reviewer put it), which is just a nicer way of saying sexism and misogyny. Beyond the ludicrous notion of traditional Japanese culture surviving in space for a millennium to satisfy nationalists and otakus, there are scenes suggesting females getting aroused by catheters in their space suits, monsters taking the form of naked females, the grisly murder of women with nudity, and yeah, only female nudity with no male nudity or brutality whatsoever. If that isn't enough, there's Nihei's attempt at humor through yet more sexist cliches in Japanese manga, such as a male stumbling into a female's "locker room" and a male getting his face accidentally pushed into a female's crotch.

None of these complaints is something I thought I'd ever put in a review of Nihei's work. I enjoyed Blame! and Biomega even if they started strong and slowly degenerated into a confusing mass of strange. But he hasn't just dropped the ball with Knights of Sidonia -- he's lost his game.

[Mangrii · Rating 3 out of 5]

En este primer volumen de Knights of Sidonia conocemos a Nagate Tanikaze, un chico criado en los niveles más bajos de la nave transportadora de semillas Sidonia. En esta nave que viaja por el espacio se encarga de mantener la propagación y reproducción del ser humano. Pero tienen unos vitales y portentosos enemigos extraterrestres: los Gauna. En este tankoboun que recoge los capítulos 1-5 de la serie veremos cómo Tanikaze se convierte en cadete de piloto de Guardian, recibe permiso para pilotar el antiguo y honorifico Tsugumori, levanta las primeras envidias y se enfrenta al peligro con habilidad.

Si habeís visto la primera temporada de Netflix, poco os tengo que contar, ya que la adaptación se ha mantenido muy fiel. Si nos ponemos a analizar la ambientación y el universo que crea Nihei, es fascinante. Humanos modificados genéticamente, hermafroditas y horrores cósmicos de origen desconocido. Si buscamos en la trama y el tono, ya no fascina tanto. Narrativamente es un tanto caótica, los sucesos ocurren a cámara rápida y el tono de drama o humor está demasiado desequilibrado, sin una identidad sólida. Los personajes se sienten algo planos y sin gran desarrollo, con muchos clichés y bastante fan service que a veces roza lo misógino .

Todo un entretenimiento para los amantes de las space opera, los monstruos alienígenas y los mechas espaciales que no te alucinará, pero si te hará pasar un buen rato.

Reseña en el blog: http://boywithletters.blogspot.com.es...

[Holly Letson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

This one plays with the mind. But, it's a quick, enjoyable read.

[Sol · Rating 4 out of 5]

2016 full series review:

Knights of Sidonia is frustrating to review. It's either the worst best manga I've read, or the best worst. The series has some of Nihei's best signature sci-fi design, from the colony ship setting, to the insect-like mecha, to the extremely varied, creepy and creative alien gauna, and the character of Tsumugi. It also has some of his worst writing, primarily due to the suffocating harem atmosphere of later volumes, and an ending that seems like it was designed to piss off every major category of reader.



A lot of readers complain about the change in Nihei's art after Biomega, but Knights of Sidonia is consistently high quality. The extremely high contrast art of the beginning, with heavy, pure black shadows and no grey to be seen, smoothly morphs into the lighter art of the later volumes, with lines and just enough texture to make things pop. His design sense is as strong as ever. The one artistic failing of Sidonia is in character design. While the side characters are often quite distinctive:

the main cast almost all have nearly the same doughy, marshmallow face, male or female. If Sidonia had character design more similar to Abara or Biomega, I would consider it visually near perfect.



The writing, on the other hand, is a cringeworthy mess. The protagonist is a bland, dense dumbass culled straight from the pages of the crappiest harem manga out there, with most of the supporting cast being typical haremettes (with the exception of Tsumugi). While they can be fun at times, they're far from being interesting, and the absence of any character dynamics aside from "crazy harem shenanigans" brings the whole thing down. This reaches its nadir with the introduction of a female android who has no story role whatsoever.



Tsumugi, however, was wonderful. Her dual designs as an elegant but grotesque monster and a disturbingly cute and phallic tentacle are some of the best and most unique I've seen in any manga, and both lend themselves to comedy as well as more serious moments. Her child-like but precocious demeanour is delightful to watch evolve, and the romance (such as it is in a harem) was actually slightly touching. Between the art and Tsumugi, there was more than enough to keep me happily reading Sidonia.



