Seinen Sidonia no Kishi by Nihei Tsutomu

[Revilenigma]

Sidonia no Kishi
By: NIHEI Tsutomu
Genre: Sci-Fi, Mecha, Action
Serialized In: Afternoon
Mangaupdates

Risking his life to ensure humanity's survival, Taniakze Nagate rides out in his silver armour, the Tsugumori!

Thousands of years have passed since the Gauna destroyed the Solar System.

The enormous seed ship, Sidonia, travels through space while propagating and producing humans.

Brought up in the lowest decks of Sidonia, a young man, Tanikaze Nagate, becomes a Guardian trainee, and is authorized to pilot the outdated but historically renowned Tsugumori.

The battle with Nagate's life at stake begins now!

By the Mangaka of Blame and Biomega

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Seems to be a sequel (or prequel?) to Tsutomu's previous work "Abara". I noticed he seems to have a thing now for takling bears and his art style has changed for a more shonen look.

 

[Zarion]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

Knight(s) of Cydonia huh? Can anyone say plagiarism:P?

 

[Revilenigma]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

Knight(s) of Cydonia huh? Can anyone say plagiarism:P?

LOL. He must be a big fan.

 

[Kaiten]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

Chapter one was intriguing. I'll stick with it for a while ^^

 

[GGpX]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

Seems to be a sequel (or prequel?) to Tsutomu's previous work "Abara". I noticed he seems to have a thing now for takling bears and his art style has changed for a more shonen look.

His art style hasn't changed, really.

It's still gritty as hell.

The idea of a talking bear came from Biomega.

 

[Revilenigma]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

Both the bears have artificial hands too. lol

old style:

Spoiler

new style:

Spoiler

It started to change about halfway through Biomega. The faces of his old style were a bit more detailed than his current shonenesque style and his art isn't as sketchy as in Abara and the later volumes of BLAME!

 

[Luco]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

The art change has left me a bit sad. He must think it's an improvement, but at least his old style had character.

 

[illiteracy]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

The fact that it seems like a decent amount of the story is going to be spent in a school is fairly depressing. It looks like it'll follow the generic shonen mecha formula. Although his style should at least make it interesting. I hope.

 

[Laika]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

Yeah, I have to say, I'm curious where this will end up. A lot of the reason why his other series were so interesting were just because he wouldn't let himself be tied down to normal narrative conventions. But perhaps since most of his stories have been so narratively loose he wants to experiment more with more conventional types of stories, IE: what we've seen so far with Sidonia no Kishi & Blame Gakuen.

Anyways, I don't think his art has moved in a negative direction. His earlier style may have been more, "unique," but in terms of his art now, a lot of it just feels better because of better proportions. It's true that some of his character designs seem more generic, but his style is still instantly recognizable for me. I wouldn't say that it's to sell it as more shounen at all, you can see his character style evolve through Blame and it's seems to me more polished now than it did back then. The change has been a lot more fluid than just what you see when you put those two images side by side. But his character design has never really been the focus of his works. With the exception of the silicon creatures and other things that he's created, a lot of his basic characters have pretty much always looked the same. It's always been the worlds that he's created that are the most interesting and I hope that he'll be able to continue to create such interesting spaces as he did in biomega/abara/blame etc even if he's focusing more on characters with Sidonia. So far it seems that way, the attention to details and mechanics are really great, but there hasn't been much that really hammered in the scope or range of size of things that was constantly used in Blame and Biomega to produce an illusion of physical space.

 

[¬Bol]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

Knight(s) of Cydonia huh? Can anyone say plagiarism:P?

20th Century Boy is a song too.

 

[Sensei 12]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

I love this manga^^

Nihei is still the best

 

[Cio Koba]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

Finally another series by Nihei! ive been waiting since i ended reading zeb-noid, after finishing Abara i needed more of his stories so i read all his one-shots. Seems the release of ''knights'' was around may or so but realy i havent found out until today, so it makes a great new years gift. the bad thing is i just founded 3 issues, are there more?
The story seems pretty cool, and yea the drawing is different frome Blame!'s but its still true Nihei, main character is another version of killy and the crazy structures are still there. I think he wanted to give his aproach to a typical Mecha storie and im sure hell make it great, u might not understand it but ull surelly enjoy it!

 

[zillac]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

I really, really want somebody to discuss this manga with me.

