NOiSE
By Tsutomu Nihei
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Set in the Blame! universe thousands of years prior to the main story, NOiSE acts as a prequel of sorts. Detective Musubi Susono and her partner are investigating a series of child kidnappings when things take an ugly turn. Her partner is brutally murdered and when Susono confronts the killer, he unleashes his silicone creature creation upon her—a creature created from the body of her partner.
I’d comment about the story and characters, but, sadly, there’s not a whole lot to comment on. The story is paper-thin with little to no explanations given for just about everything that happens in the book. Maybe the story would have made more sense if I had read Blame!, but since I haven’t I was pretty lost. Weird cybernetic creatures, a cult killing children who don’t have net terminal implants, another mysterious group with their own unknown agenda, and then there’s the mysterious sword on top of all that. Susono herself remains a cipher throughout most of the book. She’s a cop, and she wants to defeat the people who killed her partner. That’s all there is to her.
Art wise, the book is a strangely mixed bag. The actual panel-to-panel flow is rocky at best, with some sequences and scenes being almost incomprehensible. There are just too many fight scenes where it’s next to impossible to tell what’s actually going on aside from the fact that stuff is blowing up real purty like. On the other hand, when everyone stands still things look absolutely amazing! Fantastically creepy and cool biomechanical character designs abound, and the backgrounds and set pieces are incredibly detailed and moody. The entire city has an amazingly large, run down, cyberpunky, industrial feel to it. Nihei’s massive, desolate, gritty and dirty streetscapes do wonders for the mood and ambience of the story. One almost gets the feeling that Nihei’s style would be more appropriate for designing games, movies, or anime instead of doing a manga. In fact, if NOiSE is any indication, I’d love to play a game designed by Nihei! The visuals would be jaw-droppingly gorgeous and mind-blowingly awesome.
In addition to NOiSE, there are two other short stories included in the book. The first is a wordless story entitled “Negative Corridor,” and outside of mentioning how pretty it is, I’m not sure what else to say about it. The second is Nihei’s original award-winning “Blame” manga. It serves as the prototype for the final series, kind of like that “Naruto” manga that Viz ran in the December issue of Shonen Jump. They’re both nice little extras, but neither bowled me over. Blame! fans, however, will love getting a look at this early version of the series.
Overall, it’s a rather unsatisfying read that’s pulled from ruin by Nihei’s beautifully dark and gritty artwork. It might make more sense to Blame! fans, but it certainly didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Still, it’s interesting and visually engaging enough to make me want to find out what’s going on by giving Blame! a look.
NOiSE is available now.
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