Orb: On the Movements of the Earth

About the Movement of the Earth is a nice story about humanity's purpose told through the struggle for heliocentrism. It goes through the lives of its multiple main characters while they fight for this cause, each having their own personal struggles, covering different themes alongside the main one. The themes are brought up thoroughly in long dialogue that are tied into the story itself. The characters talk A LOT about philosophical ideas in these blatant lecture-style ramblings (?). It feels more like the characters are having debates in the middle of whatever's happening in the story. But more often than not, it does feel quite natural.I'm not saying it's realistic but it does fit the manga's tone. This does get annoying sometimes, and the lack of visual presentation does not help. I don't mind the 'ugly' drawings, but some panels are just bland or even empty. It makes it feel like I'm just reading a script for a play or something. Actually, the story is structured like a stage play. There's a bunch of characters explicitly ranting towards each other or to themselves, and the scene ends with one big moment. Idk if that's accurate but the plays I've watched are like that (I've only watched 2 of them). Best part about this manga is its depiction of the value of human life in the pursuit of a greater purpose. There's something romantic about hundreds and thousands of people giving up their lives for a single cause or idea, especially when this cause ends up lasting an eternity (eg: the pyramids, any religion). The forgotten lives of the workers that built the pyramids might seem meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but the fact that they contributed to one of the greatest legacies of humanity, it gives their lives meaning. The reality is that a lot of human greatness was achieved by the sacrifice of many. It's a theme that I rarely encounter in media. Most of the time the sacrifice of the background characters is not addressed at all in favour of the main ones. About the Movement of the Earth depicts this theme with a bleak honesty on the oppression and suffering experienced by our characters, but also a feel-good aftertaste since heliocentrism did eventually prevail at the end. The fact that every characters struggle ends up being useful, no matter how small it is, also gives the reader some semblance of relief. It probably wasn't as nice in reality. Symbolically, the fight to prove that earth was not at the center of the universe represents the rejection of selfish individual greatness. The sun will keep revolving regardless of what happens to us, same as the lofty ideas that will outlive its famed founders. But the founders themselves are a product of a greater whole. The perceived greatness of Copernicus or any other great man was built on the works of a hundred lives, forgotten by time, just like everything else in the universe. Overall a pretty nice manga. 7-8/10 note: this is a weird review lmao

A Relay Race. This part-fiction | part-reality story is not focused on completing a collective goal, but rather more heavy on passing off the baton to the next best available person whom they might or might not even know/seen/heard of. Complete faith in not just themselves, but also in strangers that in the rarest of probability 'might' be interested in taking their legacy forward. That's Orb and it's protagonists for you in a nutshell. Having just finished the anime adaptation too, I must say this is one of those very rare storytelling masterpieces that no matter in what medium; would excel in relaying what's supposed tobe relayed. The art style might not be the very best, but that wouldn't even matter in the grandest scheme of things. If you're someone who likes serious, grown up, thought provoking & tense (sometimes violent, sometimes emotional) plots, this is it. This is the Real Deal.

