Sooyoung Park Park itibaren Piešťany, Slovakya
I liked it. A good read.
I won't pretend I'm any sort of manga expert because I'm not, so I'm just going to offer my very amateur opinions on the storyline and the artwork. Plot: Most of the human population have been turned into zombies thanks to the wonderful N5S virus. The Public Health Service sends Compulsory Execution Units (CEU) into infected areas to kill off said zombies, which are referred to as "drones". These drones look like your typical zombies, but with elongated limbs and torsoes - no word on if they eat brains though. The protagonist is some "synthetic human" dude (you can tell I've been paying attention!) on a motorbike, who completes missions in infected areas under the guidance of a little hologram lady in his bike computer, for a company called Toha Industries - rival of the Public Health Service and CEU. As with most zombie-virus-apocalyptic texts, there are a select few humans that are immune to the virus. In the Biomega world they're called Accommodators, and are essentially infected with the N5S virus but retain their human appearance. It seems like motorbike dude just goes into infected areas to do the job of the CEU, but receives orders to recover a young Accommodator girl called Eon Green. It turns out the Public Health Service is out to capture these so-called Accommodators and experiment on them, in hopes of wiping out the drones and starting over with humanity. Or something like that. As far as the storyline goes, Biomega hits all the right spots: apocalyptic storyline, zombies, viruses, synthetic humans/robots, shadow organisation and a precious few humans that are immune to said zombie virus. It's by no means an original premise, but I love me some dystopian/apocalyptic fiction and am likely to keep reading it as long as people write it. There were a few original things I really liked about the story though. For one, there was a talking bear! It was completely random and incongruent with the story, but it added a bit of LOLWAT to an otherwise srs bsns text. I also found the drones really creepy and fascinating, wondering what it is about the virus that causes their limbs to stretch and appearance to change. And the Accommodators are damn creepy! I'm guessing they're intended to look creepy, because the motorbike dude doesn't look quite as soulless. I was left wondering if they look like that because they're actually infected with the virus, rather than being totally immune to it (a part of the mythology that I really enjoyed!) I also find the Compulsory Execution Unit ~creatures to be equally creepy and fascinating. I have to admit I'm a bit confused about the main antagonist CEU guy, but I love the murderous butcher garb! You can probably tell I don't have any problems with the storyline itself, but I actually found Biomega #1 to be strangely lacking in story and dialogue. Again, I'm no manga expert so I'm unsure about what is "normal" when it comes to manga and graphic novels, but this text felt like it was 90% dude-riding-his-motorbike and 10% story and dialogue. I feel like I could rip out at least 20 pages of this text without affecting any of the story. I would've preferred a text with fewer pages and a heavier concentration of story, rather than a big long manga with little story and a million useless panels. I didn't purchase this manga (I borrowed it off a friend) but I'd feel a little ripped off if I had. I also have a little problem with the artwork - sometimes I just didn't have a fucking clue what was happening. Most of the time I could figure it out by looking at the panels before/after, but sometimes I just had no clue what the image was supposed to be. I don't think it affected my overall comprehension of the story, but I found it to be quite jarring. I know those few panels are going to bug the crap out of me until I figure them out! The artist's style is also very rushed and scribbly, which suits the story but doesn't help my case. Overall: I love the premise of Biomega, but found it strangely lacking in story and often had no clue what went on in certain panels. It's unnecessarily long, so unless you're a collector I'd suggest borrowing rather than buying this one. That being said, I'm really excited to borrow start the next one!