Knights of Sidonia, Band 7

シドニアの騎士 [Sidonia no Kishi] #7

by Tsutomu Nihei (Translator), Josef Shanel (Translator)

Endlich kann der Angriff auf das Gauna-Mutterschiff Okarina gestartet werden! Kurz vor Beginn der Mission taucht jedoch der totgeglaubte Wissenschaftler Ochiai mit einer Gravitationsstrahlenkanone auf, die die Sidonia in ernste Gefahr bringt! Als die Besatzung daraufhin fluchtartig das Schiff verlässt, wird sie zum Ziel hunderter Gauna und muss schwere Verluste hinnehmen. Doch Nagate will keinesfalls aufgeben! Um die Sidonia zu retten, beschließt er, sich den Gauna entgegenzustellen … allein.

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

364 pages, Hardcover

Published November 3, 2022

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

[Ocean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how satisfactory an ending this is. I guess it ties things up but there's a lot of questions that I wish were answered a little more. This ending didn't feel like it had much room to breathe, and some of the decisions of humanity in the epilogue portion are a little questionable in my opinion. I'm also not really into where the romantic ending wound up. To me there's elements of it that seem like a cop-out. Usually if someone sacrifices themselves, I want a writer to stick to the sacrifice, otherwise the sacrifice loses its meaning and gravity. Nevertheless, this series was a ton of fun, I just wish it stuck the landing a little better.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A conclusion to the series that felt initially satisfying, mostly because it utilized cliched story arc components to give most of the major characters happy endings. But the more I think about it, the less satisfying it feels overall since there are so many issues left unresolved. In particular, there's no real explanation of where the gauna came from or what motivates them. Yes, in the previous book it was established that they are attracted somehow to Higgs technology (was this supposed to be a surprise? the characters seemed to regard it as a revelation, but as Higgs particles are the primary magical handwavium explanation for human tech and every impossible thing gauna do, this felt obvious), but they seem to have some deeper intentionality and motivation, especially given their repeated attempts to copy or mimic humans they absorbed. Also, the bit of historical explanation we have is that the gauna showed up in the solar system and destroyed Earth, prompting numerous seed ships like Sidonia to fly off in various directions; however, the Sidonia both encountered gauna on several occasions during its flight, and the other seed ships all were apparently destroyed, which suggests that the gauna are broadly distributed throughout at least the local region of space; that being the case, why is the defeat of this single cluster ship seen as a triumph leading to characters settling Lem happily-- sooner or later gauna are likely to show up again. The series also flirts with deep questions about consciousness and immortality in the form of gauna mimicking of humans, all of Ochiai's efforts to achieve a "perfect" form, the Immortal Crew Society, and Tsumugi's resurrection at the end of this story but it never really adds up to anything important.

This volume also had two bits that left me wondering: one was that I had completely forgotten who Eiko Yamano was, so the whole vengeance through her little brother arc didn't really resonate (apparently she was the first character killed and mimicked by gauna way back in the first volume, but given how many characters were subsequently absorbed, and to much greater and lasting impact, I obviously didn't find her particularly memorable). And related to her younger brother growing getting vengeance, it is revealed that the series has taken place over several years, which makes a sort of sense, but there are also no clear indicators of the passage of time, how long it has taken, or of the characters growing up from teens to young adults, except for the time skip at the end of this volume, which is not the passage of time in question.

[SageQRtet · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to describe the feeling after I've finished the last volume. I can't say that I was disappointed, but I was thinking "This is it? Is this how it ends?".
There is some character development, and that's probably the best part of the volume. The rest was war, and in my humble opinion it wasn't as emotional or suspenseful, as some previous battles (with one exception, that I wouldn't mention due to spoilers). I was definitely expecting characters to suffer more.
I was really looking forward to some development of gauna or hybrid theme. Can hybrids be the next phase, evolution of humankind? Can it finally communicate to gauna? Why gauna are attacking humankind? Is imitating human - an attempt of gauna to communicate? I don't want answers, but a hint, some ending revelation, that will keep me thinking about it, that will invite me to revisit the story again from volume 1.
So I guess I can say, that I feel empty after reading it. It's the reading experience that is entertaining, but forgetful. Unfortunately, for me it was not as good as first volumes.

[Ethan Knierim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everything wrapped up cleanly and a happy ending was afforded most everyone. The final fights were interesting enough but I’ve never been one for big action set-pieces. This final installment, like most of the series, did not linger long enough on emotional beats to let them adequately sink in and most losses were negated. The only loss that held weight was that of Eiko and the introduction of her brother was proof that Shou could have been given proper emotional justice. Kanata’s final plea fell quite flat as well because of Tsumugi’s existence.