APOSIMZ Vol. 9

人形の国 [Ningyou no Kuni] #9

by Tsutomu Nihei

Final Volume.

Genres: Manga, Science Fiction, Comics

166 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2017

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

[Tom Ewing · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Whole series review)

Aposimz, a sci fi manga about duelling cyborgs on the frozen surface of an artificial planet, starts coherently and well, gets more interesting as it goes on and then falls apart into a rushed (but not completely unsatisfying) ending. The frustrating thing in the final volumes isn’t the hurried pacing, it’s the way pointless new characters and diversions keep getting added when there’s no real room for them. Some of them feel, dare I say, a little cynical: did we really need a giant naked clone of the leading female opponent?

Along the way you get all the virtues and vices of a Tsutomu Nihei manga - megastructural scale, minimalist but lovely landscapes, industrial body horror, cool character designs, tantalising gestures towards some greater untold story. But also muddled fight sequences and an impatience with his own story. The abstract action storytelling of his early series is in some ways more satisfying than Knights Of Sidonia and Aposimz, where he’s telling more conventional stories and turns out not to be that great at characterisation or plot.

Added to the mix this time is Nihei’s current art style, in which he’s cut out blacks almost entirely and relies on a feathery line and a few greys in a world of white space. It works very well for the action on the polar surface of Aposimz but not so well when we move underground or when the story demands a little more detail. And when you factor in Nihei’s fondness for weird angles, several points in which large structures are interacting become extremely obscure: the critical sequence where the bad guys take control of a weather satellite to try and crash it into the planet, for instance.

Worth a read even so - Nihei usually is - but more frustrating than usual.

[Cristian Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of folks saying they didn't like the ending but personally I really enjoyed it. Lots did happen very quick but the art is so beautiful that a reread probably would have happened even if I was able to absorb everything on the first go. Absolutely loved this series.

[dust · Rating 1 out of 5]

it's pretty clear the cancel order for this series was given as the entire tone is altered and everything rush-rushed to wrap everything up in the last few issues. after the measured, slow pace of the previous 50 chapters, here clarity, structure and atmosphere are shanghaied and 'disappeared' as multiple main characters (of which there weren't that many to begin with) are killed off in rapid succession with barely a comment, fights that would take up half a chapter previously are now not even depicted, with just a one-panel aftermath scene or someone summarizing the result in a single sentence, and The Final Showdown occurring in the span of a few pages and then _The End_ right after... it's jarring, cheap, amateurish and disappointing for a storyline i was mostly enjoying - until this happened. : /

[Sol · Rating 1 out of 5]

That was terrible. For those who don't care to read the ending: Every regular frame but Etherow and the emperor die in offscreen battles, and every human dies to frame disease. It turns out that Titania is the AI guardian of Aposimz, and downloads the personality of everyone who dies into the core of Aposimz, which is a virtual world where humanity was meant to reside. The ancestors of the surface world left the core, but their descendants went to war with Titania. She selected the emperor to become the guardian of the surface, but he turned against her. If Etherow can defeat the emperor, the former surface worlders can become legitimate residents of the core, but otherwise must be deleted.

Etherow confronts the emperor and fires his last AMB, but the emperor catches it, and using a massive amount of placenta, creates a rocket with the AMB at the tip to break into the core of Aposimz. Etherow defeats him by firing a megastructural screw into his rocket, making it explode. Titania reads the emperor's mind, who tells how he foresaw that Titania would select another guardian, who would end up killing him. His terror at this vision lead to his villainy in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Titania takes the emperor and Etherow into the core, where they meet Keisha and Wasabu.



The story is rushed to a conclusion in a breakneck sprint. Hardly any side characters get anything resembling closure, even ones introduced in the last two volumes. I can only assume that Nihei was either told to wrap this shit up ASAP, or some kind of personal crisis/boredom induced him to end it. All that would be fine, if the ending was otherwise interesting.



