Knights of Sidonia

Our favourite cyberpunk artist has finally gone mainstream, dumbed his latest work down to a level that we mere mortals can consume & digest without difficulties. Nihei Tsuomu's works are very unique. 'Blame!' was a manga you had to re-read a few times to actually realize the plot. The magaka refused to narrate even the most critical things. Compare that to the typical manga/anime with text-bubbles, notes & what-nots... you were left with your own devices(imagination, wit & interest) to parse the story. Yet the story was complex, layered and you were free to come up with your own interpretations. But, whatever your impression wasbased on his previous works, you had to admit one thing: That his works were utterly, massively, absolutely cool. One definite improvement is the artwork. There's now a unprecedented clarity, unseen on Nihei's previous mangas. Now the human are drawn with equal grace & fluency as he did with the cyborgs, monsters & robots before. Although there's the issue with generic human faces. But seeing the author's depiction of conflict on a grand-scale & mind boggling mega structures, there aren't many manga with better artworks than this. Characters in this manga are designed & developed in a traditional way. Now there are conversations, multiple panels are dedicated on clarifying a character's intentions or actions. Not many things are left to imagination. Some of the fight scenes are a bit confusing maybe, but the anime will help you up on that. Multiple readings are not required to finally get to the bottom of the story. If you were expecting a gritty, dark story without any emotional fat & shallow story-telling.... you might be disappointed. Although "Mecha" is not a genre that can naturally produce anime/manga with actual depth in the story-line. The basic idea of human shaped fighting machines doesn't scream 'grown-up' in the first place. Yes this is tagged as "seinen", but not for the right reasons. Truth is, this manga(and anime adaption) is & will continue to be a bigger success in Nihei's career compared to 'Blame!' or 'Biomega'. If you are a mecha/space-odessy fan, you must give it a go. There aren't many better ones than this.

Knights of Sidonia manga was Tsutomu Nihei's take on the Mecha branch of Sci Fi genre. All of Tsutomu Nihei's works are Sci Fi, he is a Sci Fi / Cyber Punk mangaka. All of Tsutomu Nihei's works are connected, they share the same Universe, but the characters and places in each of his mangas are different. If you read one of his works like The Blame! before reading Knights of Sidonia, you have seen familiar names like Toha Heavy Industries and Graviton Radial Emitter in the manga. Toha Heavy Industries was the big corporation which developed all kinds of technologies from mechas to Graviton RadialEmitter, super weapon (which was the most powerful weapon in Nihei Universe) in Nihei's mangas. Knights of Sidonia's story was about some of the remaning humanity's existential survival against a no negotibale, bearly sentient alien beings called Gauna and a human scientist. I liked all the characters and wanted them to win against Gauna and the mad scienteist Ochiai. Ochiai had his convincing reasons to do what he did as he explained his motivations and purpose in the end of the manga, he wouldn't shy away from any kind of immoral act to achive whatever he thought necessary including inhumane experiments which could be considered taboo, murder and even mass murder... You know, the kind of personality that comes with being a mad scientist... HA HA The Manga was Lgbt community friendly in a futuristic way. One of the main characters, Izana Shinatose was a geneticly engineered person with both male and female genitalia. He/She could swing both ways according to male or female person, he/she liked and could even give birth to a clone of his/her self without needing any partner. he/she was one of the 3rd gender persons in the fictional future of Knights of Sidonia. All the people on board of Space Ship Sidonia were geneticly engineered, (it was necessary for the survival of humanity at some point in the Sidonia's history.) most of them could photosynthesise and eat only once a week. The Protoganist Nagate Tanikaze was the ace mecha pilot of The Space Ship Sidonia and he had a harem... HA HA I don't think i can name all the girls in his harem but i will try, Izana (3rd Gender), Teruru (a cybernetic girl), Tsumugi (a gauna, human hybrid), Yuhata, Captain Kobayashi and even some of the Honoka sisters (who were like 8 same looking clone girls or something). I think Nagate nailed Kobayashi at some point (high five), there were hints but it was ambiguous. I tried my best to give a review to the manga without spoiling it. hope you liked what you read and give a shot to the manga.

From chapter 1 to 78 a 4/10. Wow! that was very disappointing. Especially the final arc. Characters were thrown in the trash along with their developments. Only for a horrible romance to happen, then die, then came back again to life. The plot is all over the place in the final half. The worst plot point and holes (little robot killer?). The first arcs had some very bad artistic decisions, that made the art descriptions and scenes very blurry and hard to understand, everything was always in a dark tone. But that was just the first half of the manga. After that someone must have calledthe author in the back and said "I don't understand these arts at all, bro", couse they all look bright and clearer and more easy to understand/appreciate at the final arc. in short, the art is good, especially the backgrounds and objects in the background. Plot is messy, the end is horrible (and bizarre). What a shame for a manga with such a good start (plot). The romance created between the chimera and tanikaze is bizarre, forced and often disgusting. It is just... strange. To summarize everything in the phrase of a great sage: "My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined" Bad manga 4/10. Waste time with it.