Knights of Sidonia vol. 10

The main conflict between the humans and the Gauna isn’t advanced by all that much in this volume, but we do get some interesting new developments.  Or rather, a development that brings several complications along with it.  After the success of the human/Gauna hybrid Tsumugi, Kunato and the rest of his team have been working on a second hybrid.  His name is Kanata, and he’s a bit more unruly than his predecessor which causes problems when the team tries to use him as a weapon.  On one hand, it’s easy to criticize Kunato and co. for taking a more domineering approach to this hybrid’s development after they managed to get things right with Tsumugi.  The previous hybrid, however, didn’t have a formerly theoretical planet-killing super-laser embedded in her head, so their strictness with Kanata is understandable to a certain extent.  It does lead to some minor changes in the status quo aboard Sidonia, after the laser goes off during a Gauna attack and furthers the moral ambiguity we’ve seen in the captain’s actions when she makes her intentions regarding this new hybrid known in the wake of the accident.  Though these developments are intriguing, it’s not hard to see that they’re going to lead to some very bad things happening to the ship and its crew down the line.

As for the rest of the volume, it’s filled with silliness.  The stuff I described above mainly takes up the middle part of this collection and there’s a lot of goofiness on either side of it.  Take the “tentacle monster” that we see menacing the girls in the shower that eventually ties in with the arrival of a new kotatsu in Tanikaze’s place and a beatdown inflicted on the Honoka Twins, Ren and En, by the dorm matron, Ms. Hiyama.  (Did I ever mention that she’s also a bear in these reviews?  Well, now you know that she is.)  Then there’s Izana’s grandmother who, when she’s not trying to keep Kanata under control, likes to relive her youth by going out in clothes that look like they came from one of mangaka Tsutomu Nihei’s other series.  She also prompts Tanikaze to research key cultural assets with her granddaughter by threatening to detonate a micro-explosive she placed in his spine.  While this is clearly a lie, Tanikaze is thick-headed enough to take it seriously and completely miss the implication that this is a scheme of hers to set the two of them up together.  All of these scenes are more on the charming side of silly because they spring from and provide further insight into the characters’ personalities.  This has the added effect of making me realize that Nihei has also done a good job of developing his cast over these ten volumes that such events come off as endearing rather than annoying.