Knights of Sidonia is a freakish manga. Some have called it Tsutomu Nihei's sell-out work. They hate it for the notably harem-esque organization of the cast, the high school romance style gags and the resulting flaccid interpersonal drama. In terms of its characters and their greater social context and relationships, it's no Gundam Zeta. It's not even a Code Geass, though that's closer. Yet there's not a charismatic sort like Lelouch (assuming that's your type, of course) to take the spotlight here. If you're looking for a good character driven drama, perhaps this series isn't the one. In spite of that, a good portion of the series is devoted to Nagate Tanikaze, our hero, missing love signals from the girls he works with, or eventually lives with. When he's not pulling out a miracle on the battlefield, he's accidentally peeking in on a gaggle of naked girls in the photosynthesis room, or getting his lip hooked on a fishing line. How typical.

This splicing of high school slice of life and fanservice with breakneck, harrowing action sequences amid bleak, apocalyptic circumstances has become conventional in anime at least since the dawn of Evangelion. While I'm painting that as a negative in this series' case so far, because I think many people won't believe themselves capable of bearing Knights of Sidonia due to its adherence to these conventions alone, it occurs to me that a good number of fans love it for how it handles the blend, even while they ignore or miss some things happening beneath the surface. And that's fine for them. Just like there are fans who care for arguing about whether Rei or Asuka was best girl more than they are concerned with what Anno meant when he said that Rei's character was already over when she smiled in episode six.

What I suspect is, knowing that these conventions have been done to death, and that he'd basically be stuck dealing with them nevertheless, Tsutomu Nihei said to himself, "you know what? To hell with this unstoppably powerful yet loveably oafish protagonist, and to hell with any relationship he has. You can't have an interesting relationship with a guy like this if it's with some stock, cute girl anime character." He knew this was doomed to be the weakness of the manga anyway, so he threw it all out the window and decided to make this into the most twisted and strange manga he could despite its vacant youth protagonist, and all the time he and his friends have apparently got to kill just screwing around.

If anything, it's drawn by the guy who made Blame!, so you're bound to get a world of astonishing scale and detail delivered through his art. Almost everything takes place on one ship, everyone lives in one tower of residences, but it feels massive, like there's much more to explore beyond what we see in the manga. There's a whole freaking ocean in one part of the ship. Nihei cleverly begins most of the chapters with a drawing of a random scene from inside Sidonia's residence area, allegedly borrowed from a book entitled 100 Sights of Sidonia, which the characters also refer to themselves as a real book. We see about 50 of those sights throughout the manga, so we're left to imagine what's been left beyond our perception. Furthermore, the manga's got its hideous monsters and even a fair dose of unsettling body horror, while going for a less scratchy, more poppy and clean look than Blame! Though most unsettling are those reaction shots wherein Tanikaze's face goes from cartoonishly simple and flat to uncannily realistic and detailed, with bulging veins and everything, in moments where he's been burned by a pot of water, or some girl's got him in a choke hold.

If you've heard that the ending is the worst part, that it's an incoherent, asspull fanpleaser, I'm here to tell you that that's not true. The ending is the most horrifying and twisted part of all. If you'll bear with me, I'll break down the major players in the narrative and some of the more crucial scenes, in order to bring out how Nihei takes Tanikaze's optimism, sense of righteousness and duty, and charming obliviousness, typically ideal traits for an anime hero, and subtly turns them against him over the course of the story. Knights of Sidonia is a manga rife with contradictions and ambiguities displayed so brashly that you have no choice but to carefully consider what the author's intentions truly are.

