The Metroid series made history when they decided to make their lone, warrior-esque main character a woman. Up to that point, no other game series had had a female protagonist as prominent as Samus Aran. Nintendo had created another legendary character to fight alongside Mario, Link, and various other characters in their video game hierarchy. With this new character came added pressure to give her a backstory worthy of her base appearance as a silent hunter. An attempt to make her more human, despite her robotic appearance. An official manga was created almost twenty years after her first appearance to reveal the tale of Samus
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Aran's past and upbringing into the hero that she is now. Almost twenty years later, and fans would finally get to know the whole story behind their favorite female space warrior.
One other thing to note is Nintendo's insistence on making Samus more human. Ever since the manga was released, the main games in the Metroid franchise have slowly and progressively shown Samus outside of her suit, and even has her talking regularly in the latest installment: Other M. Some fans feel that Nintendo's attempts to make her more vulnerable is unnecessary, and Samus's personality should forever remain whatever the player makes of it. One thing that most Metroid games have in common is great ambiance, and Samus's hesitance to speak only further enhances the experience of her games. Despite these complaints, Nintendo seems intent on making Samus a tragic hero worthy of pity and empathy.
One thing that is apparent immediately with the Metroid manga is that the story is not very unique. Samus is a normal three year-old girl, living on a planet with her mother and father, who serve as commanders for an unexplained federation within the population. One day, an enemy species called the space pirates invade Samus's planet and attack everything in site, with the help of their commander: Ridley. Through a series of events, the entire population is wiped out, leaving only Samus alive after the entire incident. This leads to another alien race, the Chozo, adopting Samus and taking her under their care for the time being.
Samus's upbringing screams typical shounen. The entire story can be wrapped up in a cliche mess of different scenarios that can be found in multiple other sources. Her mindset is the usual "righteousness and justice" that plagues the characters in Japanese media. If they truly wanted to make Samus a tragic hero, it may have been more enticing to make her question the events that had happened to her, rather than accept everything and fight to ensure it doesn't happen to others. Sure, she suffers from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, but it's only touched upon once throughout the entire story, and is resolved in one of the most unnaturally rushed situations I have ever read in any story. It seems that no matter what bad happens in Samus's life, she's able to shrug it off in a matter of minutes, or in due part to some random character's ramblings.
What's more cliche than Samus herself is the characters around her. Ridley as a character is laughably absurd. Everything with him is mass murder and insults. Nothing more. He's not an interesting character; he's evil to be evil. The space pirates are even worse. Not only are they uninteresting, but they're treated as if they were ants. No single space pirate is given more than a few panels' worth of attention, and are mostly there to showcase Samus's righteous well-being. The chozo seem well enough, but are mostly just given the role of Samus's adoptive family. Not a lot is shown of their wise and philosophical nature. However, with the logic that this manga has, I'd rather not see it. One other character worth mentioning is Adam Malcovich (as spelled in the manga), who is a high-ranking general in the galactic federation later on in Samus's life. His face, for whatever reason, is the most hilarious thing about the manga. He always looks as if his insides are being gripped by a slimy tentacle, crushing his ribs, his heart, and his ability to make facial expressions. He says next to nothing and is basically shoehorned in because he plays a role in the Metroid game that came before the manga.
Mentioned above, I touched on how the Metroid games had a great sense of ambiance. The design of the games helped that immensely. Metroid's manga has trivial art. For its time, it looks almost like standard shoujo. The humor is on par with it, too. Samus's eyes arc in a way that could only be described as the shape of topaz. Perhaps that's symbolic of her pure nature. Her body is contorted in the sexiest way possible. Even when she's (assumed) in her mid-twenties, she looks as if she's no older than sixteen. The image that this manga paints of Samus fails both anatomically and emotionally. Even with her power suit on, she still looks sexy. Everyone else comes off as hilariously misshapen or unintentionally absurd. The only saving grace? The main antagonists. Ridley, Kraid, and Mother Brain all look menacing and deranged, like a lot of time and effort were put into crafting their design perfectly. If only this showed with the rest of the story.
