The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

Snowball Earth

What's It About? 

Shy, socially awkward mecha pilot Tetsuo spent his entire childhood fighting kaiju – the intergalactic monsters threatening life on Earth. Out in deep space at the climactic moment of the final decisive strike against humanity's gargantuan enemies, something goes horribly wrong with his mecha Yukio's new doomsday weapon, the Omnidirectional Infinity Laser. With Earth's last-ditch strategy failing spectacularly, his beloved mecha sacrificing itself to save his life, sole survivor Tetsuo hurtles back to Earth in his escape pod and, eight years later, awakes from cold sleep to find his world inexplicably frozen from pole to pole.

Snowball Earth is a manga with story and art by Yuhiro Tsujitsugu. The English translation is by Joe Yamazaki and is lettered by Chi Wang. Published by Viz Media (April 16, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

Deconstructions of the mecha genre aren't a new idea, but Snowball Earth comes at it from a somewhat different angle than I've usually seen. Ignoring that the pilot of a monster-fighting giant robot would be riddled with trauma from his efforts, it's simply supposed that spending his formative years dedicated to that action would leave our lead really, really socially awkward. The primary pilot character, Tetsuo, is, frankly, adorable, and it makes me want to root for him to make friends as much as I do so that he can save the Earth from monsters. Perhaps predictably, he doesn't turn out to be terribly successful at either.

Snowball Earth plays on its audience's assumed expectations that the story will go a certain way, providing several moments of devilishly dark humor. Time passes in the story as it shifts from the void of space and what would ordinarily be the "end" of a mecha epic to the equally cold void of the snowed-over Earth. That makes this first volume an astonishingly brisk read, but it still feels like it's using its time and space wisely. Yuhiro Tsujitsugu has a keen eye for effective page-turn reveals and panel transitions, alongside an evident love of hot mecha-on-kaiju action. They make a lone hero facing off against a giant monster using nothing but a tiny excavator into a believably tense battle. Tetsuo is every bit the capable pilot protagonist. It's just his socially ill-adjusted personality that has received the grounding in reality.

In that element, Snowball Earth has already found some clever analyses of the mecha genre overall. The agency and opinion of a sentient robot being used as a doomed war weapon are called into question. It interfaces with the idea of how someone would be socially regarded if their primary utility was being a "heroic savior" instead of a person they could relate to. It also demonstrates the value of a personable personality in serious situations, being able to rally others and instruct them in times of crisis. It's a wild introductory ride that uses its unique setup and setting to drive at these ideas of genre and greater themes of humanity. That leaves Snowball Earth with a lot of places it could potentially go after this, and like Tetsuo trying to make friends, it's only just getting started.

Is It Worth Reading?

Snowball Earth's deep space-set opening chapter is highly reminiscent of classic SF anime Gunbuster if the main character was a male shonen action version of Komi from Komi Can't Communicate. Teenage protagonist Tetsuo isn't only socially awkward – he's essentially unable to converse with other human beings without tripping over the words his pathologically over-thinking mind struggles to produce. He's also the opposite of Evangelion's Shinji – he actually wanted to pilot his crackpot father's experimental anti-kaiju mech, and having proven himself exceptionally talented at doing so, devoted the last ten years of his life to becoming humanity's "Savior" at the expense of social development.

Unfortunately, Tetsuo's dreams of ending the kaiju's existential threat for good and finally finding time to make some human friends come to a cruel end when his beloved AI mech and only close friend, Yukio, sacrifices his metal body to ensure Tetsuo's survival. Tetsuo's now completely alone in the universe, with his support fleet dead and, after awakening from hypersleep, so apparently is the Earth.

Wandering the frozen wastelands of Japan's Tokai region, Tetsuo discovers, to his horror, that the kaiju seem to have made the icy Earth their new home. He's quickly thrown into a life-or-death battle with one of the huge, slightly comedic googly-eyed monsters. He's surprisingly successful in his endeavors, demonstrating a natural talent for improvisation as he remarks, "I just have to do what I've always done. Use everything at my disposal to build a strategy to achieve victory."

Tetsuo's fast-thinking and swift reactions in emergencies are contrasted by his mental breakdowns when attempting to introduce himself to other humans. This is never more evident than when he yanks open the jaw of the kaiju he's just slaughtered (who almost swallowed him) while covered head-to-toe in blood and gore, and he's unable to find the right words to reassure the horrified survivors who come to investigate. So Tetsuo gives the most creepy grin in the history of the world instead. Poor, poor socially awkward guy. No wonder they think he's suspicious.

These few survivors seem to live underground and rely on dead kaiju for food and fuel. When another kaiju immediately attacks, Tetsuo is reunited with Yukio, now in smaller form as a transformed version of his escape pod. He's reminiscent of the little Gurren Lagann head mecha, and together, they destroy another kaiju in a fun action sequence.

This looks to be an enjoyable post-apocalyptic mecha/kaiju battle shonen action manga. It's a bit of a mishmash of concepts from a heap of other sources, and so far, it's yet to distinguish itself as something truly original, but I think it's worth reading for fans of this genre. The character humor is entertaining, the enemies are truly weird-looking, and the setting is cool. I may well give the second volume a look.