Manga Review: Snowball Earth Volume 01 by Yuhiro Tsujitsugu
In 2025, the first intergalactic kaiju attacked Earth. It was stopped at the cost of a lot of human lives. And it wasn’t alone. Entire swarms of them were approaching, with a few (scouts? impatient ones) way out in front. Humanity established the E-RDE, an anti-kaiju defense force. Ten years later, the E-RDE flagship Erde and their most effective mecha, Snowman, are out in space preparing for the final battle with the main swarm comprising some twenty thousand creatures.
Snowman is co-piloted by the onboard artificial intelligence Yukio and the human boy Tetsuo Yabusame. They bonded when Yukio was the computer for the prototype mecha “Snowball” and Tetsuo was a wee lad. Tetsuo is something of a prodigy at kaiju-killing, but suffers from severe social anxiety. He struggles to say so much as “hello” to other humans, but is perfectly at ease with his one friend Yukio.
The crew of the Erde are blinded by hero worship, considering Tetsuo Earth’s “savior.” At worst they think he’s a trifle odd, but most just take his lack of communication skills as heroic stoicism. Meanwhile, Tetsuo is desperately consulting self-help books on how to be more outgoing.
The plan is simple. Snowman attacks the kaiju swarm and draws its attention, allowing the Erde to get to the center of the group and fire a superweapon that will destroy the vast majority of them, making the remaining ones just a mopping-up operation. Everything goes smoothly until it’s time to fire the superweapon, and it just. doesn’t. fire. All of the failsafes and backups have also ceased to function, and before the crew has a chance to figure out what went wrong, the ship is destroyed by the kaiju.
Yukio has a desperate idea. He can self-destruct, which will take out a large chunk of the swarm. But he refuses to let Tetsuo die with him, so launches the youth in an escape pod, making Tetsuo promise to make new friends back on Earth. Without the Erde‘s FTL drive, the pod will take approximately eight years to get back to the home planet, so Tetsuo goes into “cold sleep.”
When he wakes up, the limited sensors tell him he should be in the Tokai area of Japan, and it’s August 8th. (2043 if I’ve done the math right.) But there’s no readings on the conditions outside and no communications coming in. Tetsuo is shocked to discover a frozen wasteland of ruined tops of buildings poking out of the snow. Even if his calendar is off, there’s no way this could be a mild Tokai winter!
The first human Tetsuo finds is dead, frozen through, but a nearby excavator is still in working order. Then a kaiju appears! Tetsuo tries to get away, but he accidentally drives the excavator into a sinkhole to ground level and the kaiju follows. Despite his limited tools, Tetsuo’s genius at fighting and long experience allow him to take down the monster.
It turns out that there are surviving humans, who use the kaiju corpse for supplies. Tetsuo is still afflicted with his social anxiety, and acts so off that they tie him up. But he’s also something of an escape artist, and frees himself just in time to save a small child from falling debris.
But before Tetsuo can capitalize on the thawing tensions, another kaiju appears, with a very different form from the others he’s seen. And he destroyed the excavator getting rid of the last one! Good thing Tetsuo’s got a surprise ally!
There’s a lot of mysteries set up in this volume. Why didn’t the superweapon fire? Why is Earth in an ice age? How are the surviving humans getting kaiju corpses to loot if they don’t have any weapons that work against them? What’s up with the different-looking kaiju?
That’s the main thing this first volume has going for it. Tetsuo’s social anxiety is the main thing distinguishing him from any number of other chosen one mecha pilot protagonists. After the fact we learn that he was on the Erde heading for that last mission for two years, during which time he made zero friends. Yes, being constantly on call to destroy kaiju did contribute to his staying socially stunted, but seriously, not even a ship’s counselor? Yukio is a more interesting “person” but only ever interacts with Tetsuo.
The kaiju are initially pretty uninspired designs, looking cut-and-paste, but this is a feature, as it makes the different ones really stand out. Everything being covered in snow makes a decent excuse for lots of white space backgrounds, but the art doesn’t make full use of this.
The human survivors are stock types so far, but probably are the best source of potential depth to the story once they’re fleshed out some and develop their own subplots. The kaiju disassemblers have a bit of influence from popular series Kaiju Number 8.
Tetsuo’s attack names include Spanish words, so I am hoping there’s an interesting subplot waiting there.
This really feels like a series where the title and the associated setting were thought up first, and the plot was constructed as a means of getting there.
Content note: Combat against kaiju, often gory and lethal to bystanders. Yukio commits “suicide.” A human corpse shatters into frozen fragments. Most teenagers should be able to handle this.
An interesting premise and intriguing mysteries have to do a lot of the heavy lifting here. This series is going to live or die based on how much you like the protagonist, since we’re going to be spending about 90% of the screen time with him. Recommended primarily for science fiction action series fans.