(The rest of the review will contain an extremely massive amount of spoilers)

Gauna

Gauna are a force of nature. As a lifeform, I think they're most akin to a kind of mold. A single entity, yet a colony of smaller units. It isn't clear whether they share a consciousness, or each have their own. It isn't clear that they're fully sentient at all, or merely acting on instinctual drives, except in the cases where a Gauna is replicating a human. In those instances, it seems that a replica of the copied person's ego arises almost as a side effect from the placenta's replication of the person's physiology. Gauna copying human form just seems like a random outcome in their unending development of new and better weapons for to defeat Sidonia. Other than the ones with (emulated, possibly phony?) human consciousness (or is it our own consciousness that is more automatic than we like to believe?), Gauna are guided by the same goal: to chase down and consume dense concentrations or emanations of Higgs particles. The curse of the Gauna is a result of humanity's harnessing of the machinations of the universe for our own ends, using higgs particles as a power source. It's like the universe itself is keeping us in line. This is a story of the struggle of humanity against nature, attempting to overcome, master and subsume a new part of nature, with science as our primary tool and weapon. Is our intellectual adaptability and our alchemical manipulation of resources from our environment a match for the instinctual adaptations of the Gauna, whose own endlessly transformable and restructuring physical makeup seems to be the only resource they depend on?

The protagonist

The protagonist, Tanikaze, is something like a walking, repeat plot device; He's not much of a real person. I would argue that he's not even meant to be. There are a few actual characters resembling people in this story (like Kunato, Yuhata, Izana, ironically even Hiyama), but Tanikaze isn't one of them, despite apparently being the "main" character. He's a bot, with three functions: eating ravenously, fighting to save Sidonia and its citizens regardless of the potential risk to himself, and accidentally seeing the women of Sidonia (which there seem to be many more of than men, the likes of whom on the other hand he never accidentally sees naked) naked. Nobody in Sidonia's illustrious and tribulated history is more capable on the battlefield, yet incapable of conducting himself around women. Even if he doesn't know there are women behind that door, or around that corner, he's bound to trip over his own feet, or the building they're inhabiting will suffer some sort of structural mishap, and they'll be exposed to him. He is thus adored by his Sidonian harem for his chivalrous adherence to his duty and astonishing success as a heroic soldier, even while they treat him as a punching bag for comic relief. He's like a test-tube grown action hero and harem nucleus, and he has only the precise qualities necessary for fulfilling those roles. Other than that, he's a blank.

He's ostensibly a sort of lower class citizen at the start of the story, but he was actually selected before his birth to be Sidonia's savior, so that doesn't matter. We don't catch many glimpses of other proles, so the dimension of class struggle is really only nominally present, even while he occasionally, peripherally brings up the differences between his new life and his old life underground, which in any case seems to have mostly consisted of his playing virtual reality pilot training games.

While he has countless potential love interests, he recognizes only the most ridiculous possible partner: a scientific weapon, a chimera between Gauna and human, with the mind of a child. She's capable of transferring her mind into, and is frequently represented as one of her tentacles outside of battle, which even Ichigaya Teruru, the sexy android, points out looks like a penis. Tanikaze is not really aware of the fact that all of the other women on the ship are attracted to him anyway, even his close friend Izana (who's actually intersex, until she becomes a woman due to her attraction to Tanikaze), no matter how obvious they make it. I'll go more into his fascinating, but limited sex life later on.

What is a human? Who is the real me?

In Knights of Sidonia, the parameters of what defines human are expanded well beyond contemporary boundaries. Some of us live forever (at least, until we're killed) and regenerate quickly, even when seriously injured. Most of us only eat once a week, and all of our other sustenance comes from photosynthesis. Some of us are born sexless and develop sex characteristics according to who we're attracted to, like Izana. There's a family of sisters who are all clones bred for combat, although what that exactly means, why this specific individual, whoever she was, was chosen for cloning for the sake of combat, isn't really clarified.

