The Manga Bible

by Siku (Editor)

The story of God in a graphic novel

From the creation of the earth to the ultimate showdown between the forces of good and evil, this is the greatest story ever told.

This manga adaptation of the Holy Bible tells the story of God's relationship with his people, from the creation of the earth and the early history of the Israelites, to the life of Jesus, his death, and the adventures of the first ever church.

This is a faithful manga adaptation of the Bible, injected with energy by Siku's beautiful and dramatic artwork.

Genres: Graphic Novels

224 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2024

Reviews

[Kelsey Carlisle · Rating 2 out of 5]

To improve this they’d need to take out the underwhelming and repetitive art, decompress it to around 1000+ pages, separate each story into its own book, and call it “The Holy Bible.” They’d make millions.

But fr this is just bad all around. The Bible, which contradicts itself quite a bit and mostly centers around boring property disputes except for a few hundred pages where the Jesus guy makes it interesting, does not translate into a rushed 200-page graphic novel that tries and fails to tell one coherent story. And the middle school book report level writing here doesn’t help either. I really would be interested in a series where each book of the Bible got its own graphic novel, but this is such a bad way to do this sort of thing. The Jesus parts were fine I guess.

[Walker Little · Rating 2 out of 5]

4/10. it would do you better to just read it. the purpose of the medium is lost if you don't utilize the key aspects of it. the drawings are all humans that look mighty similar, very little background art, doesnt add much at all that you wouldnt get by just reading it. Nothing hateful against it, just for those who may think this will have any action or movement and stuff. look elsewhere.

[Keanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book awakened my mind’s eye and made me stop being a woke blue haired liberal.

[JD Waggy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The-Bible-as-graphic-novel is a thing that's been attempted for a while now and it's weird to see how this presents this version, like the Bible is some sort of action-packed blockbuster. It's not. Huge chunks of the Bible are boring AF because it's a library, not a book (hence Bible, biblia). This, like all story Bibles, makes clear choices about what to include and what not to--and it does a curious job of it.

The tried-and-true favorites are here: we have Moses, Noah, David, the Gospels. I really do give Siku a ton of credit for including psalms, parables, and a good chunk of Paul's New Testament letters--I've rarely seen those done because they're not really story-based, so that second star is entirely for delving beyond "David go smash" and getting into the characters. I also like the setup of having a little tab of where to find the stories that are featured in the Bible itself so that the curious can keep going.

I wasn't a fan of how thoroughly this erases the women of the Bible. Eve? Minor. Sarah? Nope. Bathsheba? A footnote. Ruth? Mostly about Boaz. Mary and Elizabeth? Not even the Magnificat. Mary Magdalen? Nah. Especially as more and more story Bibles are starting to feature the stories of women's power, it was weird that this very-much-selling-itself-as-modern book...didn't. And there are--as there always are with story Bibles, so this isn't a slam so much as a note--a lot of exegetical choices made as to *how* to tell the stories that are here, the kind of Aesop's moral of "this is what this story is here for" that creates a theological framework. The one here isn't overwhelmingly conservative, but it leans that way and certainly has a lot of atonement theory driving it. And it makes some interesting choices about some stories like Job and the parables--high five for realizing those aren't literal, but the way they get "updated" is wild, like Job visually references the bombing of Hiroshima and the parable of the prodigal son gets retitled for the brother but then the brother barely makes an appearance.

The art, as others have mentioned, is lackluster. I found it a little frightening, actually, because Siku's style is a lot of angles and shadows and everybody, including Jesus, looked sinister to me. There are several instances of on-page graphic violence, which is faithful to the text but surprised me in something that looks like it's marketing to teens.

Overall, I appreciate this, mostly because of Siku reaching past what story Bibles usually cover and recognizing the importance of all 66 books. It really did just make me want to go re-read the actual Bible, though, because the freaky art and the jumbled theology were a lot. Oddly, that may be the best thing Siku could be doing: pushing me back to the source material. Well done, kinda.

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s alright. Like I like how it’s accurate for the most part but I do have a few nitpicks. Like some of the faces can look too cartoony at times and when pharaoh seen cows he looked like he was nervous rather than scared and I find it weird that it sort of implied that Ruth slept with boaz and I do kinda wish that some of the art was more detailed. But hey, better than my art. Overall it’s alright.

[Barry Hammock · Rating 5 out of 5]

It moved at a lighting pace, yet it captured the core messages of the Bible perfectly.