“Knights of Sidonia” vol. 10 is a rather fascinating sci-fi manga that tends to focus more on the lives of people on the ship, and as I try to hunt down previous volumes, I look forward to reading more of this manga series!
Image courtesy of © 2014 Fumi Yoshinaga. All Rights Reserved.
MANGA TITLE: Knights of Sidonia vol. 10
BY Tsutomu Nihei (å¼ç“¶ 勉)
FIRST PUBLISHED IN JAPAN: Kodansha
PUBLISHED IN USA BY: Vertical, Inc.
RELEASE DATE: August 5, 2014
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.
As though dissatisfied that the war against the Guana is entering a lull, humanity struggles against monsters of its own making.
From the creator of “Blame!”, “NOiSE” and “Biomega” comes Tsutomu Nihei’s “Knights of Sidonia”.
Originally published by Kodansha for the magazine “Afternoon” and currently in it’s 13th tankobon volume and the first eleven volumes of the series has also been released in the United States courtesy of Vertical, Inc.
Withan anime adaptation of “Knights of Sidonia” having aired on television in Japan during the spring of 2014, a second season currently in production.
“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 ship, Sidonia, has developed its own human culture similar to Japan due to the use of human closing and asexual production. While those who are high up of society have been granted immortality.
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 Nagate Tanikaze, 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. One day, as Nagate goes to the surface, he is selected to become a pilot of the Guardian and does all he can to defend Sidonia from another Guana attack.
In vol. 10 of “Knights of Sidonia”, Izana is currently being healed and Kanata is starting to act up.
Meanwhile, Yuhata Midorikawa becomes jealous of the other women that Nagate starts to hang around with.
Having jumped in late in my reading of “Knights of Sidonia”, there is a complexity to the storyline that readers may want to start from the beginning to understand what is going on.
Starting with volume 10, the truth is that a lot of the characters look similar to each other and I often found myself wondering why certain things look the way they do (especially the tentacles or aliens on Sidonia).
But for volume 10, the storyline for this volume is about relationships towards the main character of Nagate Tanikaze and others who may have developed feelings towards him.
Because of the complexity of the sci-fi story, I did notice that with this volume, jealous tends to rear its ugly head as Yuhata becomes jealous of Nagate with other girls, while Izana, who is a hermaphrodite, starting to have feelings towards Nagate as well.
But from what I have read thus far, “Knights of Sidonia” appears to be a sci-fi story that focuses on the various people on the Sidonia ship and the interactions that occur on the ship relating to Nagate Tanikaze, Izana Shinatose, Yuhata Midorikawa, Tsumugi Shiraui and more.
The artwork is definitely Tsutomu Nihei’s style , with that has a bit of simplicity scattered in scenes that look quite complex. It’s definitely a style that he is best known for as a mangaka.
Overall, “Knights of Sidonia” vol. 10 is a rather fascinating sci-fi manga that tends to focus more on the lives of people on the ship, and as I try to hunt down previous volumes, I look forward to reading more of this manga series!