Abara: Complete Deluxe Edition Hardcover – December 18, 2018

Tsutomu Nihei's Abara is another reason he is the prolific mangaka he is.In two parts, Nihei tells a gripping story. To boot, this version adds in a second exhilarating story, Digimortal -- it may look similar, but it's unclear if Abara and Digimortal take place in the same universe. Nihei's various titles might take place in the same universe, but they might not...Much like Blame!, Abara doesn't give all of its information away. There are aspects of the story that aren't explicitly explained -- in no way does this choice hamper the experience.Abara is a book for artists, readers, comic fans, sci-fi enthusiasts, and people into quirky, unique stories. The art ranges from heavily detailed linework to simplistic, broad strokes -- the quality never changes. Nihei has a command of the pen many professional artists don't quite understand.Abara, like all of Tsutomu Nihei's other work, is worth owning. In all honesty, it may not be worth paying hundreds of dollars for it, but if you have to have it...

I disagree with low raters bashing this work by Nihei because they don’t take into account that an artist’s creativity and style takes time to consolidate. And even at their peak, artists can’t always be putting out masterpieces every single time.That being said, Abara is actually a great work through and through in my opinion. You’ll be glad to disregard negative reviews from people trashing Nihei (and other’s work) who, as side note, would not be able to generate manga and stories like this.Nihei’s work is characterized by having aspects of the story that are never answered, addressed, remain a mystery, and/or are explained but still off the wall.Again I’m glad I disregarded negative comments. Of course, next time around Nihei might put out something bad, like Matrix Reloaded, or Alien Covenant bad, and then you’ll be reading my complaints HA!Give Abara a try. It’s great work!

The book came with a little dent on the back corner near the spine, not sure if that was from shipping or if the book originally came like that but otherwise the book is like new. The quality of print is amazing and none of the pages were damaged (which was my main concern buying pre-owned). The shipping was also super fast, came a week earlier than estimated!

While enjoyable and filled with Tsutomu Nihei's wild architectural scales and construction-gone-mad, along with his bizarre and disturbing bio-mechanical character designs, the overall 'plot' of the story is no less inscrutable than most of his other work. I think that this will likely be my last Nihei acquisition since the lack of cohesion in general has kind of lost me. Nevertheless, the art is cool and filled with a style that invites revisiting on occasion.

How do I put this while avoiding spoilers?It seems like, after BLAME!, Nihei took a couple of reference points to sketch-out his next long[-er] series:* he knew what his strengths were;* he wanted to branch out from them & grow; and,* he wanted to do all sorts of anime-ass-kicking that hadn’t *QUITE* fit in BLAME!.He nailed it.ABARA (which I literally just sped through a 2nd reading of) is called out as having a confusing story because there are a few competing organizations (cops, scientific, para-military, shadow-society, etc.) that are never completely explained, and the ending doesn’t adhere to the preconceived Western framework of what constitutes a “story.”In fact, ABARA has all the information you need in order to understand everything you need to, as what Nihei found his way to, and thoroughly followed through in the execution of, given his [above-listed & obviously reviewer-surmised] goals for ABARA, is almost more along the lines of a cyberpunk/police-thriller/seinen-battle-manga FAIRY TALE...— with a psychedelic ending that would make Watchmen jealous!The story follows a number of people whose [battle-manga/superhero-style] abilities/interests are tied into a worldbuilding element that both gives them their powers, but is also, when left to run out of control, a threat to the survival of an already-post-apocalyptic humanity. Each “interested” character has a personal connection with a “powered” character, but these are awesome, tense, plot-propulsive relatonships that play out in tense glances & remembered feelings, not that awkward superhero-sidekick nonsense.There’s even the pure, unadulterated CREATIVITY of introducing a few not-exactly-human characters, with more than a dash of humor to them, and still using them as & insisting the reader treat them as Perfectly Serious Characters. Nihei, firing on all cylinders!I really wanted to get through a 2nd read-through & come back here with enough to say to write a positive review, because the idea that this isn’t a fully-formed & realized Nihei work is just preposterous, and can only be missing the point of what the artist tried, and succeeded in achieving, with this series!

So, yeah I just read this bit of epic and amazing biopunk body horror manga, by the one and only Tsutomu Nihei my personal favorite manga creator, this book is Abara, and is published for the first time in English by Viz Entertainment, I could have read a fan translated version before now online, but I hate fan scan translated manga, but I have to say this beautiful hardcover deluxe edition is epic, and it even comes with the bonus short story Digimortal, which features my favorite fight scene from any Nihei manga, I flipping love this book and really can't recommend it highly enough!