Early in the narrative it's explained to Tanikaze that as far as he and Sidonia are concerned, no matter what degree of intelligence or resemblance to Hoshijiro's original psyche her placenta clone seems to develop, she can only be looked at as a hunk of placenta, and a potential threat to Sidonia. Much later, Honoka Shou's placenta clone doesn't realize she's not the real Honoka Shou, and is horrified when she learns the truth. In these cases, is the central Gauna consciousness, or whatever form of consciousness or instinct seems to guide Gauna toward the same convergent goal, fighting for bodily control with the accidentally generated ego relics of Hoshijiro and Honoka Shou's placenta bodies? In any case, it seems on the one hand we're meant to believe that the ego is directly tied to individual physiology. If you copy the body and brain perfectly, a likeness of the original ego will form, too.

However, we're also expected to believe that blood nematodes can contain transferable copies of a person's ego, and thereby we have to suspect that a person's psyche may have nothing to do with their physiology, per se. An alternative explanation is that blood nematodes DON'T copy a person's "ego," they merely copy things like memory and knowledge; and the person "possessed" by a blood nematode just thinks they've become whoever the blood nematode says they are based on their possession of that knowledge, those memories. In that sense, the main antagonist of the series isn't Ochiai at all, but just a blood nematode that contains his will, knowledge and memories. Likewise, maybe the Tsumugi copy Tanikaze ends up with at the end of the story just thinks she's Tsumugi, but she's really just a blood nematode who's turned Hoshijiro's cloned body into a meat Gundam with the illusion of Tsumugi's personality. Is an ego in general a mere construct that disguises and facilitates our unconscious drives? Maybe if these characters, or any characters, asked themselves who they really were, they would grow deformed and paralyzed by doubt, just like Honoka Shou's clone when it realizes it's a Gauna:

On the other hand, there are other "clones" in the story who clearly don't share the same ego. Tanikaze is a clone. ALL of the Honoka sisters are clones. But their brains all developed from scratch, without experiences pre-encoded, while the Gauna clones included clones of their referents' brains at the times of their deaths. So do experiences leave physical traces in the brain? By my estimation, there are just no irrefutable answers. Is it intentional ambiguity on Nihei's part, or symbolic sloppiness? There are things we call egos here, and their apparent avatars. The third essential ingredient for a self to be accepted, other than physical construction and experience, seems to be recognition of and belief in that self. Whether Ochiai's ego is inhabiting Kunato or Kanata, he's Ochiai if he believes he is, and if others believe he is, too. The body is just the avatar. Meanwhile, Ochiai's ACTUAL clone, captain Kobayashi's right hand man, is not Ochiai, since he lacks Ochiai's experiences, and everyone knows it.

But who is Tsumugi, and what is her avatar? Is it her big feminine biomech form, is it her inquisitive tentacle, is it her true body, or is it the blood nematode in Hoshijiro's clone? Maybe all of them.

How do we save ourselves?

Humanity are painted as utterly utilitarian. We use higgs particles even after we know the Gauna are attacking us over our usage of them. Among the other bizarre science experiments we put ourselves through (photosynthesis, immortality, cloning, genetic manipulation), of course we are not going to have reservations about fucking placenta clones or living on a placenta planet if the potential benefits outweigh the dangers, or the drawbacks are simply invisible and easy to ignore, which is the ending the story gives us. Placenta is too powerful and valuable of a tool to look down upon.

This is despite humanity's apparent reluctance to accept Ochiai and his perverse experiments as our potential source of salvation. After his experiments prove themselves to be safe enough, we get rid of him, because it's his ego that's the true threat to humanity, despite all its done for us. Unlike with higgs particles, the dangers of keeping Ochiai around outweigh what he may contribute going forward.

However, is Ochiai that different from Kobayashi?

