Blame!

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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 being ... completely 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 - There is little story to speak of. The setting is the pinnacle of vagueness - "maybe on Earth, maybe in the future". So from the beginning we are given little to no information concerning the plot. That would have been fine, as long as I got more information from the characters. Unfortunately this did not happen. The manga begins with 2 random people whom I could only assume were the protagonists. Another man walks up to one of the protagonists and says "hey! I haven't seen anyone for a long time". The protagonist then shoots him with some kind of weapon that blows ... the man in half. The protagonist then says "I bet he wanted my cell". So our main character has paranoid schizophrenia. And this is just the beginning of the story. Two other random humanoid robot-like characters come along and steal the dying man's memory. There is then a shootout and explosions. I couldn't make sense of the action as it was too random and chaotic, and also badly drawn.

Art - The art is very rough and dirty, making it difficult to make out exactly what is happening. Character designs are quite ugly, it's hard to tell the difference between male and female characters. In addition the author seems to have some problems with drawing from different perspectives.

Character - The characters are extremely weird and behave erratically to the point where they are incomprehensible. The dialogue is very strange and makes very little sense, no matter which way I look at it.

Enjoyment - I gained no enjoyment from reading this manga.

Overall - I can describe this manga only as a collection of inane incomprehensible action sequences. If you're looking only for explosions and badly drawn humanoids then consider reading this. Otherwise don't bother.

Originality isn't necessarily a good thing, and Blame! is a complete example of that.

At its core, this manga follows a very classic "quest" storyline, similar to all the poems about the holy grail etc: we meet a hero on a quest, the hero has to fight a lot of enemies, he makes some friends along the journey, the enemies are getting stronger, some of his friends betray him, but the hero finally manages to overcome all those obstacles and completes his quest. That's the basic outline of this type of story, and Blame! follows it quite meticulously.

The reason why this kind of story usually ... works, and why in Blame! it falls flat on its face, is quite simple: the CHARACTERS. The characters in this manga do not have any personality at all, no background, no dreams, nothing. I usually complain that some manga characters are one-dimensional, but here it's even worse, these characters barely have any dimension at all. As a result, I don't feel anything at all for the protagonist when he faces danger, when he escapes "death", when his friends betray him, and so on. I don't feel any attachment to them, and no emotion at all apart from complete frustration. It's even worse for the "enemies", who are basically nothing more than faceless clones. Because of Blame's unique technique of storytelling, this results in a quest story for which I couldn't feel anything at all, and even though I can't deny it is quite original in itself, I can't say it makes for a good story, quite the opposite.

Other elements don't help matters, such as the repetitive action scenes, the "same-face" syndrom for the main cast, and the non-sensical twists, but I don't mind them that much compared to the utter void that is the characterization in this manga.

Despite all these flaws, I can't give this the lowest score, because they were a couple of elements that I liked. The ending is actually quite beautiful, even though it's not worth slugging through 65 tedious chapters to get there. The worldbuilding is fairly interesting, with an otherworldly air, and the art is pretty good when it comes to post-apocalyptic landscapes. I think I would've liked it much better if this was a single-volume manga about Killy simply walking through all those desolate landscapes, considering how bad the actual story is it would've been better to have no story at all.

I was encouraged by a friend to read this manga, as it was a little more niche, and I like science fiction that doesn't rely on time travel to make it interesting. I thought that perhaps this manga would help me find my own personal tastes in sci-fi and cyberpunk. This wish went without fulfillment, however, as I was taken by surprise that the manga has absolutely no plot.
I'll start off with the good parts that I found enjoyable. The art and character design is stylized, and works perfectly for the "story" attempting to be ... portrayed. It gives the audience a sense of unease and sorrow, which is perfect for a post-apocalyptic world, and is uncommon these days in almost all forms of art. Moreover, the villains' character designs are all creepy and genuinely terrifying to a degree. However, this is where the praise ends.
Here's the main issue with BLAME!; a book or movie or show needs a plot of some assortment, no matter how small. Even the expendables gives a slight excuse for all the gore and violence. BLAME!, however, gives no excuse for the violence accept that a vague mcguffin is being hunted for by Killy, our main character, and he's a violent loner. Which brings me to the characters, who may as well not even exist, as they never speak, never emote, never interact interestingly, and make the experience as bland as physically possible. Even when these two mains, Killy and Cibo, are separated in this hostile, violent world, neither seems to care. Even when either or both are severely injured, they simply shrug and never speak. Why would this choice be made, when there are so many interesting interactions within the "plot" presented to be had? All that's spoken about is the aforementioned mcguffin, and that isn't even fully explained at all.
Very little is explained or expanded upon, and the entire art style, which I still really like, becomes nothing but an excuse for violence, and not even a good one. You could say that the environment becomes the explanation for all my gripes, but then there's the matter of why Killy wants the mcguffin, why Cibo decides to help him in her multiple incarnations, why the silicon lifeforms and safeguards are hunting them, how the entire Net Sphere is accessed, why humans have been banned, and why their main antagonist is so virulent throughout the city. Thus, I give my rating of an overall 3/10.

