Nihei has done artwork for both Marvel ( Wolvering-SNIKT!) and for video games (the Halo graphic novel), and there's no shortage of talent in this book. The artwork, however, is a real saving grace, though not enough to truly save the book as a whole. The second shorter story in the back isn't much more revealing, and ultimately dilutes any power this book might have had. Thus events that could have done with a little more exposition are pretty much glossed over, leaving the reader with some head-scratching conundrums and questions that will most likely remain unanswered. These are themes familiar to just about anyone who's seen Blade Runner or read Neuromancer, and unfortunately the author takes for granted that's the case here. We're shown a detective, Musubi Susono, a series of child kidnappings, and before we're done we've moved on to the evolution of humanity into a cyber-system that alters Susono into something beyond what she was. If that's the case, then I wonder if it might have done better had Nihei stretched the story out a volume or two, as things seem to move much too rapidly for comfort. Taking it on surface level, it's a fairly straightforward cyberpunkish shooter that is supposed to stand alone, although set in the same universe as Nihei's other work. Not that it was a bad book, by any stretch, but there were elements of it that simply didn't make sense, and wouldn't make sense, unless you're familiar with the Blame! series. Fans of the series will no doubt appreciate this book on a much deeper level than I did, and I hope they'll keep that in mind as I delve into this book.

This is the long version of me saying that I have never read Tsutomu Nihei's Blame! series, so that will skew my review of the pre/sequel collection of stories called Noise. Sure, you can pick up a writer's back catalog, but it takes considerably much more time to get up to speed on what will be common knowledge to any fan of the artist or series in question. With films and music it's not so bad…a quick visit to iTunes or your local video store and you can catch yourself up pretty quickly.

Written by: Tsutomu Nihei Art by: Tsutomu Nihei One of the problems with reviewing any type of media that involves prequels, sequels, or even just basic supplemental material is that if you're not familiar with that material, you're at a definite disadvantage.

NOiSE by Tsutomu Nihei