Isn't the bitter irony here, as Ochiai partially points out, that Kobayashi, an immortal who killed off most of the immortal ship committee, and who has been gracefully, deviously manipulating the course of Sidonian civilization, as well as the information available to civilians, from behind the scenes, in many ways is the exact same as Ochiai? She has ultimate faith in her view for how Sidonia is to be saved, and is ruthless in bringing it into actuality. Sidonia's reliance on her, and on a clone of its former hero, Hiroki Saitou, a reliance enforced by Kobayashi herself, doesn't exactly imply a willingness to leave the fate of Sidonia to the next generation. Her egalitarianism and will to trust are nominal. They're political aesthetics that are undermined by her choices, but her choices are made, allegedly, in the name of those ideals. Just as Ochiai's ostensible goal, to assure that "humanity" lives forever, really just depends on him living forever, by himself, in an immortal, indestructible chimera body. Whether he lives or dies though, humanity itself will become chimera. We will incorporate placenta into our technology, into ourselves, just like we previously incorporated higgs particles, and regardless of the cost, we will undergo another evolution into a new type of humanity, under a new paradigm.

Deeper into desire

In the world of Sidonia, sex has all but disappeared. There are a handful of occasions throughout the series where sexual activity nearly takes place, or is potentially implied to have taken place.

Sex and eating have been combined into one urge: photosynthesis. Tsuruuchi is practically begging Samari to give him a shot with her throughout the whole manga. Anytime Tanikaze stumbles on the girls photosynthesizing, he pays the price. It is unclear if photosynthesis is innuendo, i.e. Tsuruuchi really wants to bang Samari, but photosynthesis is a cleaner and cleverer way of suggesting it, or if photosynthesis is the entire sexual act. Is penetration expected, or is it just the mutual gaze and flesh made bare? The women eat naked together daily. Doesn't the repeated sexualization of this task imply a sort of homoeroticism is present in their daily meals?

There are humans with both genitals who can asexually reproduce. There are clones everywhere, and a handful of immortals. Sex, more than ever, is an activity of pure pleasure. It has no utilitarian function. Perhaps the same is true of romantic relationships. This seems to have had a devastating effect on Tanikaze.

The one time it's implied Tanikaze actually has sex, although we don't see a second of it, it's with Kobayashi, after she reveals to him that he's a clone of his grandpa, Hiroki Saitou, who was actually a centuries old hero of Sidonia. Afterward, she tells Tanikaze to spend the night, as she lets her hair down. It's clear that she loved Saitou, and is treating Tanikaze as a surrogate lover. Tanikaze is Saitou's avatar, for her sexual fantasy, and as he's a physical clone of Saitou, he's ideal for the job, even if his persona is totally different. Sexual fantasy necessarily involves this separation of the psyche from the physical object of desire. For both participants. Once, in the midst of sex, a person thinks about what they're actually physically doing, it somehow ceases to feel all that sexy. It's rather sort of ridiculous and strange. And the stranger the sex, the more haunting is the post nut clarity.

A couple days later, Tanikaze blushes when he sees her staring intently at him in an important meeting he's been invited to as a newly crowned "highest ranking officer in Sidonia." Sounds like he performed his duty to the best of his ability. Of course Tanikaze would sleep with Kobayashi if she commands him to. He listens to everything his commander tells him to do. This is after his relationship with Tsumugi has already begun, but it's Kobayashi who makes him a man. Yikes?

The closest Tanikaze comes to a genuine sexual encounter before serving his commander is when Benisuzume penetrates his Tsugumori, and Hoshijiro's placenta clone forces herself on him. This is one of the most densely layered scenes in the entire series.

Is it just me, or is this scene as hot as it is grotesque?

It is unclear here what exactly it is about this scenario that is so painful and provoking for Tanikaze. He has stood outside of the false Hoshijiro's tank gazing at her, wondering about her, in the Outer Sidonia Research Lab on the ship for countless hours, and now that she's in front of him, he cannot breath. Is it the fact of being confronted with her unbound desire that he cannot handle? The proximity of her naked body? He does subsequently end up choosing the one girl in the cast, Tsumugi, who doesn't have a woman's body after all. Until, after his experience with Kobayashi, he is prepared to accept "Tsumugi" uploaded via blood nematode into the false Hoshijiro's body. That implies he also doesn't have a problem with the fact that her consciousness and her body are copies.

