To Terra, vol. 1
Published by: Vertical
Writer & Artist: Keiko Takemiya

344 (338) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to left
Vintage: Original series 1977-80. US edition February 2007.
Translation: Dawn T. Laabs
Production: Hiroko Mizuno & Shinobu Sato
Cover Design: Chip Kidd
Publisher’s Rating: None given. Like many publishers, I’ll err on the side of caution and say 13+

Rating: 4 out of 5

##

Premise: A bit of Logan’s Run, a bit of The Tomorrow People, and a whole heaping helping of space opera played out 3000 years in our future.

Synopsis:

The first ‘book’ tracks 14 year old Jomy Marcus Shin on the verge of adulthood — maybe a bit before or a bit after, but around the time of their 14th birthday, all teens will be summoned by Universal Control for their Awakening, when they leave their foster parents and the life they knew behind to become adults — or at least to start their final training.

Not all teens get approved. There are mental stability tests, and tests for ESP powers.

Well, maybe you can guess the next twist: Jomy is one of the “Mu”, a mutant strain of humanity with psychic abilities. Not that Jomy seems to have a power he can control, but he has the potential…

After Jomy’s saga, we change tracks, gears, and venue and the story follows Keith Anyan, a young human who has been Awakened and is now undergoing training on a space station to become one of Terra’s Elite. (as the name implies, they’re the folks who run things.) Keith has a rival, Shiroe, a new student with remarkable skills but a bit of an axe to grind. Shiroe’s constant questioning begins to chip away at Keith’s perfect façade , but it is only after these two character’s stories–Jomy’s and Keith’s– start to collide that the real plot begins to thicken.

##

Review:

If you’re the sort of person who follows these things, there was a bit of an internet controversy (translation: argument over nothing) regarding how To Terra was being classified and marketed. There was some early buzz that this was a sci-fi “girls” comic, and of course any number of online pundits decided to weigh in with their “learned, considered” opinion that the manga was nothing of the sort, while others would defend the categorisation, and it devolved as things on the net usually do to the point where the issue being argued is no longer applicable to the original circumstances. It’s immaterial, but here, have some.

However we’d care to class the manga, it’s rather decidedly scifi, and also worth reading.

The vintage is 1977. (That’s the same year Star Wars came out, which is just a bit of a coincidence, because there’s nothing Star Wars-ish to be found here, but if it helps put To Terra into historical context for ya…) So the art is definitely Old Skool, and reminds me of Leiji Matumoto [wiki] in the character designs and the space setting. (You know, if one has to be derivative, there aren’t all that many better role models to pick…)

This isn’t a bang-pow space opera with corruscating lasers, noble-savage aliens from a warrior culture, and handy damsels to be in distress as the story needs them. This is going to be a bit more work for your average reader.

It’s a dystopian future (in keeping with other 70s scifi) with an earth that is a polluted, burnt-out mess and a number of space colonies that are just barely hanging on. Life (human life) isn’t making much of a go of it, and only careful management is keeping Terra alive– though so far my take on it (we haven’t actually seen Terra yet, and with the way this series is set up, we may never) is that Earth is a giant park, set up for conservation purposes but not actually a part of society as a whole.

It’s a bleak future, but that makes the light of our characters burn that much brighter in the surrounding dark. It’s rare that I find a scifi comic worth recommending as a comic, let alone as scifi, but here in To Terra it seems we have both. 4 marks out of 5, with a lot of potential for future releases — A series to watch, and to read.