Writing a review for a Nihei Manga is kind of tricky. Do you draw comparisons with the his previous works like Blame!, Biomega etc? Or do you come up with something that may capture the imagination of some other fellow readers to go out and buy the manga?

The story starts like any other generic sci-fi storylines.... it is an unforgiving world, where the people living on the surface are subjected to brutalities and hardship to the extreme. And our unlikely protagonist rises by a chance and he must travel far to defeat the enemies one by one, gathering power and allies incrementally. Very formulaic, right? So what makes it different?

It is the Nihei touch. It is that artwork, the death and fatalities shown in the most soul-crushing way and the transitions on the scenes with measured jumps. You feel both detached from the harsh reality of that world, at the same time be drowned by the darkness it submerges itself in. Violence of massive proportions get omitted on the next page and you just see the resulting doom and destruction in incredible details. You reach the depth of you imagination to visualize what may have happened. Yet there's a fluidity in the story here. Even if you feel lost or struggle to fill in the gaps, the rhythm feels uninterrupted. Take a deeper look and you may realize there's a master behind the art.

And our author has probably made larger strides in character development, they serve a higher purpose than to just continue the story. You can relate and tax your imagination a bit further with the characters, this is a great catalyst for the reader's appetite. Yet that trademark minimalism hasn't been lost in any way.

So that's what this manga is. It carries forward the celebrated qualities and skills of the artist, at the same time it expresses Nihei's desire to produce a "Tezuka-level mass appeal".

This might end up to be his most polished work till date.

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