Not much to say about the art. It's great, although some fights are a bit confusing. The flow could have been fixed with 2-3 bonus panels here and there. The theme and content are important, since we want to make sure that the cover visually tells a reader what kind of story to expect. For example, you probably wouldn’t use a cute script font and a lot of pink on a book like this! ABARA (which I literally just sped through a 2nd reading of) is called out as having a confusing story because there are a few competing organizations (cops, scientific, para-military, shadow-society, etc.) that are never completely explained, and the ending doesn’t adhere to the preconceived Western framework of what constitutes a “story.” Abara is great for what it is. Obviously it isn't some profound story where you expect to come away with a newfound favorite fiction or expect to find some extremely deep plot. It's a 11 or so chapter story that makes an interesting world wherein human weapons exist to fight terrible creatures. And it's cool as hell. The art is fantastic, some of it even exceeding those found in Blame!, and there is enough information about the world given to feel the visceral, living, and yet dreary atmosphere. Another point worth noting is the characters in this story. They're just kind of there. Sure they do stuff and progress the "plot" with their goals, but it's irrelevant for the most part. You don't get attached to nay of the characters, their goals in the short time you're reading, or frankly what happens whatsoever. It's enjoyed predominantly for the visual and atmospheric spectacle Abara inhibits.

Many years later, the rest of humanity has been killed off either by the White Gaunas or by infighting. The world is an empty landscape, and lush greenery has taken over the House's rooms. Tadohomi and Sakijima run out of the House and look up into the sky. quite decent, and it would probably be even higher if it was clear enough to understand. After analysing the artwork, I could finish the story with barely any extra understanding of the story. And the only part that I completely understood and enjoyed was the ending, and the ending was a masterpiece; To the eye and to the brain. I will not speak of the story since I want to keep this spoiler free.There’s even the pure, unadulterated CREATIVITY of introducing a few not-exactly-human characters, with more than a dash of humor to them, and still using them as & insisting the reader treat them as Perfectly Serious Characters. Nihei, firing on all cylinders! As always the art is on point. Reading his action scenes is such a treat. Drawn in a way where it feels like your watching an anime on the television. I really can't say enough about how this book looks, much like all his work. It reeks of his classic vibes, and that's why I love it so much.

In the end, we chose the image that felt the most exciting and attractive. It was my favorite image as soon as I saw it, and I was happy we could showcase it on the cover. There's nothing to see here. Everything about this series could have been done much better with the exception of the story. This is probably one of the first times I've read a manga where the story couldn't possibly help it. The art conveys the atmosphere of the story decently and is great, but it does suffer from some problems. The art may be beautiful, but it misses some detail, which causes the implications of the concept and story to be only partly visible. Especially since about 95% of the panes don't have any dialogue and where dialogue appears it's not comprehensive enough to paint the full extent of the story.This is because Tsutomu prefers to tell his stories using visuals rather than dialogue. Despite this, he does not flesh out any The art for Abara was a bit hit and miss for me some things looked cool while others didn't. The style looks really old school in ways but doesn't do much besides

Abara: Complete Deluxe Edition is a single-volume story from cyberpunk manga creator Tsutomu Nihei, and if you know Nihei's work, you won't be surprised by the crazy, violent Science Fiction action collected in a gorgeous hardcover book. Abara” és el primer manga que llegeixo de Tsutomu Nihei i m’ha deixat amb ganes de provar amb “Blame!” o amb “Biomega”, dues de les seves obres més aclamades. The story of Abara is strange and for the first time in my life I'm not sure that's a good thing. The introduction to the story seemed really cool but after that I got lost in basically a lot of talking that wasn't all that interesting and didn't help me figure out at all what was happening til I was about done. This section's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. ( October 2019) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) It seems like, after BLAME!, Nihei took a couple of reference points to sketch-out his next long[-er] series:

Abara Vol.1 Chapter 1 : White Gauna

Also, if the world is in a dystopian state and people are seemingly sleeping on the streets (like in the scene with the man visiting the hospital at the beginning)...how are is the government affording genetic engineering services and not offer food or shelter? I am confused as to how that makes sense or how the dystopia and science blend. Or even why the dystopia happened in the first place. Abara's precursor is a 2 chapter one-shot named Digimortal written in 2004, shortly after Biomega started airing. It, with its 11 chapters, was written during said airing. With how short it is, you aren't losing much even if you end up not liking it. It's also a good starting point when getting into Nihei's catalogue as it gives you a taste of what he is all about. And, in case you are here from Chainsaw Man: indeed, Fujimoto values this work a lot and it's easy to see its influence. Tried reading Blame! some time ago but I don't think the digital scans were very clear, which is important when the visuals are the absolute most important part of the work, even moreso than other manga, and I don't think I was in the right mindset either. But thanks to Abara I'm going to fix that and read Blame! again.

I understand that withholding information is a plot device, but Tsutomu keeps everything to himself but names and basic terms, leaving the reader with little beyond cryptic drawings to unearth some motive along the way. While people praise this as a “deep, psychological” manga, the reader simply has to work harder to uncover why anything is happening, hiding an exhausting guessing game behind psychological intrigue.

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This time the Akira vibe is heavy, with body horror at the forefront. Expect human transformation and ugly metamorphosis aplenty. Though unlike Akira, I doubt Nihei's aspirations are as lofty as commenting on Japan's relationship with technology in the post Meiji-era. No, he just wants I've wanted for a while to make some kind of chart creating a visual linkage of the various repeated concepts and motifs that repeat in Nihei's work, so I'll just note them here for myself