Perhaps he has no idea what sex actually consists of at this point, having lived his entire young life underground, just like he knew nothing about all of the biological and social structural changes humans had gone through. Perhaps he is enjoying it after all, and it's his own arousal despite himself that terrifies him. As she penetrates his mouth with her tendrils, he uses Tsugumori to penetrate her true body, prematurely cutting off Hoshijro's sex dream.

When Tanikaze sleeps with Kobayashi, it's Saitou's body that Kobayashi wants. Tanikaze's most romantic moments with Tsumugi are when they're clasping hands, or flying around the residence tower on their one date. Tsumugi's tentacle interacts with Tanikaze on a daily basis, but their most precious moments together are when Tanikaze is inside a mech. What is it that we provide one another through love and sex? I give you my body, my avatar, to project desire onto, and my ego has to deal with the consequences of your treatment. Before we can do it right, we have to learn the rules of the game. We must learn to be aware of our desires and considerate of the other's ego, which persists beneath our projections whether we want it or not.

I can't help but think of the iconic Hokusai shunga image, The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, a crucially formative work in the tentacle fuck canon. The sexual encounter depicted is typically taken to be mutually pleasurable, rather than forced, and some have touted it as feminist at its core for its depiction of a woman's sexual fantasy totally bereft of a (human, at least) male pleasure source, implying the woman's independence in her ability to satisfy her sexual urges.

The problem with Hoshijiro's placenta clone is that we don't know if it's a woman or not, but it looks way too much like a one Tanikaze knows. Anime and manga, hentai and doujins have established themselves as sources of male pleasure independent of any reliance on real female bodies. It's when one gets too close to their fantasy, and one is no longer in control, that it becomes a terror. Tanikaze reticently longs for Hoshijiro, but her lust for him takes on a monstrous form that he's not prepared for.

This is the end, my only friend

The way Knights of Sidonia treats the questions desire and identity leaves me feeling that its ending is not a dream come true, but a revelation of the nightmares that hide in plain sight.

Is this truly a happy ending? Isn't it rather quite disturbing and even absurd? Tanikaze now accepts a relationship with the placenta Hoshijiro, which both he and Sidonia were initially meant to reject no matter what, all because it's now controlled by a blood nematode that seemingly contains Tsumugi's consciousness. We've provisionally decided these entities, blood nematodes and placenta, are useful enough, that we'll just accept them as safe and normal. Again, isn't it quite possible that it's not Tsumugi's true consciousness, but the illusion of her consciousness? Is that just as good, since we can't really tell the difference? Whether it's truly her or not, isn't the fact that she's sharing a placenta body with fragments of Hoshijiro's mind, which she can still sometimes feel the presence of, and which we never really determined definitively to not be a genuine copy of Hoshijiro's ego, enough to undercut the purity of this so called fantasy ending?

As we become increasingly chimerical, and stretch the boundaries of what it means to be human, do we indeed remain human? The questions this series poses have always been too complex for a moron like Tanikaze to wonder about. He waits for Kobayashi to tell him who his grandfather was, why he was chosen for his job, why his body regenerates. He doesn't ask questions himself. He can't sense the feelings of the people around him. He has essentially no awareness, whether about his internal environment or his external one. He just does his job, both as a citizen and soldier of Sidonia, and on the level of the narrative, as a hapless, single-minded, but powerful protagonist. He waits to be told who he is and what he's supposed to do. The truth, what we take as "normal," both in Tanikaze's case and for all of humanity, is whatever we choose to take for granted, what ever makes living life most convenient. Perhaps it's better not to ask if higgs particle technology was really worth it. Perhaps it's better not to ask if my wife is actually just a blood nematode creating an illusion of my dead girlfriend's personality in an alien replica of my other dead girlfriend's body. Perhaps it's better not to ask.