Knights of Sidonia #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeKnights of Sidonia #1 (Vertical, February 5, 2013) marks the English-language debut of Tsutomu Nihei's hard science-fiction manga, introducing North American readers to both protagonist Nagate Tanikaze and the generation-ship world of Sidonia — a setting that pushed the mecha genre into genuinely bleak, post-solar-system survival territory. The series represents a pivot in Nihei's career toward more structured, character-driven storytelling while retaining the architect-scale world-building that defined his earlier, near-wordless work. Its publication proved consequential far beyond the comics page: the manga's growing Western readership helped lay the groundwork for the anime adaptation, which became the first anime series to carry the Netflix Original label, placing manga-sourced science fiction directly inside the world's then-largest streaming platform. The series also went on to win the 39th Kodansha Manga Award and the 47th Seiun Award for Best Comic, cementing its standing as one of the defining seinen sci-fi works of the 2010s.
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Nihei launched the series in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine on April 25, 2009, the same publication that had nurtured much of Japan's prestige seinen manga. Vertical, the New York-based publisher known for bringing literary and genre Japanese works to English-speaking audiences, announced its North American license in June 2012 and released volume 1 on February 5, 2013 — translating all 15 tankōbon volumes between that date and April 26, 2016. Nihei, a former architecture student whose early breakthrough BLAME! was nearly wordless, used Knights of Sidonia to demonstrate a more accessible narrative voice while still embedding his signature obsession with monumental structures and post-human biology. A Master Edition collecting 2.5 original volumes per omnibus, with larger trim and colored inserts, was later published by Vertical Comics beginning in April 2019.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First English-language appearance of Nagate Tanikaze, the series' central protagonist — an underground-raised 'under-dweller' who becomes the generation ship Sidonia's ace Garde mecha pilot.
- Created, written, and illustrated entirely by Tsutomu Nihei; originally serialized in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon seinen manga magazine beginning April 25, 2009.
- North American publisher Vertical released this first volume on February 5, 2013 (ISBN 978-1-935654-80-3), the opening of a complete 15-volume English run that concluded April 26, 2016.
- Volume 1 collects five chapters and multiple 'One Hundred Sights of Sidonia' interstitial features, establishing the Gauna alien threat, the Garde mecha combat system, and Sidonia's society of photosynthesis-capable, multi-gender engineered humans.
- Nagate is revealed across the series to be a secret clone of legendary former ace pilot Hiroki Saitō, raised in isolation and trained exclusively on a Guardian pilot simulator — making him simultaneously an outsider to Sidonian society and its most naturally gifted combat pilot.
- The manga won the 39th Kodansha Manga Award (general category, 2015) and the 47th Seiun Award for Best Comic (2016); it was also a Jury Recommended work at the 17th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2013.
- The anime adaptation by Polygon Pictures (two seasons, 2014–2015) became the first anime series to carry the Netflix Original label when it streamed globally beginning July 4, 2014 — a landmark moment in streaming media's relationship with anime.
- A Master Edition omnibus reprint, featuring larger trim size, colored inserts, and each volume collecting 2.5 original volumes, was published by Vertical Comics starting April 2019.
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