Giving Samus her own backstory is sure to cause some debate. And it has. Other M was panned by most fans as a pitiful attempt to make Samus into a more believable and emotional hero, even when chronologically, it wouldn't make sense for all of her past symptoms to crop up again. Such is the case of the Metroid manga. It's along the same lines; an attempt to make Samus human. The only issue here is that Nintendo can't seem to make sense of the whole thing. They rely on cliches and the usual tropes that embody modern shounen stories, and they just come off as lazy. If this is what Samus is like as a character, I'd rather be hidden behind the shadows of ignorance. If this is what the story of Metroid comes down to, I'd rather watch the Alien movies.
 Alternative TitlesJapanese: メトロイド InformationType: Manga
Volumes: 2
Chapters: 16
Status: Finished
Published: Nov 26, 2002 to Mar 26, 2004
Demographic:
Seinen
Serialization:
Magazine-Z Statistics Ranked: #101122 2 based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded. Popularity: #5310
Members: 4,114
Favorites: 92 Resources | Reviews
Filtered Results: 7 / 7
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Apr 14, 2015
The Metroid series made history when they decided to make their lone, warrior-esque main character a woman. Up to that point, no other game series had had a female protagonist as prominent as Samus Aran. Nintendo had created another legendary character to fight alongside Mario, Link, and various other characters in their video game hierarchy. With this new character came added pressure to give her a backstory worthy of her base appearance as a silent hunter. An attempt to make her more human, despite her robotic appearance. An official manga was created almost twenty years after her first appearance to reveal the tale of Samus
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Mar 12, 2010
Metroid’s story is typical for a space marine style series. Samus grew up on a peaceful planet that contained a prized energy source. The resources caught the space pirates’ attention, and they raided the planet. As the sole survivor, the Chozo took her in and began training her to become a warrior and protector of peace. As a teenager, she leaves the planet and enters the Federation. Her unit manages to capture a space pirate, alive, and the interrogation leads her back to her home planet. She returns to find the space pirates seizing control of the planet, under
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Jul 18, 2015
I have a special fondness for the Metroid franchise and basically every game in it, except for that one atrocity committed by Team Ninja in 2010. Why Nintendo thought that the group known for their jiggle physics would write a female character respectfully is beyond me. Getting back on topic, in the early 2000s, before that thing stained the franchise, there was a sixteen chapter manga written by Tazawa Kouji and drawn by Ishikawa Kenji. Was it a preview of the horrible thing that was to come to the franchise or is it a worthy part of the lore?
Story: We open with chibi Samus on a ... 
Aug 17, 2016
Story:
With atrocious pacing and empty characters, a lot of what encompasses Metroid's story is hackneyed and wasted on 16 chapters. It's not a science-fiction, and it's not a drama, it's something in between that fails to get either thing right. I found this rather arduous to finish, counting down the chapters until the ending since it was so annoying to read at times. Certain events that take place don't seem to add up, others seem to be over-charged to emphasize certain aspects of the story, and then there's this shining small percentage of downright ridiculousness that makes me wonder why this manga even existed. Art: Everything looks alright ... 
Jan 7, 2009
I've never played the games, just so you know.. not that it matters, it wouldn't change my opinion (so this review) about this series anyway.
The art is the first thing I didn't liked, it was basic, but yet a bit on the ugly side, but that's just me I think, cause it's just normal art, that's not beautiful. :P The story so far is basic, she and her partners get various missions, got to go through training and defend their home from the alien pirate invasion. When t...he story really begins, this is when Samus returns to her planet where she grew up, everyone's dead, ... 
Jan 28, 2010
First, let me point out that I love Metroid games, so of course I had to try this manga.
Learning about Samus Arans' past is quite entertaining, as I got to see her grow up. There is the Chozo, Mother Brain, Ridley,and many people that I've never even seen in the games (because they aren't really needed in the games) The art is plain, boring, and simple. I wish that the author would have taken more time into the art, because it was kinda hard to get past it at first. Overall I am enjoying this manga, as many metroid fans would. If you're not a metroid ... 
Apr 19, 2024
I haven't really touched the games but after reading this I just as well might because it was genuinely an amazing read, story wise it's pretty simple as a basic science fiction story but I loved Samus as a character and the artwork was amazing, side note Ridley in a few panels is drawn a bit goofy but I thought it was funny enough to mention, for a Nintendo property it's actually pretty dark and makes Samus a pretty interesting character my only issue is it's not long enough and should have a bit more story but other than that if you love Nintendo stuff
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