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Judging by the cover art for each volume, one might assume that Freezing is a series comprised of martial arts, romance, and a touch of ecchi. Even the first few chapters might mislead you into thinking that this manga is apart of the all too common genre starring a plucky hero who somehow manages to be surrounded by nothing but beautiful girls willing to fight to the ends of the world, all in the name of love. A genre where no matter how bad or one-sided a fight seems, the heroes always come out unscathed. However, Freezing is far from being a fighter-harem and at ... the same time is much more than that.

The truth is, plot-wise, Freezing is much darker than it appears to be. The premise of this story is that alien beings, known as Nova, have invaded Earth with the intent to annihilate mankind. In order to combat this threat humanity created a force of super powered individuals through human experimentation. But even though these select individuals are gifted with super powers, they aren’t invincible or exempt from anguish. On the contrary, most battles with the Nova end in heavy casualties for the good guys and no one is spared as even close friends and lovers become the victims of dismemberment and mangling. Novas aren’t the only bad guys showcased in Freezing either. Even humans prey on other humans as rape and sexual abuse are explored.

As far as art goes, the quality of art you find on the cover is exactly what you can expect inside the manga. The level of detail that goes into character design and texturing is very high. There isn’t really any panel where a body part looks disproportionate or the body looks oddly posed either. The background art is also really good in that the same amount of detail that goes into drawing the characters goes into designing the backgrounds. And the combat is really easy to follow too. Each fight scene can span multiple panels and even pages, just to illustrate one character dodging another character only to land one punch.

All in all, as of chapter thirty, Freezing leaves you with the impression of a very well drawn, mature seinen. The only downside so far has been that every now and then there is the unnecessarily intricate explanation of how each ability works. But this is common in almost all manga where martial arts are concerned. Other than that, the authors sort of seemed to pull a fast one with the gore and abuse as they will catch you off guard. The transition from the characters enjoying themselves into being brutalized can happen almost instantly, which further helps depict the fact that humanity is in a war for its survival. If this sounds like the kind of manga you’re looking for then I definitely recommend that you pick up a copy of Freezing and give it a shot.