It isn't. The core is a generic utopia, and the explanation given barely makes sense. Why is the surface worlder legitimacy dependent on Etherow winning? Surely the core can either accommodate them or it can't? Why are they even bound by agreements made by their ancestors? Why can't Titania just kill the emperor herself? What difference is there between killing everyone on the surface and forcibly taking them back to the core? What the hell were the wishes she mentioned in the last few pages of the previous volume? Even if there had been 2-3 more volumes to give everything space I can't see this ending being any more interesting. It has neither the sublimity of Blame!, the WTF factor of Biomega/Abara, nor even the trollishness of Sidonia. The story spun its wheels for ages then crashed. That's all there is to it.



God, I wish that was me

[Les Lectures de Loow (Laura) · Rating 4 out of 5]

[AVIS GÉNÉRAL AU MANGA • 4,5/5]

Après avoir découvert le travail de Nihei en tant que scénariste pour Kaina of the Great Snow Sea, j'ai eu envie de découvrir son travail en tant que mangaka.

Mon choix s'est porté sur Aposimz car les couvertures me donnaient envie et c'est aussi le premier manga de Nihei dont j'ai suivi les sorties pour Monsieur.

Au final, j'ai beaucoup aimé. L'univers est bien travaillé, entre la planète Aposimz, le virus qui change les humains en marionnettes, et ceux qui peuvent devenir des marionnettes régulières avec certains dons, j'ai trouvé tout ça intéressant. De plus, l'empire est en conflit avec à peu près tout le monde, décrétant que si vous n'êtes pas avec lui, vous êtes contre lui.

J'ai adoré les personnages de Titania, Essro et Keisha. Ils sont vraiment géniaux que ce soit leur caractère, leur rôle ou mes relations qu'ils entretiennent les uns avec les autres. J'ai eu un peu plus de mal avec Wassabu, qui rejoint le groupe en cours de route, je le trouve trop collant envers Essro et assez lâche.

Les illustrations sont plutôt pas mal. Elles sont assez travaillées. J'ai juste trouvé dommage que certains personnages en armure se ressemblaient beaucoup. J'ai dû revoir certains passages pour être bien sûre de l'identité du personnage qui faisait telle ou telle action.
D'ailleurs certaines scènes passent assez vite. Nihei n'hésite pas à sauter certaines scènes de combat. Comme le combat final qui m'a clairement perdue car on n'en voit rien. Ou alors très peu. C'est sûr, ça évite des scènes de combat qui durent plusieurs pages mais là, c'est un peu trop rapide.

Dans tous les cas j'ai eu une bonne lecture de ce manga. Un bon moyen de découvrir le travail de Nihei. Vu que c'est le mangaka préféré de mon conjoint, j'ai d'autres de ses œuvres à découvrir et j'ai le choix!

[47Time · Rating 1 out of 5]

As expected, the ending sucks wet monkey balls. After wasting time overextending the story mostly gratuitously, they ended it with the obvious good-guy-bad-guy face off. I don't remember a more rushed and unspectacular, not to mention confusing, fight in the whole series. Such wasted potential.

Etherow faces some pretty powerful frames from the empire. Now we'll see something! No, wait, they're pushovers. It's all good. Keisha dies, though, in the most unceremonious fashion. That was a poor show.

The infection proceeds apace until only a small portion of the empire is left. The empire's army and fleet are mobilized, but the True Core Church wipes the floor with it. Etherow agrees to join Jate's side in protecting the remaining citizens of the empire. The emperor doesn't agree with this alliance - he wants Etherow dead so he sends 9 ships for this purpose. I guess they didn't learn anything about formations, maneuvers or evasive action, so they are all taken out by 2 of Etherow's AMBs.

After a history lesson that barely reveals anything interesting, the plot concludes that the emperor must be replaced by Etherow. The latter fires his last AMB at the emperor who is more than ready for it thanks to his power to read the future. In fact, the attack plays right into his plan - he uses the AMB to aim for the core of Aposimz. This last move should have destroyed Aposimz. How Etherow manages to stop and kill the emperor is anybody's guess. A screw is mentioned, if that makes any sense.

