Blame!

"Don't think; feel. It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all the heavenly glory." Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon (1974) Nihei Tsutomu is quite simply the Bruce Lee of the cyberpunk genre. Unlike other cyberpunk titles that often centers around the philosophies of existentialism or nihilism, Nihei carves out his own path in BLAME!. There is no thought-provoking or multi-layered story plot. There is very little dialogue and narration. What you get here is just stunning visuals which act as the principal mechanism for story progression, and Nihei accomplishes it with aplomb. Tobe able to transcend the boundaries of normal storytelling is nothing short of a masterpiece. It is an extremely satisfying read that made me finish it in just two marathon sessions. The BLAME! universe is a post-apocalyptic dystopia. Whatever little that’s left of the human population is scattered into small communities across the vast and seemingly unending darkness of the mega landscape. We join our protagonist, Killy, in his quest to search the gigantic labyrinth for the Net Terminal Genes. I won’t spoil too much but the Genes are the key to save the world which has spun out of control. He wanders around aimlessly for (amazingly) long periods of time, hoping to find clues to his goal. Equipped with his trusty SFG (little brother to the Big Fucking Gun), Killy is a force of nature. Well, I jest. It is actually called the Gravitational Beam Emitter. (Cool name huh?) In any case, this incredibly powerful little gun can blow a hole that extends for miles in anything that stands in its way. On his journey, Killy’s encounters with other strange creatures (cyborgs, machines and the like) usually explode into high octane battles. Surprisingly, there is no lack of action scenes despite the passive nature of the manga. The fighting is straight to the point. The characters do not make any cool poses for the sake of it, and we are also spared the annoying in-battle blabbering found in most shonen mangas. Yes, it’s pure, unadulterated, actual fighting. Absolutely fantastic. Another highlight is the glorious artwork. Nihei’s experience in architecture really shows in the manga. Never before have I seen colossal structures being drawn is such detail and cool angles. It may take a while to get used to his style, but be prepared for a barrage of eye orgasm. You’ll have to see it to believe it. As I’ve described earlier, the artwork replaces the role of narration. The characters seldom talk, unless absolutely necessary. The resultant slow pace of the story might be a turn off for some people. However, it accentuates the gloomy atmosphere very well. The delivery also adds a different dimension to the reading experience. Little details are revealed as the story progresses. It may seem confusing to some due to the lack of explanations and spoon feeding by the author, but it allows the reader to interpret the events in their own way. While the plot may not be particularly remarkable, it is very engaging. It fits Nihei’s style perfectly as it lends it a mysterious touch. The reader is constantly left wondering about the history of the events, backgrounds and motives of the characters. It certainly tickled my curiosity. As we follow Killy’s exploits, we watch as the world of BLAME! slowly unfolds before our eyes. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself (spiritually) living in it! This is not a thinking manga. To truly enjoy it, you must heed the words of the grandmaster. Activate your sensory perceptions and immerse yourself into the world of BLAME!. Don’t just think. FEEL. Well, instead of writing a few more paragraphs, let me try to summarize the whole thing using a few descriptors and keywords: Atmospheric; Dark Ambience; Vast Universe; Colossal Structures; Explorative; Passive; Surreal; Explosive Action; Magnificent Artwork, Grotesque Character Designs; MASTERPIECE How I wish I could do a review using drawings instead.

