Abara

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Beautiful as expected from mr Nihei.
Bleak look at Humanity and what it can be dwindled to in times of despair.
As is usual with Nihei, lots of subtle subplots intertwined with side characters, as well as the oneshot-attached character "Digimortal".
I don't think it's ever explicitly stated, but considering the art style, and the similarity to the Executioner ladies in Abara & Digimortal, I like to think that Abara/Digimortal is in the same universe as both Blame!, APOSIMZ, and a proof of concept for blame! called "NoiSE"

I doubt that if you liked Blame!, you wouldn't like Abara, even given it's minimal dialogue and hard to understand story.
I ... should say it's not hard to understand as in complexity, more, tsutomu nihei isn't going to have a side character exposit the entire situation to the main character.
so we're left to piece things together from the point we start at which is the Gaunas, our MC, and Digimortal if we include him.

i don't think objectively, if thats a thing in this medium, it's a 10/10, but having read a lot of tsutomu nihei. i love this type of work and think this is one of his best.

I really struggle with this authors work, ever since i tried to read BLAME!, because of the cult following it has.

TLDR; hard to follow story BUT incredibly intriguing world and very beautiful art, albeit a little messy and hard to read at times

If you want a comprehensible story, completely skip this manga. I tried my best to piece what the hell is going on throughout the entire 13 chapters and still struggled to connect the little dots the story gives you.

My recommendation is to treat this as a very an art book instead of a manga. That way you will be able to ... enjoy it more than if you tried to "read it". The flow of combat and the continuity between panels makes you completely lose your place in the story's world almost all the time. "Wait, whats exactly happened, what did he just do???" is the thing you probably will be thinking to yourself at least a few times per chapter lmao

If i have to rate this purely based on artstyle and the incredible mysterious world it has, its an easy 8/10.
But as a whole, considering the writing and everything else, sadly its barely a 6/10.

Abara – Spoiler Free – Not Recommended

TLDR
Story – 2/10 – 2 x 0.275 = 0,55
Art – 10/10 – 10 x 0.2 = 2
Characters – 1/10 – 1 x 0.225 = 0,225
Enjoyment – 4/10 – 4 x 0.3 = 1,2
Total: 3,975 -> 4

Story – 2/10
This story is just confusing and a mess. There is absolutely no redeeming aspect to the story. It is incomprehensible and it makes no sense that the readers have to guess what is currently happening. There are almost no dialogues in the manga: there are really very few apart, which doesn't help in understanding the story. The only reason why it ... doesn't receive a 1 is that there are elements in the world-building that seemed to have some interest, and the atmosphere is eerie and remarkably so.

Art – 10/10
Nihei made an amazing job with the art. The art is absolutely impeccable, very well executed and absolutely gorgeous. The landscapes are incredible, and the character design is awe-inspiring, although it must be said that the fact that we don't have most of the names of the characters that we are watching makes it quasi-impossible to differentiate between different characters with precision.

Characters – 1/10
The absolute lack of dialogue makes it impossible to ascertain what characters there are, what their roles are, and what their functions are in the narrative. It is just an absolute mess, and there are no characters worth mentioning because none of them are comprehensible or intelligible.

Enjoyment – 4/10
The only thing that makes Abara worthy of our time is the impeccable art style. Everything else is terrible. And although art is an essential aspect of a manga, it is impossible to ignore the disaster that happened here. It is for this reason that I give this a Not Recommended. Nihei at his worst.