All You Need Is Kill

I had this idea to read a time travel manga on Leap Day, but then I spent my extra day of the year in airplanes and airports and didn't get the time until yesterday. A bit of a waste, but it wasn't something I could change. So you get it now. My first Mecha manga review where I didn't even touch on my opinion on the Mecha genre. Let's just say you probably won't seen any other Mecha stories for a long while.

All You Need Is Kill Story by Hiroshi Sakurazaka and Ryousuke Takeuchi Art by Takeshi Obata

Click on this bad boy and see all the detail, its great.

Genre: Seinen, Mecha
Length: 2 Volumes – 17 Chapters


           The illustrator for this manga is the same mangaka from Hikaru No Go, Death Note, and Bakuman, so its a very familiar style even though I haven't really read anything else by him I've seen
it in copious amounts. Not to say that is good or bad, just familiar. The art was very impressive to me, actually, and the emotion played through the eyes shows exactly what is going on with out it being said. For example, having the eyes of a dead man when you've spent several days in a row dying really shows on the main character's face. It really puts you in his shoes. There is good diversity among the character designs as well. The muscle definition is proportionate and natural looking, and the hair styles have modern and well moving looks. The exo-suits are interesting to look at and have movement that is easy to interpret and look at. There is nothing I can complain about in the art, there were a few times the detail could have been better but that is me stretching to find something.
           When Keiji Kiriya wakes up from a dream of dying on his first day on the battle field against the alien
menace known as 'Mimics' he can't quite shake the feeling that he's done everything before. When he's deployed the next day, he is overwhelmed by the real sight of battle and things turn for the worst. When Keiji Kiriya wakes up from a dream of dying on his first day on the battle field, this time he decides he's not going back.
           I decided to read this because, well, I liked the movie Edge of Tomorrow and it was based off of the same source as this manga and I went for a backwards gorge by reading the manga next and the light novel last, figuring it would be the best (as is usually true). All you Need Is Kill the manga was
fast paced and enjoyable. The first volume cruises along and you sit at the edge of your seat to see what happens next, and then the second volume starts and you sort of stall. I almost thought I had skipped something because it just abruptly starts in on a different point of view. I think this could have been cushioned a little, but perhaps there was a page number restriction. Once it gets back to the meat of the story, though, its all good and the heavy atmosphere of the first volume is even given a little brevity. The main character is relatable and his agony is palpable thanks to the fast pace and art. Its a really good action read and nothing can change that but what follows is sort of an overall opinion of all three of the stories and not just the impression

the manga. When I got to the end of Edge of Tomorrow, things got confusing and veered away from the set up of the rest of the narrative and I figured it was the 'Hollywood Ending' that so often gets tacked on, so I looked forward to the ending of All You Need Is Kill, only to find that it has a horrible ending as well just in entirely different way. *Cries* You can't win, prepare yourself for that. All the same, the manga ending is in line with the rest of the story and it is much more satisfying than the movie was. The light novel's ending is a little better because you get a little extra conclusion. The manga is a pretty straight forward adaption of the light novel, actually, only the book goes into more detail on a lot of the topics, like the what the Mimics actually are, and is less abrupt than the manga was with the narrative shift. Reading the manga and the book in close succession like I did is a little redundant but normally a person probably wouldn't do that anyway. As for Edge of Tomorrow, there are a lot of changes made in not only story but terminology, roles, plot line, and the main female character is a Hollywood bad ass instead of the typical anime/manga cute girl, just making it more American over all, but it's still highly enjoyable, too. Reading the manga didn't ruin the movie or book and vise versa, and really what more can you hope for in the adaption game?



5/5 Action packed and unique.