Blame Gakuen! And So On
BLAME! Academy and So On

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This six page story is entirely unrelated to anything you might assume from the cover image, but nonetheless manages to convey to the reader a significant feeling for the world depicted. The art is a little unrefined, but Nihei's style still shines, or rather it flickers ominously, casting fear and shadow into your heart. As the story's so brief it's easy to recommend, you certainly can't waist much time, and you're at least guaranteed six pages of art by Tsutomu Nihei.

Allow me to give you the quick-and-dirty of this manga.

10 chapters in total. 2 chapters are cannon sequels to the original BLAME! manga series. #6 'Netsphere Engineer' & #8 'BLAME!²' are those two cannon sequels.

Everything else is a mix of parody, dark (often body horror) short-story, or something else entirely.

5/10 for the whole thing. 10/10 for the 2 BLAME! sequel chapters.

If all you care about is BLAME! and cannonically-relevant material to the manga, check out the two chapters listed above. If you're a die-hard fan of Nihei's work, well obviously the entire thing is worth it. If you don't fall into either of these two ... camps, this manga is mostly a 15 minute time sink (yes, you can burn through it that fast) that probably won't do anything for you.

A Blame! parody, and some random odds and ends from the Blame! and Knights of Sidonia universe(s?). There's also a few unrelated one-shots and a short essay about the rise of Moe tacked on at the end. I'm a sucker for coloured manga, so I couldn't resist giving this a high score based practically on the art alone. The quality of the individual stories fluctuates however. Special mention has to go to the story "Pump" for being one of the most disturbing things I've read in a long time.

Definitely worth a read if you're a Nihei completionist, or if you've ever wondered what Cibo's got ... going on under her body suit.

What I want to talk about the most is the Blame Academy short story.
I recommend reading it if you are a big fan of Blame! as the subject matter that is presented in Blame Academy is enjoyed the most only after you had truly experienced Blame!

Other than that, there are a few other short stories in this volume and most of them, if not all, are taking place in the world of Blame!. There is story that is really gross and I really found it to be a turnoff (not that it shouldn't be read).

There are not many reasons for reading this. I do recommend ... it if you want some more info about the world of Blame!. I found the one about Silicon Life to be most interesting.

Also one more thing about Blame Academy. I find the relationships between characters in it to represent the ones in Blame! very well even if they are moe.

Would recommend

I like world of "Blame!" but this collection is hard to be simply scored, 'cause stories are too different.

* 'Netsphere Engineer' and 'BLAME!²' are canonical parts of 'Blame!' story. 10/10
* Kozutsumi (Parcel) - very cool story in the style of 'Blame!'. 8/10
* 'Zeb-noid' and 'Senshi Kouchuu Suzumega (Winged Armor Suzumega)' - nice sketches about endless battles in far space 5/10
* 'Pump' and 'Numa no Kami' - they look like dark horrors and are stylish, but they are a bit pointless and cannot really scare anyone. 2/10
* All 'Blame Gakuen!' parts are school parodies with characters from the main story. I didn't find them funny and ... feel like "WTF I was just reading!?" 1/10

So stories in collection are really from 1 to 10 =) And rounded average is just 5 (precisely - 4.5)