Tsutomu Nihei has been my favorite manga author ever since I read my first manga, BLAME!. There's just something about the way he writes that sends a shiver up my spine. However, if you asked me why I like his manga so much, I could not give you a coherent answer because his style of storytelling is, quite frankly, utterly indescribable. At the risk of sounding cliche, the only way to know is to just read them for yourself. Knights Of Sidonia is a bit different in that it makes an effort to be enticing to a larger, casual audience. However, in its attempts to be more accessible and understandable, the manga ended up feeling somehow more mystifying to me than any of Nihei's other cryptic cyberpunk capers. It definitely has a lot of problems. Even so, I found this outlandish story be quite charming, warts and all.
Welcome to Sidonia, Humanity's Last Stronghold
The war with the gauna is the manga's biggest strong point in my opinion. It's made quite clear from the very beginning that humanity is fighting a losing battle, yet they always manage to beat the insurmountable odds in spectacular fashion. Sidonia's army have very well fleshed out tactics and protocol, and it's so fascinating watching them in action and getting to learn how they operate. One of coolest parts to me is not the main battles themselves, but the desperate arms race that goes on behind the scenes. The gauna are a very crafty foe, as they carefully observe the humans' behavior and technology, and assimilate them into their own battle plans. Thus, Sidonia needs to constantly improve their guardians and invent new weapons to keep up. As a matter of fact, the gauna are much more interesting villains than they first appear. They seem downright innocent at times with their penchant for mimicry and child-like curiosity, almost as if the war they wage is simply a playdate to them. Their true purpose remains a mystery up to the end, but the depths of their mysterious intentions are fascinating to peer into.
Nihei's new, softer art style complements the lived-in, welcoming feeling of Sidonia. Shown through the "100 Sights of Sidonia" lovingly displayed at the beginning of each chapter, this manga and the people that inhabit it want you to get to know the beautiful world within its pages. Sidonia is a seed ship containing the last hope of the human race, and they treat this responsibility with grave determination. The people are proud of Sidonia, and they're proud that they've survived for so long even with the cards stacked against them. Knights of Sidonia's world building is deftly communicated through the environment and the everyday actions of the characters. Every citizen wears safety belts and magnetic boots in case of a gravity malfunction or sudden acceleration. Clothing is treated as a precious resource, carefully patched and preserved so it can be passed down for the next generation to wear. The whole manga is flush with all these little details about their way of life that may seem insignificant, but go a long way towards showing that despite how different life is in Sidonia, there is no doubt that it's a place where ordinary people go about their ordinary days just like we do.
A Story With Two Faces
The art takes a bit of getting used to for sure. It lacks the daring black lines and grim hostility of Nihei's earlier art, opting for a lighter, more polished look. Personally, I think it looks pretty neat, no real problem with it. His crazy architecture, elaborate machinery, and grotesque alien lifeforms are still second to none, so I'm perfectly happy with the new style. However, Nihei has one Achilles heel that he still hasn't quite gotten over, and that is people and their rubbery, expressive faces. Knights of Sidonia is meant to have characters that you can spend time with and get to know, characters who act like normal people, and that's a problem when the only emotions they can muster are dull surprise and vague consternation. The few expressions that they are able to manage often look exceedingly odd, at least to me.
Now, usually I'd devote at least a little bit more time to talking about the individual characters, but I really don't have anything to say about these ones because they were all somewhat nondescript in the personality department. Hiyama the den mother is a talking bear for crying out loud, and she still didn't stick out enough for me to remember that she existed until I gave it another read. Tanikaze is a cookie cutter vanilla protagonist with one defining trait to his name, which is his level of intelligence. If he stood in a high wind, you'd hear a whistling as it blew in one ear and out the other. What I mean is the lights are on but nobody's home, if you catch my drift.
Knights of Sidonia is a manga that constantly seems to be at war with itself, which is a result of the attempt to appeal to two very different audiences at once without being totally committed to doing so. It wants to be a niche science fiction for hard core science fiction fans, yet it also wants to be a wacky rom-com with widespread appeal. The big crack in the foundation of the manga is not any one of its parts, it's the fact that they're all in the same story that's the problem. The slice of life plotline and the war plotline have to interrupt each other in order for either of them to progress, as if they're two different manga sewn together like Frankenstein's monster. It's perfectly possible to mix and match different genres, I've seen it done plenty of times, but the two sides of Knights of Sidonia just can't seem to coexist without clashing.
Such a Special Place in Outer Space...
So far I've been pretty hard on Knights of Sidonia, but does that mean I dislike it? Hell no, I love it to death. But I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it's some sort of profound, flawless paragon of writing that everyone should read, because it's not. It's a rough, off-kilter, incredibly badass mess that's just as entertaining as any highly polished manga masterpiece. It's definitely not for everyone, but if you take a chance on it then you just might be rewarded.