Knights of Sidonia is one of the first titles I encountered as a recommendation when I first got into manga. Since then I ve been curious to check it out but it mostly stayed as a staple in my Plan to Read until I randomly decided to give it a chance not knowing what else to read. Having read BLAME which I didnt really enjoy I expected another compilation of cool art and a loose story and well... I was wrong. What I liked: 1. As someone who has studied architecture Nihei does an amazing job visualizing his fictional worlds. The environment always looks authentic and provides for many great panels. What I didnt like: 1. Unlike the locations in the story the character designs in Niheis works are simply unimpressive. This is especially problematic when the story has as large a cast as in Knights of Sidonia. Most designs are unimaginative and feel deprived of any life to such extent that the most interesting character visually is just a bear kinda. 1. Having striking detailed designs is not always a necessity however. What really matters is the characters themselves. Well Nihei fails to deliver yet again. The entire cast feels extremely bland to the point that I cant say anything about any of the characters personalities. All the slice of life moments were like watching robots exchanging prerecorded sounds. Due to this being the case my involvement with the story was minimal which leads to the last point. 1. The story of Knights of Sidonia was as basic as it could get. To add insult to injury the dialogue is 80 random terminology which after a while became indifferent to me as I did not care what happened anyway. There is also the fact that Nihei never forgot to add a cheap fanservice moment at least once a volume as if he was trying to make the readers not leave before the story gets to its peak. 1. Finally the ending was dumb. Overall I can say I totally wasted my time on a manga I will soon forget. I think Tsutomu Nihei should just do art exhibitions and not make any more miserable attempts at storytelling. So unless you are a major fan of his dont read this series. It is not good.