Eventually, however, it ended. Anyone who read Nihei's manga should know that endings are not his strong point, but I feel Sidonia was especially disappointing. Beyond even the artful disappointment of anyone interested in the insipid in this series, absolutely nothing is learned about the gauna by the end. Despite the various hints dropped throughout the series about the intelligence of the gauna and their attempts to communicate with/learn about humanity, ultimately nothing is known about them. Their final baffling act is to terraform the surface of the planet for humanity. If I had to make up my own ending, it would be for the gauna and Sidonia to be mutually destroyed, leaving only Tsumugi and a dying Tanikaze. They could then fuse into one being, the sort of true hybrid that Ochiai dreamed of, and parthenogenically create their own chimeric civilization, ending with a shot of the Lem system thousands of years laters, supporting a civilization of chimeras. As it was, the ending just wasn't weird enough for me.



2023 addendum: I feel a lot softer about Sidonia looking back. What was "a cringeworthy mess" to me back then just looks like commitment to the bit now. Comparing Sidonia to his other major works, Nihei was going for a normal but not realistic depiction of life. If the goings on on deck were actually realistic, it wouldn't have the balancing effect against the grimmer events. It needed that heightened adolescent atmosphere of falling on your hermaphrodite best friend's growing breasts and everyone going kyaaaa etc. The gynoid still sucks and was a complete waste of time though.





The Sidonia itself stands out among his oeuvre as well. Not only is it functional, if a little rusty around the edges, but it's not so advanced that it's basically magic. This is exemplified by the Gravitational Beam Emitter. The Sidonians have the theoretical knowledge and skill to build one, but theirs is multi-story building sized, and even with chimeric bio-generation they can only get it down to about the size of a car. Retrospectively this makes the Blame! civilization seem way more impressive, but it conversely adds to the versimilitude of the story, that this is an advanced but strained civilization in an existential struggle. They can do amazing things, but they have limits (as much as that started going out the window toward the end). It also helps that Sidonia actually seems like a place where people would want to live, as weird and OSHA-noncompliant as it is. They're not fighting for the abstract future of humanity, but for the continued existence of a place they love, and I think many readers loved the residential tower and the outer walls as much as any of the haremettes.



I've warmed up to the ending too. Don't get me wrong, I'm still salty about Tsumugi not staying a monstergirl, but I can see how it's a happy ending for her given her repeated desire to be the size of a human, I just wish it could have been achieved while retaining some of her physical Tsumiginess (heterochromia doesn't count). Hoshijiro fans clearly got the worst, but I don't know how many of those there really were left, Izana and Yuhata fans both got hoisted, but at least it was kind of funny and they're happy.



The "resolution" of the gauna is something I've also come around to. The gauna mimicking humanity, both physically and mentally, was repeated constantly. The Sidonians used gauna chimeras but there was never the sense that they were "studying" the gauna to anything like the same extent the gauna were humanity, and could never match their abilities. So, why did the gauna terraform Lem VII? Perhaps the mass union ship finally came to understand humanity, what the gauna had taken from them, and wanted to "apologize" in its dying moments. Why didn't it call off the attacks before that moment? Well then we wouldn't have a battle manga, would we?

[Eurp · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hugely disappointing as a series. This first book was not what turned me off of the manga, though it has the beginning elements that would eventually drive me away from the books.

I decided to check Knights of Sidonia out after watching the Netflix Anime, which was totally awesome. It follows the events of the first volume pretty faithfully, but is more palatable to my tastes because it isn't so tentacle rapey.

As a man I am often repulsed be the representation of women in Manga and Anime. I get it guys, women and breasts are awesome. But so are smart, strong, independant women who wear sensible clothes. I don't need or want to see random pictures of unimportant characters naked (and often getting destroyed by a monster with tentacles). If I did, I'd go watch some porn (without the tentacles), where the women often have stronger and more believable personalities.

Yes, you read that right.

Ultimately it's hard to restrain my anger against the author. This series could be amazing. It has some great concepts, amazing plot developments, and cool art, all of which are ultimately overshadowed by the author's juvenille pandering to his own high-school level fantasy of being doted on and fought over by a gang of impossibly shaped young women.

I don't know that Netflix can salvage this one.

