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krpalmerFinishing Knights of Sidonia (some years ago now) didn’t get me seeking out other manga by Tsutomu Nihei. That title being one of a seeming handful of “mecha stories starting as manga” I’ve read might have outweighed a certain sense (however unfair, however much blamed on half-remembered comments from others) Nihei’s work could be tricky to make sense of. As I’ve admitted a few times in recent months, though, I have got to a point where I’m willing to take chances on new manga series. I picked up the first volume of Kaina of the Great Snow Sea, and that with “story by Tsutomu Nihei, art by Itoe Takemoto” credits.
Starting off this manga didn’t seem that hard to make sense of or indeed bizarre, but I suppose the ease with which I could bring up resemblances to other notable stories might have had something to do with that. Its main character Kaina living in a desolate world (“high atop the canopy that spreads from the titanic orbital spire trees”), wearing a facemask outside, and dealing with giant insects brought Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind to mind; that he lives with a handful of people much older than him brought Future Boy Conan to mind to top that off. Admitting that, though, might get me pondering certain comments about “database animals” and whether I adapted to “becoming familiar with once-unusual works” through endless comparing, contrasting, and noticing small differences. The real question might be what way in the end this story will bring to mind the downbeat complexities in the later volumes of Nausicaa. One volume did expand Kaina’s world beyond the back cover blurb and gave me if not him a first-hand sense of the “Great Snow Sea,” as exotic an environment as the canopy; for the moment, I’m willing to see what further details get added. It won’t be that much longer until the second volume comes out.
Starting off this manga didn’t seem that hard to make sense of or indeed bizarre, but I suppose the ease with which I could bring up resemblances to other notable stories might have had something to do with that. Its main character Kaina living in a desolate world (“high atop the canopy that spreads from the titanic orbital spire trees”), wearing a facemask outside, and dealing with giant insects brought Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind to mind; that he lives with a handful of people much older than him brought Future Boy Conan to mind to top that off. Admitting that, though, might get me pondering certain comments about “database animals” and whether I adapted to “becoming familiar with once-unusual works” through endless comparing, contrasting, and noticing small differences. The real question might be what way in the end this story will bring to mind the downbeat complexities in the later volumes of Nausicaa. One volume did expand Kaina’s world beyond the back cover blurb and gave me if not him a first-hand sense of the “Great Snow Sea,” as exotic an environment as the canopy; for the moment, I’m willing to see what further details get added. It won’t be that much longer until the second volume comes out.