[Katharine · Rating 3 out of 5]

That's...that's it? That's how it ends? Was this series canceled, because that ending was incredibly abrupt? The final battle felt bland and rushed. The final reveal of the Core World was actually somewhat disappointing. The core world is basically The Matrix. But my question is, if they were all technically just digital lifeforms, how the hell did the people who decided to leave the Core all those years ago become organic beings?! That part is completely confusing me. The death of Kajiwan was also incredibly disappointing. Like, WHY did he turn basically all of the surface humans into Frame zombies? I know he was building an army, but that army ended up doing basically nothing in the end. Also, the reveal that Titania is actually the Core God was...eh. I feel like that was meant to be a huge revelation, but it was sort of obvious that Titania was a secret powerhouse. The ending was just such a disappointment. It feels like it was supposed to be a good emotional moment, but instead, I sat there going "What just happened?".

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with those frustrated by the rushed and highly elliptical quality of this conclusion (at this point, almost a Nihei trademark); in particular, there are huge battles and character deaths that occur between panels and go unremarked afterward. However, I found Titania’s long explanation of things both interesting and moving—SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT—less in terms of the familiar notion of VR “heaven” than an argument for…finitude, I suppose? It also might explain why the abovementioned battles and character deaths, so narratively jarring, don’t exactly matter, metaphysically... Pretty much everyone’s personality is “backed up.” I also appreciated the callback, however abrupt, to Etherow’s megastructural hammer and the little screws that characters have been using as currency. A nice touch.

[Monif Chowdhury · Rating 1 out of 5]

Body horror has never been my favourite but I loved Dorohedoro. I am mentioning this so that it doesn’t look like I didn’t like Aposimz because of that.

Cyborgs battling on a Frozen planet may be an interesting concept but was utterly misused. Bunch of characters being added without any reason only to be forgotten two pages later. The guy with the cool red suit has suit up scenes in every three pages!

Frustrating.

[Sophie Townsend · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not sure Nihei knows how to end his stories. Its like the focus and pace of the last one was terribly half hearted and conveniently ended with the protags just going to internet heaven???! The army of dolls didnt do anything! Charcters didnt grow or learn anything. They even slept on designing Titania for the last chapters. 2 stars.

[Ocean · Rating 3 out of 5]

A not exactly unsatisfactory way to end the series, but feels incredibly rushed. Again, things I want to have explored remain unexplored, and the central focus was on the least interesting aspects of this universe. That said, the art and worldbuilding is neat in this series, I'm glad I have read it, but it did feel like a slog at times.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read as individual chapters (49-54).

[S.J. Wilkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ends pretty abruptly.

[Andrea Butini · Rating 2 out of 5]

Come buttare via l'intera serie con capitoli affrettati, confusionari, e con una risoluzione ovvia e piattissima.

[Collin Carefoot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely going to have to re-read this series as it could convoluted at times.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Last volume of the series. And I have to say, it was a very rushed and very confusing ending. Even for Tsutomu Nihei.

[Vault · Rating 4 out of 5]

The series is very good but man that ending is just so disappointing. He actually got characters and plot pacing down pretty well.

[Lilly Ruiter · Rating 5 out of 5]

it’s so beautiful that i started and ended this year with this author. i’m so glad i stumbled upon this just at barns and noble and never turned back 10000000/100 5ever

[Othy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This manga seemed to wrap up a little too quickly. Nihei's works are not always as character-driven as others in the genre, but this manga introduced a number of characters who seemed to be there only for humor or to demonstrate an aspect of the world. The series ended well, though with little exposition of how the world got to be the way it is. A good series, this, but not Nihei's best, in my opinion.

[Gabriel Benitez · Rating 3 out of 5]

La serie acaba apurada y confusa. Es muy posible que lo repetitivo de su propuesta (enfrentamiento entre seres superpoderosos) no hubiera estado levantando lectores por lo que decidieron acabarla de inmediato. O también puede ser que el autor no sea muy bueno para los finales (lo mismo ocurrió con Blame, que me gustó mucho más) Pero en fin, c'est fini.