TL:DR Characters are vehicles for the plot, some chapters feel more like textbooks than manga and the story jumps to different characters constantly. However, there is something profound in what it has to say. Read it for the philosophy not the story. Story: 6/10 The manga has three time skips, each following a different character (well, four including the epilogue). First we're introduced to the first protagonist and I was excited to see his journey. Then we have a time skip and I realised that there would be no protagonist to follow in this manga. In fact, we seem to follow the ideas each character left behind morethan the characters themselves. The first part felt too short, it was jarring to move past the first protagonist so soon. The second part was the longest and, predictably, the best. We followed one set of characters for longer and they could be more developed. The third part was the worst in my opinion, it felt very out of left field due to how, for lack of a better word, shounen it felt compared to the grounded historical feeling of the rest of the manga. I feel like the manga tries to tackle the historical prejudice against women in the era of the setting but it was very surface level and preachy. The main female character is pretty much immediately accepted as an intellectual equal and there is no obstacle to overcome, most characters around her is totally cool with her being a scholar. Seems weird to focus on the difficulties of female scholars when we really only see it being an issue for a chapter or two. And yet, despite all my complaints, there is something profound here. The manga dives into the philosophy of faith and science, as well as the fact that they may not be so opposed after all. The characters' motivations behind sacrificing so much merely to advance an idea resonates with me. At times I felt like the author was the one speaking not the characters but their ideas are delivered so earnestly I can't bring myself to hate it. Character: 5/10 The characters are used exclusively as a vehicle for their respective world views. The majority of their dialogue reads more like the author lecturing through the characters than something someone would actually say. When I realised that we wouldn't be following any character for very long, I stopped caring all that much for each one and I wasn't surprised when I found that they were not very developed. They don't really do anything except research or talk about heliocentrism. The main antagonist, Nowak is genuinely scary - his sheer conviction and brutality make a compelling villain. Considering he's the only character that is present throughout all three parts, this is especially good. Art Every part of the art is beautiful… except the characters. Buildings, nature, objects, backgrounds, all of it is great but the characters look so strange. Their faces have this strange uncanny valley quality that is genuinely distracting at times. The fact that many characters look very similar does not help. The rest of it is very good though. Overall: 6/10 The very definition of not for everyone. Orb as a story feels rather bare-bones but it shows such passion for science and the pursuit of truth that I almost can't fault it. Mixed recommendation: avoid if you're in it for plot or characters but if you want to understand why people pursue truth, then this manga is for you.

Orb was a quite interesting read. It's a thought-provoking story about the pursuit of knowledge, the intrinsically curious nature of mankind, and religion. Let me preface the following: I'm not a religious person, but reading stuff that talks about religion is always very interesting to me. It's a very tricky topic that can be approached from so many different angles. What Orb does is quite novel. Out of all the manga I've read, I've only noticed a slight overlap in theming with Shut Hell, which talks about the value of scripture and passing on knowledge through history. The historical nature is front and center in both works,but Orb has a more grounded story that relies on the plot and characters to move forward, compared to Shut Hell's more traditional action-driven flow. The reason why I'm noting this is to leave something very clear: Orb is purely about the idea of passing knowledge on, researching, and the drive to reach the truth. Everything else is secondary, even the characters. Despite us having multiple protagonists to explore, they all end up giving in to the same idea of slowly chipping away at the truth. This is a beautiful notion, but it can be a bit hindering to the flow of the work and the writing of each character. I still like what the author does though, picturing how each protagonist gets challenged on their faith, values and convictions in different ways during their struggle. The entire appeal of the manga spawns from this idea, and to be fair, it doesn't fail to deliver. Orb also manages to convey a crude picture of Christianity that isn't much often talked about, and I really value that. However, with it's short length of 60 and odd chapters, it doesn't get to do much else apart from this. No "worldbuilding" (to give an idea) about the other religions thriving during the same period. Only a slight nod to the Crusades, and no actual delving into what could've been an interesting point to make about the difference of mindsets between Christian and Muslim population, especially when regarding astrological research and such. I also have some issues with the cast. While I really really like Badeny and Oczy, everyone in the manga but Nowak suffers from feeling very one-note. While it takes skill to chain together the plot in the way that the mangaka succeeded to do, since each arc is only around 20 chapters it really limits the potential to grow that each character has. And finally, I feel the manga could've been crazily more interesting by showing off real historical figures. There's a lot of name dropping, but the only actual character that has historical relevance is Albert. While you could argue this was done on purpose to drive home the fact that this kind of discovery is never brought by a single person, but instead by generations of unnamed contributors, it does go against all research and current opinion held on the matter of heliocentrism. Keeping in mind this is a very historically grounded manga, it felt like a peculiar choice to have a 95% made-up cast. I might not be informed enough, but from the amount of googling I did, it seems to be the case. Despite the incessant whining that the review has been so far, I do like the manga. I believe it's short enough to warrant a read from basically anyone that could feel even remotely interested in the premise. If that is you, my last point is the following: the art is not good at all, which is a huge drawback. The backgrounds are most often than not pure white, but atleast the panelling is good. Even so, this issue is less important with this kind of manga, but it's still important to keep in mind. Regardless, all the issues I pointed out are quite minor. Depending on your preferences, I think you could find yourself to really like the manga. 7.5