I'll be posting some spoilers up to chapter 19. (I haven't seen 17, but there's very detailed spoiler in Japanese posted on some blog). If any of you want to know more just ask.

Spoiler

I think you all should know that Nagate is the clone of Hiroki, who is the ace of Sidonia for at least some hundreds of years (because they succeeded in the research in immortality. apparently they can take some medicine for everlasting life). For some reason unknown, Hiroki decided to refuse continuing this life, so he went with stop taking the, say, aging suppressor. However, the captain couldn't let him die and made a clone of Hiroki, and manipulated the gene so that the immortality is inherited without needs for taking supplemental suppressor, which'd explain why Nagate's healing abilities. Though it is planned to transplant Hiroki's brain to Nagate's body, as you can see in chapter 14 (or 15?), Hiroki took the baby and escaped, and He promised to "teach the child all he knows."

In chapter 19, it is explained that when Nagate's 6 years old, he surpassed his Ji-chan's (grandfather. Here'd be Hiroki) score in the simulator. (Remember in chapter 1, Nagate's getting 999999's everytime). The simulator apparently is about some new-generation weapon that they are developing, at the time; probably something will be made in to the 19th generation. This new-generation weapon has a man-made "kabi" that can penetrate Gauna's shell (not sure how this is translated). In other words, now Sidonia has now got a new weapon that is effective and probably viable for massive production; at least no longer limited to the twenty-ish Kabizashi (again not sure how this is translated) they have.

 

[Xenos3421]

Re: Sidonia no Kishi by Tsutomu Nihei

I've been looking for a place that even has the chapters!!

i dont know where i left off tho...

 

[Kaiten]

Illuminati manga is the only group that has ever scanlated it. Head over to their site

Might have to get it off their channel for now but they are building an online reader, Sidonia isn't up yet though.

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After rereading chapter 1, I really think this is an underrated series. The art has definitely softened, but is still recognizably Nihei. There is nothing resembling generic shounen. I'm going to reread the first eleven chapters, before reading the newly scanlated one.

---------- Post added June 16, 2011 at 05:28 PM ---------- Previous post was June 15, 2011 at 04:35 PM ----------

After re-reading, Sidonia is definitely better than I was giving it credit for. The art is every bit as good as his older series, the softer edges are better for suggesting the openness of deep space. The switch to a more character driven, ensemble story is interesting too. Nihei does not exactly have Adachi's touch for writing sharp characters, but all things considered, the principles are worth caring about.

The genre change is definitely a big success. I love his new hard sci-fi, mecha style. The lonely warrior lost in an uncaring world, fighting technology run amuck premise was awesome, but something new is definitely welcome. And Nihei does sci-fi almost as well as he does cyberpunk.

Spoiler: chapter 12 discussion

The twist at the end is very interesting. Unable to photosynthesize, lived his entire life hidden in the basement, sponsored by 28th Captain, and now forced to fight in every battle. I really want to know who Tanikaze is, and why their is so much intrigue swirling around him. Anyone have any theories? Assuming anyone else still reads Sidonia to answer.

 

[Kaiten]

Chapter 13 came out a few days ago, available on Illuminati's IRC channel.

Seeing actual human emotion and interactions in a Nihei manga is still jarring. I'm still used to the stoic, possibly cyborg loners of his early manga. Never the less it is a little refreshing to read chapters like this, where jealousy and love play something of a role. Not the most exciting chapters but more Sidonia is always welcome and the art remains as delightful as ever.

 

[killy-.-]

i dont like the art, dunno why he changed his style, it doesnt look as good as Blame! or Biomega, Abbara , such a SHAME .....

 

[Kaiten]

I like the art, it may not be as angular as his past work but everything that made Blame, Biomega, etc great is still there. The only difference is a softer, more organic style. The art reminds me of the second half of Biomega.

 

[killy-.-]

well tbh it looks the same, They save time and money dont make it look as good as before, no shades etc ... "The art reminds me of the second half of Biomega. " - and thats where i stoped reading Biomega ...
if u think that this
http://manga.animea.net/biomega-chapter-37-page-5.html
looks better than this http://manga.animea.net/biomega-chapter-10-page-18.html

then i dont know what is wrong with you ....

 

[MattC302]

I bought the first volume of this series published in English by Vertical Inc. I hope it gets better because the first volume didn't do much for me. I was thoroughly impressed by 'Biomega', so I do have some faith in Nihei's abilities. I have up to volume 3 preordered. Hopefully that is enough to get hooked.