Kodoku Experiment is a sci-fi manga written and illustrated by Yukinobu Hoshino, of 2001 Nights fame.
The story begins in Deronga Five Alpha, a planet which was once a beautiful world but is now in its last days, dominated by the "survival of the fittest". It is of particular interest to the Space Force, who send Captain Camilla Bagures and a small team of cadets, led by a man named Cannon, to research the planet. But the mission goes wrong, and ultimately Camilla abandons the crew on the planet. Cannon, enraged, vows vengeance on her just before dying to the local wildlife.
20 years later, on the spaceship Pendragon which is returning to Dergona Five Alpha to witness its fiery end, a cadet named Gai C wakes up and is sent on a mission. He is part of a team of "Initials", soldiers who have been created and raised from birth by the Space Force. When the planet finally explodes, a large object attaches itself to the ship, and is brought in by crew to be inspected. But it turns out to be a surviving creature from Deronga- and it goes on a rampage after seeing Bagures, transmitting a virus that infects the people on the ship and turning them into aliens. These creatures are thus named the "Deronga", and when they begin rampaging, the now Brigadier General baggers sends Gai C and his squad to defend the ship. But the shadow of what Bagures did in the past lingers, and Gai C may be more connected to it than he realizes.
Tropes included in this work include:
- Big Bad: Captain/Brigadier General Camilla Bagures kicks off the plot by abandoning Cannon and his platoon to die on Deronga Five Alpha, then lures the Deronga virus onto the Space Force ships to have them kill people as a twisted experiment.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: About halfway through the manga, a Deronga alien attacks General Bugless. These things have shown themselves to be terrifying and hardy enemies. Then Bugless unveils her Gravity Master powers and destroys it in seconds.
- Dying Curse: Cannon, upon dying in the first chapter after being abandoned on planet Deronga Five Alpha, swears revenge on Captain Baruges for stranding him.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Deronga Five Alpha blows up in the beginning of the story. The aliens, meanwhile, start attacking the Space Force afterwards in hopes of finding a new home.
- Evolutionary Pressure Cooker: The manga involves a dying planet full of monsters desperately fighting for survival, creating a form of "kodoku", with the final survivor, part of a crew that was deliberately left on the planet, transforming into a bizarre lifeform that infects those around it.
- The Federation: The Space Force seems to be a typical variant. They investigate and study Deronga Five Alpha in the opening, and fight against the aliens in the rest of the work. For the most part, they are benevolent, their problems mainly stemming from internal corruption stemming from the ambitious Brigadier General Camilla Bugless.
- Genetic Memory: One of the advantages of the Deronga creature is that they can maintain genetic memory that other creatures have collected from human victims. When one of them discovers a weakness in the Aquarion mechs, the rest of them learn the weakness as well.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The Deronga aliens killing the Space Force crew are simply predators despite all the people they kill, and just want a refuge from their dead planet. The real villain is Brigadier General Camilla Bagures, a leader of the Space Force who abandoned an entire military team to die on the Deronga planet back when she was a captain, and is the one who implanted the aliens there as part of the titular experiment, making her responsible for all the death and destruction that happens.
- People Jars: The initials are created from small artificial wombs to be raised by the Space Force.
- Red Shirt: Cannon and his platoon.
- Shout-Out: Deronga Five Alpha sounds a lot like Ceti Alpha V
- Taking You with Me: Cannon ultimately seals Bagures inside himself to stop her gravity furnace bomb from killing the entire Space Force.
- Time Skip: The very first chapter happens 20 years before the rest of the manga, essentially making the first chapter a flashback.
- We Have Reserves: Viktor shoots down Somaru, one of his own soldiers, for tying to stop him from abandoning Eluuria, then dismisses her as just another easily replaceable "initial".My point was that these "initials" are the military's simple "consumable goods"! They don't have parents or siblings, and even if they die, no one will complain! To top it all, they don't even have to be paid! Hahaha!!
- Wham Line:Baruges: You have gotten older and uglier Linz, is there a need for the original?
- The Worf Effect: The Deronga aliens in generale shown thought the first half of the manga to be nigh-unstoppable threats tearing through the Space Force crew, with the heroes just barely evading them severe; times. Then one of them attacks Brigadier General Bugless and is immediately and effortlessly destroyed with her Gravity Master powers, showing how much more of a threat she is compared to them.