I wanted to like Blame!, but Blame! wouldn't let me. The first 2 volumes are unreadable. The paneling is so poor that it takes a lot of time to decipher what is supposed to be shown. There's no flow; no sense of position or direction, so it's hard to tell where Killy is in relation to his environment, or where the safeguards are in relation to him. The style would look nice if you were able to tell what you were looking at. This improves in volume 3, where you can mostly decipher what's on the page, but it still has the issue of beingcompletely lost with position and direction. It remains like this through volume 8. Volume 9 is where it picks up significantly. Instead of being in the cluttered underbelly of the cyberpunk apocalypse, it's a lot more empty, which allows the architecture to be more visible, and is able to display the character and mechanical designs more effectively. In the last two volumes, where you can see the art properly, the character/mechanical designs are quite interesting and spooky. There's an organic, insectoid look to them. The page spreads every few chapters are usually nice, with good architecture and a view of the environment from a good angle, but this does not justify the first 2 volumes being unreadable and 3-8 being barely passable. There's no story to Blame!, which isn't that big of a problem. I was looking forward to reading about some guy walking through a cyberpunk apocalypse without any particular motivation. Killy is looking for the "Net Terminal Gene", whatever that is, and for whatever reason. That's all that's need to justify a manga primarily about the atmosphere and aesthetic. But when the visuals are dreadful, it's hard to be immersed in the simplicity of the journey. There's some lore every now and then, but none of it is relevant and it only serves to feed the fans who like this. That's a good thing. If you're interested in Blame! you deserve some sort of reward. Just like there's no story, there's also no characterisation. Killy the spandex wanderer is looking for the "Net Terminal Gene" and that's all we ever know through to the last chapter. He has companions along the way who are often called Cibo, and one time there was another spandex wanderer who stayed around for a few volumes. Just like with the story, I was looking forward to reading something simple, without any characterisation. And again, when the main selling point isn't good, there's no reason to care. Blame! is not worth reading. If you like architecture, type "Hagia Sophia" into your search engine. If you like cyberpunk, find something that doesn't look terrible. If Blame! didn't fail horribly with its art and paneling it could have been a great manga. Unfortunately, it's awful.

Story & Art - 10 & 9 The art is the story. BLAME! has extremely little dialog and no narration except for an occasional "39216 hours later" or so. Therefore the development of the story is almost solely communicated through the visuals. It is entirely up to you to perceive, ponder about and interpret the present and the past. As you get more familiar with the universe you might be able to draw conclusions about something that has happened earlier, which back then wasn't quite completely understandable and so on... A critic might call BLAME! confusing, as a bad thing, but the thing is, if it isconfusing in a bad way is up to you. Whether you actively engage in interpreting it or not and how far your imagination takes you. Personally I'm rather tired of much of the modern day's entertainment which sole purpose seems to be passivate the perceiver to do nothing but sit back and enjoy a ride. BLAME! however is very stimulating and I've spent endless hours thinking about it from different angles just because it can be interpreted in so many ways and that is a beauty in itself. A friend of mine told me, after I had forced him to read it, that he found some of the parts of the manga to be extremely confusing and he had no idea what was going on, my response to him was going on a rant about how I've interpreted it, but I ended up apologizing to him for ruining the pleasure of figuring these things out for himself. On a side note, my friend did not think badly of the manga overall, rather he said that it was one of the best manga he had read. So it could be perceived as confusing so perhaps it's not a person-who-dislikes-confusing-and-cloudy-stories' first choice but I would still recommend it because in essence it's not a mystery manga or anything like that. It is a cyberpunk / action with an intensely dark and brooding atmosphere which sticks like feathers to tar, to the back of your mind. In that aspect it is emotionally provocative, it creates an unique and perhaps disturbing emotion within you which stays with you even after leaving the manga, when you're onto doing something else. A critical aspect of the art is it's portrayal of this vast and seemingly endless setting filled with colossal structures which seem to have been abandoned since who knows when. Great drawings of cold machinery, some seem to have broken down from having been put out of use, while some still function for the sake of functioning after all this time. Our protagonist's fate is to wander these hallowscapes and when reaches new areas we are given no clues to where we've stumbled into other than our surroundings and the people we meet. The detail is not only fantastic but Nihei Tsutomu's ability to draw perspective truly creates a world in 3d. Even the character design immediately captivated me. This pale, grim expression on the character's face, led me to believe that this was a hardened man who's been through a lot. I felt as if I was getting to know this character by looking at him, even though I've just begun reading the first chapter and he has barely uttered a word. As for the action scenes, we're allowed to witness the devastation and intense power depicted very clearly. They are for the most part, in contrast to the story, easy to follow. This straight-forward approach spares us the self-righteous rants and interrupting one-liners and just delivers plain awesome action. Character - 8 It's a cold and harsh world which has no room for harboring the soft or the weak. This is a fact which we are constantly reminded of as we meet the characters of BLAME!. The characters show no particular depth, yet serve their purpose very well. Some have their logical reasons while some remain a mystery. There is not much character development but there is some, it is enough, but there is left room for more. Most of the characters portrayed somewhat cold and indifferent, it is after all understandable and I wouldn't have it any other way, weep scenes would feel kind of out of place, besides there's nothing quite as beautiful as when you catch a small glimpse of emotion through that hard shell which they've grown over time. Enjoyment - 10 I barely took a single break while I was reading the manga for the first time, I was glued to it. That said, it's not the absolute most enjoyable read. However, like I've said before, I've spent endless hours just thinking back on it, going over it in my mind and attempting to interpret it from as many angles as possible. I get a slight tingly feeling in my stomach just thinking about it. BLAME! has continuously kept me stimulated even when I'm not reading it, practically infinite enjoyment.

