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Forum - View topicHouse of 1000 Manga - 7 Billion Needles
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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As an old Science Fiction fan I've read much of Hal Clement's work, I'm more fond of his other stories Mission of Gravity and Iceworld ( Tobacco is addictive & distructive to humans, imagine what it might do to aliens? ) both of which would make amazing Manga or Anime in the right hands. Now I need to find & reread Needle as well as buy 7 Billion Needles.
Oh my aching billfold. Mark Gosdin |
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No Comment
 Posts: 83 |
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I got this series from my library around this time last year, and ended up reading it all in one sitting, partly because it's short, but mostly because it was really good. It was before I had read Parasyte so initially I appreciated it a little more, but it's still great after reading Parasyte because the influence is a normal level and they both take the body horror artwork in pretty different directions. I love the art in this manga, the vaporized skeleton on the cover of the first volume was what caught my attention, and then there's so much more on the inside.
Its short length is probably for the best, but it can be disorienting when you're in the final volume to think how exactly it got to that point from the beginning. The story is ever changing, but you can tell it's deliberately planned. I also really liked Vertical's release of the manga, compact and stylistic. It'd be cool to see the author do more work, though it's clear he made 7BN because he wanted to, so I guess it's best to let him do what he wants. Nice column |
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ajr
Posts: 465 |
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It's not a mind-blowing series, but it's well done. I like the quiet humor present in it.
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krpalmer
Posts: 32 |
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7 Billion Needles caught my attention when it first came out, although I think its story held together better for me and was that much more enjoyable when I went back to it and re-read all four volumes in one go. While I'd read Parasyte before, I was just interested to go back and compare the two series (although the point about headphones featuring in both manga never occurred to me until now!) I also went to the point of ordering a used copy of Hal Clement's Needle afterwards, even if I was inclined to think it more "restrained" and "hard science fiction" than the later manga.
Just as an additional note, I see Vertical's covers for this manga as more inspired by those of Penguin Books for one particular stretch of the 1960s; they were at least a factor in getting my attention in the first place. |
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Quicknav
Posts: 12 |
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I just recently saw this at my closest manga store but didn't much attention to it. I regret that now as this article has gotten me very interested in the series (and the Clement novel).
Too bad it seems that the last two volumes are out of print, as I was considering ordering them all. 
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Msag
 Posts: 50 |
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Very nicely written
 I'm not well-read in the SF genre and I definitely don't check out manga that fits into the genre as actively as I check out other kinds of manga stories, but this article/review was really interesting to read.
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1829 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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About Japanese SF literature: Just how much of it is available in English? I'm guessing most of what is available is published by Viz's Haikasoru. Bought their doorstop edition of Mardock Scramble (IIRC it was three volumes in Japan, like Haruki Murakami's 1Q84).
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Snomaster1
 SubscriberPosts: 2848 |
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I admit that sci-fi can be unusual but "7 Billion Needles" takes it to a new extreme. It seem that the person who did this took the essence of the story and did his own version of it. I haven't read either the manga or the book that inspired it,I'm sorry to say. Maybe one day,I will.
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ajr
Posts: 465 |
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Agreed. Although I wasn't too keen on those covers when I first picked the series up, I really like the release they did, it both looks and feels good. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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Sadly only the first 2 volumes are available to purchase of these, the last 2 seem to be OOP, or used here in the UK.
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