[haven ⋄ f (hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

okay art, decent premise but with awful pacing and a strange main character. the overall idea has a lot of promise, though it feels like a mix of neon genesis evangelion and gundam which is a bit annoying.

[Sesana · Rating 1 out of 5]

So the main character runs into a women's changing room in the first chapter because... I don't know, the artist wanted to draw naked women, probably. Yeah, no.

[Recep · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Francisco M. Juárez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excelente inicio de esta aventura, presentando a los personajes y su mundo y dejando ver algunos misterios.

Un chico diferente al resto de habitantes de Sidonia, una nave generacional con humanos biomodificados, una amenaza latente y monstruosa que espera entre las estrellas.

¡Cuál es el verdadero origen de Sidonia y cuál es la conexión entre los Gaunas y los humanos?

Espero poder tener la oportunidad de leer esta historia completa, hace años me quedé a medias con el anime... : (

[Mohammed Abdikhader Firdhiye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thank the growth of Netflix for finding this manga. The anime is one of the first animes that is Orginal Netflix series. I had to buy the manga after seeing the anime.

Not fan of the mecha genre but this series is more dark SF, more cerberal story than mecha series are usually. Good action but its the desperate, horrible war against seemingly unbeatable alien enemy that draws me in. The weird far future human life about the colony ship is fascinating and it has more in common with quality Space Opera by CJ Cherryh than shallow mecha anime like generic Gundam copies.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

As God as my witness, if you had told me ten years ago that the creator of BLAME! Would drop everything to do manga that can only be described as an arthouse Robotech, I would have punched you in the face with scissors for getting my hopes up.

Fuck yes, can't wait for more.

Oh, and like Biomega, there's a bear in this one too!

[Eli · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

The writing was kind of disconnected and didn't flow very well (maybe due to translation). This didn't really hook me. I at least like the plot and have seen the first two seasons of the anime, so I gave it three stars. I wouldn't recommend the manga, but the anime was alright.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not a fan of this. Most of the pages were dark because of everything happening in outer space, but that was very hard on the eyes. I also don't think this was a good first volume. I felt lost, disconnected from the story, and not interested in any of the characters. There didn't seem to be much character development.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

So weird reading a Nihei title where I more or less understand what's going on and who the characters are. Not even a dig at his other works because I love those, too, incomprehensible though they are.

His art has also become much more legible and accessible here, with the humans looking a bit more cute and simplified. I miss the grunge and grit of Blame!, but I like this, too.

[Octavi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Espero que mejore, de momento es un tanto caótico en cuanto a trama y simplón en el resto. A parte que parece (de momento) “un poco demasiado” inspirado en Evangelion. Además, viniendo de Blame! es un poco decepcionante.

[Chris Gernon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Very nice setting / monster art, just serviceable character art, interesting world building, too much weird fan service, and most of the time I had no idea what was going on - not because of hidden mysterious story elements, but just because we constantly go from one scene to another one, hours or days later, in a completely different place, with no indication. Probably not going to continue this one.

[Wordsworn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gosh, what a confusing mess. The story was really hard to follow, all the characters seem very flat and stagnant, the 'action' in the art is very static and is also hard to follow, fight scenes are impossible to parse, and there's no explanation about where all this is taking place. They're obviously in space, but is this a ship? A colony? What is it? Give us some explanation and backstory, please.

TL;DR - Flat, emotionless, boring. Unsure if I want to keep reading and give it more of a chance or not.

[Luis Arenas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo empece a leer a raiz de la serie de tv. Excepto pequeños detalles ambos son muy parecidos

[Paulo Vinicius Figueiredo dos Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A primeira vez em que eu ouvi falar de Sidonia foi com alguns colegas que destacavam as qualidades da escrita de Tsutomu Nihei. Que ele conseguia criar uma história de ficção científica incrível que não deixava nada a desejar a bons livros do gênero. E que suas narrativas fritavam o seu cérebro tamanha as ideias malucas que ele inseria na história. Tendo lido os dois primeiros volumes, só posso concordar. Estou encantado com a história, apesar de ainda não ter entendido muita coisa.

