Started reading this manga because i saw someone mention it when i was reading Usogui (read this manga it's amazing). And man i enjoyed this allot i really liked everything about it esp. the buildings and world design it was very interesting but also gloomy and gritty but oddly relaxing aswell. Deff will re-read this soon.

Cult classic, you're probably going to either love or hate this manga.

Strengths:

- Fantastic world and atmosphere
- World is kept as mysterious to the viewer as it is to the MC through a lack of exposition/info dumping
- Most chapters are relatively easy to read, and most of the manga is entirely visual with minimal storytelling
- Most arcs are short and don't drag on too long
- Visual style and storytelling does an incredible job at selling the scale of the world and the ungodly lengths of time it takes to traverse it
- Visual storytelling done right ("show, don't tell")

Weaknesses:

- Practically no dialogue
- Early chapters are disjointed from the remainder of the book
- Art style evolves over time and gradually improves, leaving earlier chapters looking clunky and unrefined in comparison to later chapters
- Some chapters are total cluster-fucks and require numerous re-reads to grasp

Overall, one of my favorites of all time. It's definitely not everybody's cup of tea, but most of the chapters are easy to read through, and it's not a joke to say that the ~2,000 pages of this manga series can be read in about 6 hours. Give it a try, at least a handful of chapters. If you're not digging it, you won't like it later. If you fall in love, you'll love it all the way through.

Came here after watching the Netflix movie. Good thing I did too, as that movie set up the context of things much better than this manga did early on. This manga has the opposite problem of those crappy manga / anime with overly long backstories where there's paragraphs of exposition and history you don't give a crap about it the beginning that you don't even have the context to understand. It's too minimalist and doesn't explain anything. Plus the art makes the action scenes a bit hard to follow.

It has its strengths, like being atmospheric and establishing a mood, but so far, it's lacking characterization and context for what's going on. I like it so far, but can see why it never became a megahit, and only got animated after Knights of Sidonia was successful.

This is one of the masterpieces.

@katsu_curry that may be because this manga is not for everyone. You are just suddenly thrown into a world and actually have to put effort into understanding things. That is why this is my favorite

@Iandiazgentry read the master edition. there is a pdf of all volumes somewhere on the net

For those who can't understand the story, check the wiki on fandom.com for chapter explanations

Nihei's magnum opus, idk why it's rating is only 9, should be at least 9.25

Terrible scan. Read the master edition official release instead.

It might be good but I can't get past the art

@CheerTheDead it's quite a basic premise, but there isn't much exposition and the gaps are enormous.

Spoiler

How did you understand the plot ? What kind of wisdom god are you?

H doujinshi where? (Shibo x Sanakan preferably)

@Herrgast Spoiler

@Turkeyjerkey I have to disagree at one point:

Spoiler

And those who didn't get the end:
Spoiler

Setting explained for those confused: Spoiler

I'm reading this paper back and I must say it's horror. The entire setting is terror.

Man this is hard to read. I want to like it, but I can barely see what's going on.

I keep seeing both you around the comments for I am a Hero and other stuff. Neither of y’all liked the ending... I can’t understand why lol

Lol wtf

For the whole damn time I was like, "wtf is happening here". How the hell did all of this even started?

@Aureliano well i read it and still thinking if the author nihei himself going to create a plot twist that connected to the new serie now still the updated really slow like turtle?

A very interesting manga, but it's hard to decipher what is happening in some scenes, and much is left to be questioned.

In a way, it reminds me of Dark Souls 1, where there is a heavy atmosphere that you look fondly back on, but not much in the way of story or development.

8/10 - Read if you crave atmospheric compositions.