To put it simply, there is a reason Blame is such a renowned cult hit. It's art style is both captivating and horrifying, it's story extremely minimal, it's atmosphere thick as syrup, and with it Blame has always been seen as a modern classic of cyberpunk and experimental manga. If you are in for something strange and off the beaten path then you will surely enjoy this bizarre and complex piece of cheese. Blame is about a lone wanderer named Killy, who in keeping up with cyberpunk standards, is not 100% human. Killy begins a quest to find net terminal genes, a genetic code that mayor not be extinct, To find net terminal genes, Killy wanders in the setting of the manga, known only as The City. The capital letters and context alone may show its quite the mysterious place. The City is a vast technological world whose bizarre nature borders on surrealism in some parts. The City seemingly has no vertical or horizontal end, stretching on endlessly forever, everywhere. No government can be seen in any form, and machines run rampant doing crazy stuff. Factions of silicon based life forms and trans-humans struggle to survive in a very unforgiving and relentless enviroment, constantly put on the pressure of the Safeguard, a relentless machine god horde of creatures seemingly out of God Emperor of Dune. Killy attempts to find the Net Terminal Genes for a human faction, in an attempt to bring control to the City and the Megastructure inside. The Megastructure is an infnitely expanding series of floors in the City, seemingly making it impossible to go up or down to another floor due to it's nature of a being a gigantic infitely long space wall that is several hundreds of miles thick. Killy is the only human able to traverse these megastuctures due to his possession of a bizarre weapon with unknown origins, the Gravitational Beam Emitter, a gun so powerful that it can potentially punch through the normally indestructible Megastructure. Blame!'s story is not really a story in the typical sense. Usually in a story you have some characters with their own development, backdrop information, and instances that drive an overarching plot forward. All of these things are virtually non-existent in Blame, which is hardcore minimalist. Dialogue rarely occurs, and you can never understand what characters are thinking. All you are presented with is Killy going around, his reasons mostly unexplained, the setting unexplained, a glossary of terms that does not exist etc. But you can figure things out about the story, however its never directly presented to you, so you have to pick things up from the details completely, which are subtle at best. Needeless to say, that makes the story completely open to interpretation, but it's interesting interpretation in the sense that it can make sense in a concrete way. Lets say you finished the manga and then went to forums to see what people thought of the ending, if they reference a particular part in the series to construct their theory, you can say "Ah, I remeber that part." It's interesting. Art is pretty crazy. You can probably get a good idea what the style is like from this spread I posted with the review. It's very sketchy and unpolished looking, but it works well. Sometimes I like to say that "bad art is not a style, even if its consistent" but I never really found Blame's art to be bad. The only thing that was a bit strange looking was the faces, but you have to keep in mind this manga is damn old. Nihei however, has always had this sketchy style which makes the setting, and ESPECIALLY the enemies look eldritch level insane. There is not a single way I can describe the designs of the Silicon based life besides that, they look like they literally climbed out of a wormhole. Guts spill out of random places, their metal skull based on some animal thing, bizarre needle arms like Bokurano, you name it. They are all unique in overall design and they are all crazy looking. Conclusively, its very hard to review Blame in a concrete way due its nature of being so broad in interepretation. I loved it due to it's unending surrealism and mystery and the minimalistic plot, along with the art style. I will probably never understand the intention of the story as a whole and especially the ending, if it exists. But without a doubt this rather short cyberpunk classic deserves to be read by all fans of manga.