Ultra violent pretty gory gives an Akira-esque vibe. I like it but there's no story, no plot, no explanation of anything. Which i guess is good for some people but about 80 words over 5 chapters is not very good. Artistically it is stunning but it does not pop out that much later on; until they add the colored pages which again reflect the amazing scenery.

~SPOILERS~

Killy is traveling for some reason, boom that's how this starts. That is how this continues for untold(30) chapters. But we find out he's looking for the NET TERMINAL GENES. But why? For whom? For what purpose do they serve? ... Then he meets others from another part of the mega-structure whatever that is. Anything he doesn't like or threatens him he kills with some sort of gravitational beam weapon. Then he magically is near the governor/president some gigantic humanoid that him and cibo kill for whatever reason.

Then he still does his wondering for hours i did the math going up 3 months, travel to somewhere else was about 2,000 years, on thing that was a storage container was the same size as Jupiter. The proportions the sizes there's no end to this metal structure is just insane, what purpose do they serve...none it could be 1 minute up 1 second distant and 1 cub. foot and it wouldn't change anything. The space warping, time warping, shape shifting, cybernetic organisms, AI, Giants, dwarfs, humans, not humans, clones, monsters, and other things. There is no coherence in story and pieces and fragments from the limited conversations leaves too many questions and opens so many more which is not a good thing. I don't really plan on reading the rest of the series as this just got so boring and slow with no substance.

So TL:DR, good fights, no story, boring slow later on and imho not worth a read.

Blame is a manga that starts off confusingly but 20 chapters in it starts to explain a lot of the world in its own way. But after those 20 chapters they stop trying to explain themselves and instead just drag you on for a confusing ride.

The only thing that kept me from dropping blame is that I liked the art, the characters are not amazingly drawn but the action panels and two page spreads make it all look better.

Even though i enjoyed the art all the amazing panels cant make up for the fact that the story is incoherent and insane. Blame is the only ... series that i read that i had to look up a synopsis of the plot just so i could try and understand what i just read.

Overall i cant genuinely recommend Blame to anyone unless you want to have a terrible time

Proof that people will like something as long as it is 'weird'. The art is scratchy and sometimes pleasing to the eye like Dorohedoro but unlike Dorohedoro there is no order to the chaos, its just ugly. Characters barely express emotion and it takes the author around twenty chapters to realise how to draw a human face. There is but a ribcage of a plot, barely and badly explained. The entire manga is about a person- barely a person, just a husk, walking in a cool cyberpunk enviroment and fighting robots while not saying anything. The dialogue is poor, what little of it there is. ... There is nothing to connect to in the story, not the ""plot"", not the characters, because there is maybe one if you combine everyones personality into a single character it can maybe fill one passable character, not the 'world' because its too cluttered and messy to figure out what anything is, with constant stimulation overload every second at you leaving you unable to fully connect with anything. Its unique, strange, and beautiful at times, but not worth 66 chapters of a monthly length manga. Theres a limit to show dont tell and this series more then passed it

I love manga, cyberpunk, post apocalyptic scenarios, action and lone protagonists wandering through a world with a single minded determination to complete a mission.
You'd think I love Blame!
You'd be wrong.
Oh so wrong.
First manga I ever dropped (and I hated myself enough to catch up to Boruto in the hope it'd get good.. that sais enogh).
There is no plot, no dialogue, no carcahter developement, no intrigue, nothing.
And that still could be fine if the art and the action was as good as I was promised.
But aside from a couple of shots here and there the drawings are unwathcable. The action is incomprehensible, you never know what ... exactly is going on, just that the MC is going because of course he is, he's the only "carachter".
And also because he has an OP gun that oneshots everyone and is like the chosen one or something.. brilliant stuff guys..
I forced myself to get this far but I couldn't endure it any longer, it was so damn boring.
You know shit about the carahters, their motivations and their abilities, so they basically do whatever they want at any given moment. Anything can happen because fuck it. there is no need for logic or a coherent plot.
If at least I could discern what I am seeing it might be better, but every fight seems like 2 garbage piles having sex with each other. So basically I found myself reading hoping for something comprehensible to happen, both on a narrative level and on drawing level. But it never did.
I am baffled to see this held in such high regard as it is.
Honestly it probably is less painful to watch dragon ball evolution