Abara

Abara (アバラ) is a manga series by Tsutomu Nihei. It was serialized in Shueisha's Ultra Jump seinen manga magazine. Abara means "ribs" in Japanese. The work was collected and published by Shueisha on May 19, 2006 in two volumes.^[1][2] It is licensed for French release by Glénat.^[3]

Plot

Abara is set in a dystopian world, filled with large structures. The story revolves around creatures known as Gaunas, those who can shape bone like armor and weaponry around themselves by transforming. The transformation begins around the spine and then shapes layered armor. The story focuses on one such Gauna known as Kudou Denji, though he uses Itou Denji as a fake name earlier. The battle sequences are street-fighting; based with a mix of the macabre weapons, and superhuman strength/speed.

Story

Sometime in the future, humans have utterly destroyed Earth's environment and have been forced to live in cities connected only by a single highway (the train) and many tubes (presumably carrying food, clean water fresh air etc.)

Probably because of the massive amounts of pollution, some humans mutated and became the White Gaunas. Note that the atmosphere outside the city was so toxic that in Ch.8 p11, both Tadohomi (the Kegen Hall girl) and Sakijima (the Ministry dude) were wearing breathing masks.

A group of scientists foresaw this dystopian situation years before. In an attempt to preserve humanity's future, they created a number of time machines each powered by a nuclear plants. Each time machine could accommodate two humans (presumably one male and one female), thus ensuring the survival of the human race (think Adam and Eve). They also used the collective energy from these plants to shift all the White Gaunas on Earth at that time to a separate dimension.

The nuclear plants are the Gousa Mausoleums (note the shape of the mausoleums) and the time machine was in the room that Tadohomi and Sakijima entered inside the House. Observe that in the final chapter, the pillared room was covered with plants but otherwise looked exactly the same. Also, remember that the raven from the 4th Chronicle Group said that when all the Gousa Mausoleums were destroyed, the Forbidden Cage would appear and everything would be over for humans? He meant that there wouldn't be enough energy to trap the White Gaunas in a separate dimension anymore and that none of the time machines would work either. Furthermore, the raven expressed shock that even though one mausoleum was left standing, the forbidden cage appeared anyway. I think this is because one nuclear reactor just couldn't provide enough energy to run both the time machine and the dimensional shift anymore. Nuclear reactors do fail after long periods of neglect, you know.

Anyway, the scientists eventually entrusted knowledge of all this to the 4th Chronicle Group (or perhaps the 4th chronicle group WAS the actual team of scientists). And it became the job of the 4th Chronicle Group to ensure at least a pair of humans can escape into the future.

However, all this while, humans were mutating into new White Gaunas all over the place. These White Gaunas terrified the remaining humans and people then began to fight over the time machines and the mausoleums in desperation. Due to all the chaos, all the mausoleums were destroyed save one. At this point, Kegen House was created to safeguard the true purpose of the Mausoleums so as to prevent further conflict.

To counter the White Gaunas, the 4th Chronicle Group studied the White Gaunas and engineered a human-Gauna hybrid, namely the Black Gaunas. These hybrids would have the abilities of the White Gaunas yet retain their human minds. Two children, Denji and Nayuta were used as test subjects. Nayuta was the first to be experimented upon, and a control device (the head-severing thing) was implanted in her. However, before they could do the same to Denji, he escaped, killing loads of people in the process. See Ch. 10.

Some time later, the entire 4th Chronicle Group was wiped out, but not before they uploaded remnants of their memories onto the computers embedded in the Raven, the Skull Man and the Stick (the thing that leads Tadohomi and Sakijima to the House).

By the time of Ch. 1, the White Gaunas are resurgent again. Tadohomi engages Denji's help in eliminating the first White Gauna before more people are killed. Denji complies but is wounded in the process. Sakijima tracks down Tadohomi and arrests her, thinking that she is connected to Denji's killing of Kegen Hall and Ministry personnel during his escape years ago. At this point, Sakijima still thinks Denji is a normal murderer.

Kegen Hall then sends Nayuta as a Black Gauna to bring Denji back to Kegen Hall HQ by taking advantage of Denji's wounded state. The boss of Kegen Hall feels that Black Gaunas are untrustworthy; to him, Black Gaunas are monsters akin to their White cousins because they both "eat humans".

Sakijima is ordered by his bosses in the Ministry to release Tadohomi. At this point he starts becoming suspicious of Kegen Hall and decides to dig up the truth.

In Ch. 4, another White Gauna spawns, but this time it is able to consume a many humans before Kegen Hall took action. At first, Kegen Hall simply sent a squad of humans, but when this was wiped out, they sent Nayuta to destroy the big White Gauna. Unfortunately, a disturbingly humanoid White Gauna appears and duels with Nayuta. After an epic battle, Nayuta wins a Pyrrhic victory - a few seconds after fatally stabbing the White Gauna, Nayuta falls dead. Because she is telepathically linked with her twin Ayuta, any damage sustained by Nayuta is also manifested in Ayuta. Thus we see Ayuta's ECG flatline in Ch. 5.

Meanwhile, the cop Sakijima gains info regarding the 4th Chronicle Group and the Gaunas from a colleague who was sent to chat with an old man in charge of the archives (the deep pit with stairs in Ch. 5). With this info in hand, Sakijima moves to Kegen Hall for a confrontation (Ch. 6). His colleague gets shot down by a Kegen Hall security guard whom Sakijima then kills in anger. Sakijima meets Tadohomi who is trying to rescue her childhood friend Denji just as she is about to get killed by a team of Kegen Hall guys. Sakijima helps her out and they both enter the room where Denji is being held.

At this point, Ayuta (who is being revived from death) suddenly awakes and mutates into a White Gauna. Denji fights Ayuta head on while Sakijima and Tadohomi escape on a helicopter. This is Ch. 7.

In Ch.8, the successors to the 4th Chronicle Group's memories (the Skull Man, the Raven and the Stick) seek to activate a powerful missile weapon they believe is capable of killing the Big White Gauna if it hits the spinal cord. Ayuta (now a White Gauna) attacks them and Denji fights her off, buying the Raven and the Skull Man some time. When the missile was primed and the Big White Gauna in sight, the skull man was still hanging onto the missile, so the Raven had no choice but to fire the missile along with him in hope of taking the Big White Gauna down.

The missile hits and the Big White Gauna falls, but the nuclear reactor (Gousa Mausoleum) was already beginning to fail and the Forbidden Cage appeared because there was insufficient energy to dimensionally shift all those White Gaunas anymore. This is in Ch. 9. A White Gauna attacks the helicopter, which consequently crashes.

The Stick and the Raven guide Tadohomi and Sakijima to the House storing the time machine. The Raven gets killed by Ayuta (the White Gauna) but Nayuta (the Black Gauna) appears in the nick of time and kills her sister. Tadohomi and Sakijima escape into the House just as an explosion seemingly destroys Nayuta. With the help of the Stick, the duo activate the time machine

The final chapter takes place many years later. By then, the rest of humanity has been obliterated either by the White Gaunas or by infighting. The world is an empty landscape and lush greenery has taken over the House's rooms. Tadohomi and Sakijima run out of the House and look up into the dark sky where two Black Gaunas (Denji and Nayuta) are still battling the White Gaunas and faithfully protecting what is left of humanity.

References

External links

• Abara (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia