BLAME! is a cyberpunk manga by Tsutomu Nihei, who also created the Wolverine miniseries Snikt. I bought the first volume only knowing that it was cyberpunk and nothing else. Since I only have the first volume out of ten, I'm going to give my thoughts on this one volume and will try not to judge the series in general.
The first thing you'll notice when you read the book is that the artwork is extremely stylized. It takes place in a dystopian future where the planet has been covered by an endless system of skyscapers and machinery filled with all sorts of deadly cyborgs and artificial beings. Everything from the surroundings to the characters are very well drawn, and I particularly like some of the cyborg creatures. However, sometimes the artwork works against it. I found it hard to follow what was going on sometimes, mostly during fight scenes when the panels are overloaded with detail. It reminded me of the later volumes of Hellsing when London is being attacked and there is so much going on it's hard to tell what's what.
The thing that hurts BLAME! the most is the lack of dialogue. The main character, Killy, talks very infrequently and a good 75% of the book has no words. The first volume doesn't even really have a running storyline, but is instead a collection of encounters Killy has with an assortment of bizarre creatures that live in the ruins of this world. His main quest and the reason for his aimless wandering is to find "Net Terminal Genes" which are important in this post-apocalyptic world for some reason which is not given in this volume. While I enjoy the setting of this manga very much, the story in the volume is too scattered and the book ends rather abruptly.
One big thumbs up I'd give to the book is for the amount of violence in it. Most things crawling around this world have a "mutilate first ask questions later" attitude, except the "ask questions later" part is also mutilate. In one scene Killy walks up to what looks like a small boy and tries to initiate a conversation when all of a sudden a bullet hits the kid in the head causing it to explode. I rather enjoyed the panel with the kid's eye coming right at you. Oh don't be like that, the kid was a horrible monster that kills humans. Killy's no pushover though. His gun, which looks like a pistol, shoots rounds that explode like they were rocket propelled grenades and when this hits hit enemies they splatter something fierce.
This volume is much thicker than many other manga you'll see and at its $9.99 price is a good deal. Although, like I said, the majority of this book is textless pages of the main character exploring. So even though it's thicker, you're not really getting much more for your money in some respects. If you're the really artsy type you'll enjoy the many pages of great architecture and character design and will love it for that price.
As for what I think about the book, I think that it was just good enough to get me to read the rest of the series, not for the price printed on the book though and I'm not going to actively look for it. If I'm looking through a box of manga at a con and I see some volumes discounted or find the series on eBay for a deal I might get it but otherwise I have other, better things to read... like Battle Angel Alita: Last Order.
If you're interested in this manga, and in supporting this blog, you can buy it from Amazon through us.
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