Nihei trabalha muito com imagens + texto. É impossível falar de um sem tocar em outro. Entretanto, é preciso destacar o quanto a escrita dele é interessante. Mesmo assim, sinto que muito da história não me foi apresentado ainda. Para aqueles que curtem uma abordagem mais direta e didática, talvez a escrita do Nihei incomode um pouco. A única vez em que eu senti algo assim foi com Jardins da Lua quando somos arremessados no meio da ação e a história é explicada progressivamente nos capítulos que se seguem. Nesse sentido, o autor não tem pressa e vai soltando as informações quando ele entende que elas são necessárias. Por ser uma série longa, é preciso manter o leitor na história; daí vem a importância dos cliffhangers. Nesse ponto eu creio que o autor foi muito bem sucedido ao fazer os capítulos serem viradores de página, ou seja, queremos saber o que vai acontecer a seguir.

Espaços muito amplos compõem boa parte da história. Eu gosto dessa noção do autor de frente e fundo. Ele varia o detalhamento do fundo de acordo com o olhar dos personagens. Por exemplo: se um personagem está observando para uma paisagem enquanto reflete suas últimas ações, o fundo vai parecer mais detalhado enquanto que se um personagem está apenas passando por um lugar amplo, o fundo vai parecer mais embaçado. Entretanto, tudo é muito bem feito e a nave Sidonia tem muitos ambientes exóticos em seu interior. Nesses dois volumes destaco o parque aquático e as residências superiores como ambientes estonteantes. Os momentos de combate também são bem legais apesar de eu ainda não ter me acostumado à amorfia dos Gaunas. As lutas parecem estranhas ainda para mim.

No volume 1, nós temos a apresentação do Nagate. Até onde eu vi ele é um personagem ainda extremamente misterioso. Sabemos apenas que ele morava com o avô no subsolo de Sidonia e treinava em um simulador de um mecha antigo. Parece que Nagate era muito bom neste simulador. Um dia quando ele explorava uma parte de uma Sidonia escondida ele acaba sendo encontrado por outras pessoas (ele acreditava que só ele e o avô tinham sobrevivido). Ele é aprisionado e levado até a administração superior onde ele é estranhamente adotado pela capitã. Essa é a minha única reclamação no momento: como as coisas se sucedem muito rápido para o Nagate. A gente não tem a sensação de tempo se passando. O personagem é adotado pela capitã, logo em seguida já tem um interesse amoroso na forma da Izana e em seguida está pilotando um Tsugumu. Isso no espaço de dois capítulos do primeiro volume. Okay, vou dar tempo ao tempo para o autor me explicar isso.

Uma coisa curiosa é como o Nihei entende a evolução do homem. Ele caminha por duas noções: uma a de que o ser humano aprendeu a fazer fotossíntese, dando a opção para aqueles que desejam optar por essa outra modalidade e a de que os personagens podem ter gênero fluido como a Izana. No primeiro caso dá para entender no sentido de que é preciso preservar comida para uma nave tão grande. O segundo vem um pouco de como estamos lidando com a nossa própria sexualidade neste momento e como podemos gerar nossos filhos. Pelo que eu pude entender, é possível até criar clones espontaneamente. Isso produz efeitos sociais muito curiosos. Depois de saber dessas informações, o leitor fica no mínimo confuso com o interesse da Izana pelo Nagate. Claro que as coisas acabam tomando um rumo bem diferente em seguida.

Fui surpreendido pelo fato de o autor trabalhar também o lado interno das pessoas em Sidonia. Achei que a narrativa iria se focar mais no combate contra os Gaunas e na defesa da nave. Mas, isso não é o caso. Por exemplo, temos uma divisão social entre aqueles que fazem fotossíntese e os que mantiveram sua digestão natural. Ou até mesmo a inveja vinda de privilégios concedidos a um "ser inferior". Kunato é colocado como alguém que vê a si mesmo como uma evolução natural do homem e vê em Nagate um ser que não deveria dividir o mesmo espaço que ele. Obviamente que esse tema vai ser alvo de outros volumes (como acontece no segundo). Me interessou esse debate sobre a evolução do homem e uma possível separação entre evoluídos e "naturais". A ver cenas dos próximos capítulos.

[Vinny · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the Guana, shape-shifting aliens, destroy Earth, humanity's only option is to create ships from the Earth itself and navigate through space to find a new home. The story follows Nagate Tanikaze, a boy who lived in solitude under the city until he was discovered one day stealing a bag of rice. As events unfold, Nagate must pilot a "Garde", which is a human shaped robot, in order to fight the Guana and to protect his new found friends.

