When you wake up, you don't know if you're in heaven or in hell, but regardless, you wish to strongly keep surviving.
In the near future, scientists discovered that a meteor was headed towards earth and that if it hit it was expected to wipe out almost all life. World leaders met and tested a number of countermeasures. In the worst case scenario, if none of the countermeasures worked and the human race died out entirely, they created a final project, "7 Seeds". Each country took young and healthy people and put them in a cryogenic sleep: when conditions on earth had become safe enough to live in again, they would be released.
In Japan, the 7 Seeds project was organized into five teams of seven people: Team Winter, Team Spring, Team Summer A, Team Summer B, and Team Fall. The story begins some unknown number of years in the future, when Team Summer B wakes up and learns that their entire world has been destroyed and that evolution has begun to repeat itself.
7 Seeds is thought-provoking manga written by Yumi Tamura, better known for writing
Basara. It's mostly adventure, science fiction, and horror, but it has touches of romance. The story is also notable for its large cast of varied characters. There is no single main character, or even main team: instead, the story regularly switches between teams, usually with one viewpoint character per team.
In 2007, the series won the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo manga.
This manga has examples of:
- Action Girl: Hana
- After the End: The majority of the story takes place after a meteorite has destroyed most life on Earth and evolution has begun to repeat itself.
- Apocalypse How: It is a Class Four.
- Apocalyptic Log
- Anyone Can Die: Poor Team Winter. And Team Summer A candidates.
- Ax Crazy: Team Summer A becomes a bit unhinged after the final test, and end up killing their guide, Unami.
- Berserk Button: Do not try to hurt Hana in front of Arashi. He will hurt you.
- Also, do not make comments about Ango's friends. He will attack you.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Arashi, the sensitive nice guy, nearly killed some guys who threatened his girlfriend before the story began.
- Break the Cutie: Happens to several characters, but especially Ango.
- Broken Ace: Again, Ango.
- Celebrity Survivor
- Character Development: As time goes on, the characters grow and develop into fairly competent teams and more sides to several characters are shown.
- Cryonics Failure: What happens to three members of Team Winter.
- Cyanide Pill: All of the team leaders were given poison so they could kill themselves and the rest of the team if they awaken in situations that are unlivable.
- Driven to Suicide: Arashi begins to feel that it is hopeless that he will ever reunite with Hana and tries to drown himself.
- Dwindling Party: Poor Team Winter...
- Eastern Zodiac: Wood carvings of the zodiac are used to give the Summer A candidates clues as to when the next part of the final test will happen.
- Friendless Background: Before she came to the future, Natsu's closest emotional support was her kitten.
- Friendship Moment
- Friend to All Living Things: Gengoro is very good with animals and is top in the animal class.
- Heroic BSOD: About half of the members of Team Summer A get this after they are selected. The other half just look stunned/angry/murderous.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Yanagi burns himself alive to save the rest of his team.
- Human Popsicle: All of the characters were cryonically frozen before the meteor hit.
- Humans Are Bastards: Holy high-flying Hell, what wasn't done in an attempt to keep humanity alive?
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the chapters in the Team Summer A arc have the titles of classical music pieces.
- I Will Find You: Hana and Arashi.
- Jerkass: Most of the teachers of the Summer A candidates, but especially Unami.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Semimaru and Ryou can seem incredibly jerky but they have hidden soft sides.
- Kill 'Em All: All Team Summer A candidates are killed except the top seven.
- Killer Rabbit: Team Summer B encounters some cute, fuzzy rodents. Then it turns out that half of the rabbits are carnivorous monsters that try to eat them and the other half are prey. Oddly enough, it's one of the few serious examples of this trope.
- Man-Eating Plant
- Manipulative Bastard: Pretty much every adult in this series is a terrible person, but the teachers are the school are the worst.
- The Medic: Ban, who is top in the medical classes.
- Parental Abandonment: The parents of the characters sold them to the government.
- Please Put Some Clothes On
- Puppeteer Parasite
- Ragnarok Proofing: Plant-animal hybrid raptors and huge flesh-eating silverfish have had time to evolve, yet the Shinjuku skyline is still discernable despite being partially submerged in saltwater. Then there's the issue of the functioning boat and edible rice in the shelters...
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Team Summer B. Chosen deliberately in case the attractive, intelligent, and socially well-adjusted members of the other teams didn't have the strength to survive.
- Rape as Drama: Ango tries to make Hana "pay with her body" since her father was a Sink or Swim Mentor. Fortunately, Ayu of all people steps in.
- Recruit Teenagers with Attitude: Again, Team Summer B. Specifically engineered in Team Summer A.
- Ruins of the Modern Age: Teams Summer B and Spring can't believe they're in Japan until they encounter these.
- Ship Tease: Given the fact that these guys are here to keep humanity alive, this was bound to come up. Some of the less expected ones include Haru and Korui, Ayu and Aramaki, and now Ango and Natsu
- Shrinking Violet: Natsu can barely bring herself to shout that she has found water.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: Team Summer A's teachers, to their eventual horror.
- Snow Means Death: Mitsuru from Team Winter commits suicide this way, after Fubuki dies.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Ayu, aka Madonna, is harrassed by other female classmates because of her beauty. She's less whiney about it than most female examples of this trope, but it does come up.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Hana and Arashi. They were dating before being frozen and are looking for each other in the hopes that both will still be alive. But events seem to conspire to keep them apart.
- Survivalist Stash
- Title Drop
- Temporal Theme Naming: All of the characters have names that mean things related to the season of their team.
- Too Dumb to Live: Many of the Summer A candidates are incredibly stupid, especially considering all of the survival training they've had.
- Justified with several, who were just coasting and treating it like a game.
- Trauma Conga Line: In many ways, the whole series. Having it start with Everybody's Dead, Dave and showing us what's left can do that. And then there's always Team Summer A's Final Test...
- Twenty Minutes into the Future: The time period just before the meteor strikes and when the majority of the Team Summer A arc is.
- Typhoid Mary: Maria
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Including shipping unwitting civilians into a post-apocalyptic uncertain future, culling the population to keep the underground hideouts alive, mentally scarring 17-year-olds as a final test... And then there's the matter of how we meet Fall...
- What the Hell, Authority?: A frequent theme, most often a response to the above.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Ango and Ryo are eventually called out on the former trying to rape Hana and the latter trying to kill her and Haru. Yay, exile.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Arashi hates bugs. And guess what! The first island his team finds is infested with giant carnivorous cockroaches and other insects!
- You Can't Go Home Again: The place where you were born might still be there, it just probably is in ruins and your entire family and all of your friends are dead.
