Review - Biomega Vol. 1

Review - Biomega Vol. 1
By Tsutomu Nihei
VIZ Signature

The year is 3005 and there is a virus called N5S which is turning everyone on the planet into zombies. There are some people called Accommodators who seem to be immune to the virus, but their pheromones attract the mindless hoards who are the rest of the population. One accommodator is seemingly a young teenage girl named Eon Green. She is being sought after by the government Public Health Service and also by agent of TOA Heavy Industry Zoichi Kande. Zoichi is synthetic human and is helped by an artificial intelligence named Fuyu; riding his super cool motorcycle, killing massive amounts of zombies in his mission to retrieve Eon from the Public Health Services. Oh. And did I mention Eon's guardian, a talking bear named Kozlov L. Grebnev?

There is much to like with Biomega. As I was reading this volume, I realized that I had seen his work in a Marvel series titles Wolverine: Snikt. The action is fast. Most of the story is told without much dialog. The speed of the pacing is easily visible with the exceptional artwork. Like most all manga, this is black and white. But unlike most manga, there is very little grey scale. Using very thick black lines helps make the world seem more harsh.

Though this is rated by VIZ for Mature readers, from the first volume, I would consider adding it to an older teen graphic novel area. Zoichi does cut through infected zombies like he's harvesting wheat, but I did not see it as bad as some other violent content in other comics. However, there is other manga avilable that would be far safer for libraries to purchase for their collections.