The reason why this book is included in this list is because the themes is tackles are so close to the hearts of high school students. Nagate is an outsider and he was isolated for most of his young life. There are many things about him that set him apart from others. For instance, everyone has been genetically engineered to be able to use photosynthesis as their main source of nutrients, whereas Nagate does not have this "advancement" so he still has to eat food in order to survive. He often apologizes for this as he is embarrassed by it, and other characters either find it endearing or it makes them sick just to watch him eat. Some students can connect to the eating issue, and a wide range of students can connect to the feeling of being alone and being different.

One of the most interesting characters in the book is Izana Shinatose. In this time period (the year 3394) people can be a hermaphroditic third gender and they only become one gender or the other when they choose to do so. Izana would be a great character to analyze through LGBTQ, Queer, and Trans lenses since aspects of Izana's behavior and identity can fall into all three of these categories. Trans voices are underrepresented in YA Lit, so it can be said that Izana could be a very important voice for some of our students.

[Daniel Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

(This is a review of the whole series.)
As with other works of Tsutomu Nihei, I've been seduced here by the world, the mecha and the creature designs.

Knights of Sidonia differs from Blame! in introducing a lighter tone in exploring realtionships, which means there's a sub-narrative of romance in this story. While this is not the core of the story (the last remnants of humanity are stranded on a starship and must defend themselves (with mechas) against always evolving giant space monsters), I mention it here because, to me, it did some disservice to the story. A romantic subplot is not a bad thing, far from it, but it is used here to lighten the mood and create some "funny" situations that did not really work for me and resulted in undermining the impact of the conclusion of said subplot. The whole story is actually underserved by stereotypical gendered humor that pretty much missed its target for me.

So, you might ask "who reads Tsutomu Nihei's work for the romantic subplot anyway?" The thing is, Knights of Sidonia is more accessible than Blame because of this - the "human" side of the story is more developed, and given the place it occupies in the series, the fact that it didn't work that well is what takes a star off my review. It is still a relatively solid story, that will however not delve too much in its ethical implications - also note that some situations get resolves without being very much explored in the first place - with a relatively satisfying conclusion and some of the best art I've seen in a manga.

[Doc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Space...and the survival of humanity.

This was a weird book. Is that a strange thing to say right off the bat without any real explanation? Perhaps but above all else this statement I thought pretty much covered my thoughts as I tried to think back about this macho space opera type story which seems to attempt any number of dark science fiction clichés even going so far as having an intelligent bear as a den mother (I believe) who has lost one of her paws in her youth and had it replaced with an artificial hand.

That said there are instances of partial female nudity (only breast are fully shown with details), at least one scene of what seems to be female arousement from putting on something called a skinsuit which contains a biological ureteral catheter, some casual humor common in manga made for boys (male gets beat up by females after seeing them mostly nude and at least one instance of landing crotch first into a male's face), and it has a giant space monster that takes on the nude form of a female (who is stripped first before being eaten like a candy bar) and at one point is forced to take a long metal rod into its mouth. If any of this sounds like it would offend you I am warning you to turn back now but if you can overlook this stuff and want to see some post apocalyptic giant robot fighting coming from a ship that is probably the last chance for humanities survival (geez...it almost sounds like Space Neon Genesis Evangelion) then give it a shot and maybe you'll like it. After all along with introducing many characters we are also introduced to many elements different from what today's society is familiar with so you never know what may be coming next.

[Mykhailo Gasyuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Меха-бойовичок про корабель поколінь, що ширяє космосом, маючи на борту фотосинтезуючих людей, а йому заважають інопланетні організми. І шоб бороти їх, в корабля є мєхи. Мєха - це такий здоровезний людиноподібний робот, деталі якого в бою важко розрізнити. Але воно робить лише маленький кусь космічній органіці, бо для великого куся треба шось вагоміше.

І на одній з отих мєх літає Нагате Таніказе. Раніше він десь у старих технічних секторах корабля мешкав, і ніхто про нього не знав. Але якось в його рисоварці закінчився рис, в пошуках рису він повернув не туди, і ось маєш, вже серед нео-людей, булінг, знущання, навчання пілотувати мєху.

