TNL Comic/Manga Club: BLAME!

**Rtificial** · 08 Mar 2007, 12:43 PM

I had a series lined up long ago to use for this, but it got licensed and is currently not out on dark horse yet. So I moved to another series I love called...

BLAME!

BLAME! is the manga by Tsutomu Nihei and ever since I first read the scans back around 2000 I've been hooked on this and his art style. BLAME! is a weird/action packed/cyber punk/manga with the main character being Killy, who is wandering around this HUGE world called the mega structure hunting for net terminal genes. Its really hard to explain the story of BLAME! since so much weird stuff goes on and not much is explained. The story starts to come together with bits and pieces of information trickling in through the various travels of Killy and whoever tags along with him at the time.

Tsutomu Nihei began going to school for architecture and working in that field. Then he quit that to become a manga artist and was under the wing of Tsutomu Takahashi untill his debut BLAME came out. His dark, complex backgrounds with crazy architechture with cyber punk characters makes his work really stand out.

Nihei keeps growing a bigger and bigger cult fan base and this has helped him to cross over to the US. He did a short one shot for Marvel comics with Wolverine:SNIKT and recently did a one shot for the HALO comics. Not to mention his work being picked up and released by Tokyopop. Blame! is currently up to volume 8 or 9 in the US. Tokyopop even released the prequel to BLAME! called NoiSe also. He's recently started a sequel to BLAME! which delighted many many fans of the series called Net Sphere Engineer.

BLAME! is a pretty easy read with not much talking at all. Most of the manga is eye candy and lots of action. Killy seems to encounter a TON of silicon creatures, protocol's, and other random beings in the Mega Structure. Killy other big draw is his gravity gun, which pretty much wrecks hell on anything unlucky to get in its path. You can find the manga pretty easy at the bookstore and could probably read em there since they are quick and easy reads. I enjoy marveling at the artwork. Also check out his prequel NoiSe and Net Sphere Engineer is not licensed yet and not completed, but you can DL scanilations of that and other one shots of Nihei's HERE

So any other fans?

**Brand** · 08 Mar 2007, 04:17 PM

I read the first volume of this a while ago. I couldn't really get into it, but I'll try again. I think it was way to hyped up for me. I think it's only mildly interesting, it's not bad, it just can't keep my attention.

**Rtificial** · 08 Mar 2007, 04:39 PM

Yea it might throw some people off since it doesn't really follow a traditional story line or start off like typical manga/comics. You're pretty much thrown right in the middle of things and left to figure out whats going on. I think thats part of the charm, just seeing what all goes on along killy's travels and trying to piece together whats going on.

Progress in the volumes show new areas, creatures, characters. Some of the characters that come in later volumes are pretty bad ass and I get attached to em pretty quick.

**Jester** · 08 Mar 2007, 05:00 PM

I've been meaning to get around to reading this ever since I read Wolverine:Snikt way back when. Now I shall.

**Rtificial** · 08 Mar 2007, 07:49 PM

Yea I need to order the wolverine:Snikt book with em all together. I've been meaning to check out his part in the HALO comics too.

**Rem** · 08 Mar 2007, 08:11 PM

I read the first volume, I'm seriously not feeling it. I have the second volume too, I'm willing to give it another shot, but unless it picks up and develops a coherent plot I'm not going to keep buying it. I might read the scans to see if it picks up later on though.

**Dunlap** · 09 Mar 2007, 09:32 PM

The atmosphere really clicked with what I see in my dreams, so I fell in love instantly. I couldn't really make any sense of the story even after I'd read it all but I still loved exploring that massive world. If you don't like what you see after the first volume I can't really recommend it to you. It's really more style than substance.

I've been meaning to order that Snikt book for ages...