Tuesday, August 2, 2011

7 Billion Needles Volume 1 by Nobuaki Tadano YP FIC TADANO


Hikaru isn’t much of a social butterfly.  She prefers to hide behind her headphones and drown the world out, but there’s a new voice she can’t ignore.  It’s inside her and it says that if she doesn’t help find an alien called Maelstrom hiding in one of her schoolmates than the entire world will be destroyed.  Hikaru isn’t sure what’s worse: annihilation of all life on Earth or having to talk to her classmates!

This is a really clever idea and Tadano nails the execution.  This is a stand out from the crowded “normal teen gets super powers and fights evil reluctantly” crowd.  It works because Hikaru is such a believable teen and her reluctance is more believable. Almost any high schooler knows the sheer terror of having to talk to certain classmates.  It’s way freakier than fighting an alien!  Except this alien, it’s way freakier.  This book does the ‘enemy amongst us’ idea very well.  Maelstrom is seriously and legitimately creepy.  The drive to find him before he kills again and again and again makes this a very suspenseful read.  Top that off with top notch art and some great action sequences and you have a manga must read!  Last and certainly not least I am very happy that this is a four volume series.  I love when authors can resist the urge to tell never ending stories (I am staring so hard at you right now Naruto!).  So check it out, even if you hate it there isn’t that much of it to read!

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