The latest, ongoing manga by
Tsutomu Nihei, creator of
Blame! and
Biomega. Set on the gigantic
Generation Ship Cydonia (or
Sidonia), the last remnants of humanity are engaged in a seemingly
Hopeless War against the monstrous Gauna.
Not to be confused with
Knights Of Cydonia by
Muse. Some translators romanize it as "
Sidonia" to avoid this confusion.
This Manga contains the following tropes:
- A God Am I: Professor Ochiai.
- BFG: The magnetic linear accelerator rifles that fire the Gauna-piercing bullets.
- Big Eater: Tanikaze, on account of being unable to photosynthesize like most of the "humans" on Sidonia.
- Black Box: The Kabizashi blades are the only thing that can kill the Gauna, but no one knows how they work or how to make new ones. At first.
- Char Clone: The Red Sphingidae.
- Clones Are People Too: The Honokas. Each of them has their own name (Honoka En, Honoka Hou, etc), and seem to be treated as individuals.
- This is also an important part of Tanikaze's backstory. He was originally grown in a vat as a replacement body for the aging war hero Hiroki Saito, but Saito wanted to die a natural death and believed that his clone should be allowed to live his own life and so he absconded with the baby clone and raised him in seclusion as his own.
- Creator Provincialism: Many countries built their own ships but the Japanese ship, Sidonia, is the only one we see as the rest have either been eaten by Gaunas or gone off in different directions and are too far to communicate with.
- Earth-that-Was: The earth was lost to the Gauna a long time ago.
- In what may or may not have been the events of Nihei's earlier manga Abara.
- Endangered Species: the Cydonia's inhabitants are probably the last humans.
- Generation Ship: The eponymous ship. There were others, but contact with them has been lost.
- Grand Theft Me: Professor Ochiai to Kunato.
- Healing Factor: Tanikaze has one as a result of being an immortal enhanced clone.
- Hermaphrodite: Shinatose Izana. Unlike Real Life intersexed humans, s/he can have children with a man or woman thanks to being genetically engineered.
- Humongous Mecha: The Guardians are Cydonia's first line of defense against the Gauna.
- Immortality: The captain and other members of the crew deemed essential to Sidonia's mission are kept alive indefinitely with biotechnology but because of limited resources the rest of the population is allowed to age and die at a normal rate. The truth about the Immortal Ship Committee is kept from them to keep them from getting jealous.
- Inertial Dampening: The Cydonia doesn't appear to have it. When they have to make sudden evasive maneuvers, massive internal damage results and people die, even though they used an Emergency Broadcast to warn people.
- Jerk Ass: Kunato. And just when he seems to be getting better his body gets hijacked by Professor Ochiai, who is not only more arrogant by at least a factor of ten, but a maniac with a god-complex.
- Mask Power: The captain wears a mask to prevent people from noticing that she doesn't age.
- Naughty Tentacles: Shiranui has them.
- Organic Technology: The Chimerae, biomechs grown from Gauna and human cells by Ochiai as a replacement for the Guardians.
- Phlebotinum du Jour: The Guardians are powered by Higgs Bosons.
- Rocket Punch: The Guardians can launch their hands off on a towline and grapple onto things with them. Tanikaze manages to weaponize this to defeat the Red Sphingida after it destroys his gun by taking a Gauna-piercing bullet between his fingers and launching it through her body at point blank range.
- Scenery Porn: It's a Tsutomu Nihei manga. It's his trademark. In fact, chapters often start with travel-guide style images titled "Sidonia's 100 Sights" that show off the scenery.
- Spiritual Successor: The series had an early prototype in the form of an obscure one-shot manga called Winged Armor Suzumega, or The Armored Insects Sphingidae.
- Starfish Alien: The Gauna are a weird sort of fetus-like creature with a central "main body".
- Stealth Sequel: To Abara, possibly.
- Transhuman Treachery: The monstrous-looking, heavily modified cyborg Professor Ochiai nearly destroyed Sidonia due to his attempts to create a Gauna/human hybrid. On the other hand, this being a Tsutomu Nihei manga, almost every member of the cast are genetically and/or cybernetically modified in some way themselves.
- The Uriah Gambit: The captain wants Tanikaze dead for reasons not immediately explained and to this end orders him to fly in every single mission against the Gaunas in the hope that they'll eventually kill him.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Hiroki Saito was offered a chance at immortality but didn't take it too well.
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