Manga Reviews (2010-2019): Knights of Sidonia - Master Edition vol. 1 by Nihei Tsutomu

“Knights of Sidonia” is thrilling, entertaining and one heck of a delightful read! Featuring the artistic and well-written work of Nihei Tsutomu, I’m so thrilled that “Knights of Sidonia” has received the Master Edition treatment and I look forward to reading the second volume!

MANGA TITLE: Knights of Sidonia – Master Edition vol. 1

BY Tsutomu Nihei (弐瓶勉)

FIRST PUBLISHED IN JAPAN: Kodansha

PUBLISHED IN USA BY: Vertical, Inc.

RELEASE DATE: April 9, 2019

Outer space, the far future.

A lone seed ship, the Sidonia, plies the void, ten centuries since the obliteration of the solar system. The massive, nearly indestructible, yet barely sentient alien life forms that destroyed humanity’s home world continue to pose an existential threat.

Nagate Tanikaze has only known life in the vessel’s bowels deep below the sparkling strata where humans have achieved photosynthesis and new genders. Not long after he emerges from the Underground, however, the youth is bequeathed a treasured legacy by the spaceship’s cool-headed female captain.

Meticulously drawn, peppered with clipped humor, but also unusually attentive to plot and structure for the international cult favorite, Knights of Sidonia may be Tsutomu Nihei’s most accessible work to date even as it hits notes of tragic grandeur when a hopeless struggle for survival unfolds.

From the creator of “Blame!”, “NOiSE” and “Biomega” comes Nihei Tsutomu’s “Knights of Sidonia”.

Originally published by Kodansha for the magazine “Afternoon” and having completed its run with its 15th tankobon volume and receiving an anime adaptation in 2014-2015, the manga series has been released in North America previously by Vertical Comics.

But now Vertical Comics is giving Tsutomu’s “Knights of Sidonia” a Master Treatment, which features a larger print, colored inserts and is an omnibus, with the first volume featuring chapters 1 through 2.5.

“Knights of Sidonia” is set in the distant future during a time when humans have fled Earth after the planet was destroyed by gigantic alien monsters known as Gauna.

Spaceships were created from the remains of the planet and one seed ship, Sidonia, has developed its own human culture similar to Japan due to the use of human cloning and asexual production. While those who are high up of society have been granted immortality.

The goal of the Interstellar Spaceship Sidonia is to continue its voyage for the survival of mankind.

As the humans of Sidonia wonder if any others have survived on other ships, Sidonia may be the only location of humanity.

Aboard the Sidonia is Tanikaze Nagate, a young man who lives in the underground layer of Sidonia and trains himself to pilot, using an old Guardian pilot simulator and mastering the old equipment.

While hungry and looking for rice, Tanikaze ends up falling in a hole to a rice production plant and not knowing the area, nor was he aware that other humans were living, he ends up in unfortunate situations that leads him getting injured, knocked out and waking up.

What is more shocking to the people of Sidonia when he tells him that he lived with his grandfather who passed away three years ago, was that his grandfather Saito Hiroki died 17-years-ago and that there is no records of a Tanikaze Nagate and also that he is unable to photosynthesize.

Nagate is quickly taken to a foreign land (actually the upper area of Sidonia) and he meets a woman, who turns out to be the 28th Captain of Sidonia who asks him to become a Garde Pilot and to defend Sidonia from another Guana attack.

Will this person from the underground world be what they need to defeat the Guana?

“Knights of Sidonia” is no doubt a fascinating sci-fi storyline and for Nihei Tsutomu, he has created numerous, exciting and captivating manga series such as “Blame!”, “Biomega” and “APOSIMZ”.

But Nihei’s work must be read from beginning to end, his work is not easy to jump in at from the middle and read to the end, as his characters are established earlier on and he builds upon that.

And with “Knights of Sidonia”, the first two volumes are important as it establishes the characters, the fight against the Gauna, but to see the evolving of the character Tanikaze Nagate.

In some ways, Tanikaze is a protagonist similar to a banal story of a countryside person moving to the big city, but in the case of “Knights of Sidonia”, he has been a sheltered child living in the underground with his grandfather and raised to be a pilot. That’s all he did was train.

And so when he does make it to the surface, people are shocked of how naive he is of the world but also that he didn’t receive special genetic treatment, so he can’t photosynthesize (the ability to sustain oneself through photosynthesis), so he is often hungry like a regular human for nutrition.

The story introduces us to a few characters such as Izana Shinatose, an intersex third gender, not male or female and becomes the first person to truly befriend Tanikaze but also starts to become attracted to him.

Izana gets jealous when Tanikaze is hanging out with a fellow Garde pilot named Hoshijiro Shizuka. A person which Tanikaze really starts to get close two and both have strong feelings towards each other.

We are introduced to the overachieving, cocky pilot Kunato Norio, heir of Kunato Developments and looks at Tanikaze as a rival.

While the series starts out as almost comedic and hilarious, that all changes when we learn how the Sidonia’s mission is full of danger. Especially when they are attacked by the Gauna.

It doesn’t take long to see characters, who you think may be important characters, suddenly being killed off and that is what makes “Knights of Sidonia” so fascinating is that characters that entertain you, they may or may not live by the end of a chapter.

So, I do enjoy “Knights of Sidonia” because it’s like “Star Trek”, incorporating space mission, evolution of the human species and technology but also to read about an underdog who shows great promise, but is quickly thrown in the fire when someone stabs him in the back.

Realizing that Tanikaze is unlike others because he had no friends, no close social interactions and when he does, we see how he reacts to things that others may find normal. But because of naivety, you can’t help but root for him.

Overall, “Knights of Sidonia” is thriling, entertaining and one heck of a delightful read! Featuring the artistic and well-written work of Nihei Tsutomu, I’m so thrilled that “Knights of Sidonia” has received the Master Edition treatment and I look forward to reading the second volume!

Manga Reviews (2010-2019): Knights of Sidonia – Master Edition vol. 1 by Nihei Tsutomu

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