Episodes
Sunday Feb 16, 2014
Knights of Sidonia vol. 7
Sunday Feb 16, 2014
Sunday Feb 16, 2014
One of the more memorable moments from Tsutomu Nihei’s “Biomega” was the introduction of Funipero in its last third. This strange human/alien child was weirdly cute in a way that only the Japanese can manage and went on to play a key role in the story’s outcome instead of coasting on said cuteness. In short, she was quite moe for lack of a better term. Now we have her successor in “Sidonia” in the form of Tsumugi Shiraui, a human/Gauna hybrid as tall as the Garde mecha piloted in this series, who is unfailingly polite with the heart of a teenage girl, and according to the color pages in this volume pink from head to toe. Being a Gauna hybrid, she also looks like a giant Geiger-esque monstrosity as designed by Nihei, but that’s how the man rolls. The very idea that the mangaka would put all these traits into a single character, which is simultaneously a part of and dramatically opposed to Japanese otaku trends, only serves to underline what I like about this series.
Tsumugi gets a big “saves the day” opening at the beginning of the volume and we get more scenes later on to showcase her fearsome fighting capabilities as well as how she reacts when pushed to extremes by the enemy. Unsurprisingly, her appearance is met with suspicion and fear by the Sidonia’s crew though Tanikaze proves to be the natural exception here. Even though she’s a multi-story human/alien organism bred for war who regenerates in a bio-organic nutrient bath, he treats her just like another comrade in arms. She reciprocates in ways that show her to be if not in love, clearly infatuated with the clueless pilot. How else can one interpret her molesting him with tentacles halfway through the book? Though we do get some intriguing developments regarding Kobayashi’s command of the ship, the rest of the volume follows the formula of the genre pretty well. Tsumugi really doesn’t shake that up, but her very presence presents some of its most traditional conventions in a fascinatingly weird way that feels most welcome here.
Jason Glick
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