Рвана подача сюжету. Автор любить цибати між різними подіями, розділеними певними проміжками часу, аби нагнати драми та очікувань, і інколи це нестерпно бентежить.

Малюнок. Нутрощі корабля дуже ок, це ж автор “Бламу!”. І люди намальовані так, що ясно, хто і де. Відсутні нервові контури. В першому томі є кілька візуальних прийомів, які просяться у велике кіно або ж були звідти запозичені. А ще тут якась збочена сексуалізація бою з монстром. В монстра цицьки та тентаклі, і посеред оцього всього борсається робот. Еротичненько.

Шо по сюжету першого тому: Накате зловили, він кілька разів отримав на горіхи від нео-людей, в першому ж томі побився з космічним кайдзю, але дуже невдало, бо залишки того монстра має добивати інший загін мєха-пілотів. А чи доб’ють - то вже наступні томи покажуть.

[Cheetah Universe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outer space, in a far away future.
A solitary ship, Sidonia, travels through the vacuum 10 centuries after the total destruction of the Solar System. The enormous, nearly indestructible but barely intelligent, form of extraterrestrial life that destroyed humanity's home are still a threat to existance.
Nagate Tanikaze has only known life in the entrails of the ship, in the deepness, far below the stratum in which humans have reached photosynthesis and new genders. Not much time after he emerged from the underworld, the young man is given a treasured legacy, offered to him by the captain herself.

Rate: 9/10 (just an introduction)
fave part: Kunato vs Tanikaze fight
least fave part: when Eiko reuses to do the squad formation
saddest part: when Midorikawa says that that one would be their last dinner.
happiest part: Hoshijiro saves Nagate :)
Top 3 characters:
1. Hoshijiro
2. Norio Kunato
3. Izana
most hated character:
- Ochiai
Top 3 fave things about it:
-sci-fi!!!! (genetic engineering, PHOTOSYNTHESIS IN HUMANS (thats so cool))
- it is like war in life itself, people die in wars, so its not that all the characters live or have their lives forgiven just for existing.
- rivalry between characters

[Ashe Catlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was reading this I was thinking of BLAME! MASTER EDITION 1, wasn’t till after I found out it’s the same mangaka.

There are a few differences between this series and his others, for a start it’s not a post apocalyptic theme. The art isn’t up there either, usually it’s really eye catching, this just isn’t the same.

The story is a bit dull as well, nothing really happens. Since it’s not post apocalyptic there are lots of people but they never talk to each other, which is quite odd. When they do it’s usually quite abrupt as well, it’s like having a nice meal with the family then someone says “we’re all going to die”, it’s just out of nowhere.

Glad I chose to buy this before getting the Knights of Sidonia, Master Edition 1, probably will check out volume 2 to before making my decision.

[47Time · Rating 3 out of 5]

This author has a thing for talking bears? He added one in Biomega as well. It's such a chore to remember characters based on their physical appearance. This author just makes everyone look the same, so you need to rely on dialogue to know who is who. Good plan, except then he rarely includes names to help you figure out who is talking. So just do your best and look at the pretty pictures. This one has more TnA than Biomega.

Tanigaze Nagate has left his cozy living space in the depths of the Sidonia ship to join other trainees in humanity's constant struggle for survival against a harsh universe. They are the last vestiges of humanity left and are searching for a planet to colonize.

A simple mining run for the new recruits turns into disaster when a gauna - a tentacled space creature - appears. Nagate risks his life to weaken it before retreating to a safe distance. It is then shot by one of Sidonia's heavy weapons. It's far from defeated, though. The humans have little time before they face the creature again.

[Lateef Amodu · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young man gets isolated in what seems to be a space colony. He inadvertently manages to reestablish himself with the civilization in the colony. He meets a female (who's a third gender human), who he trains with to pilot a Mecha called a Garde. They use it for mining ice and (probably more important) to kill a Gauna. The Gaunas are a large alien life form and in this volume it shows one attacking the Garde pilots.

I found this manga intriguing. Just like Tsutomu Nihei's previous work BLAME!, it throws you into the story without much explanation at the start. I liked this, as it adds a bit of mystery to the story. There's not a lot of dialogue in this, so there's moments it required me to work out what's going on by facial expression and object/body movement.

Artwork I thought was good. Illustrations are detailed in parts (particularity scenery), while simple in others. Apart from the first few pages, it's all in black and white.