This was dark, intense, horror-filled, and dread-inducing! Also, I feel like it’s perfect for those YA / younger readers who want to read HORROR that’s not all cute and for babies – yet, yes, please be aware that this is indeed not for babies and not for those who can be easily disturbed. It is indeed horror-filled. The art is great too, and it adds a lot to the story.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Abrams ComicArts-Kana for an advance copy of a graphic novel that mixes science fiction with a bit of survival horror, and the horror of being in middle school.

Being a big fan of science fiction I have always wanted to go to other planets, but the idea of being in space seems rather unsettling. Nothing about outer space is good for humans. A human needs oxygen, food to subsist on, water to drink. And one needs this to be replenished. Meanwhile your the shell wrapped around you, the transport is constantly being bombarded by radiation, and pelted by the detritus of space. From big rocks, to micro-asteroirds. Small enough to piece ship hulls. And this is just entering orbit around Earth. Imagine a huge ship, moving between planets, that goes from being a place of safety to suddenly just a lump of metal. And no one in authority to help, or ask advice of. And you are not alone, but surrounded by the most deadliest, scariest, meanest creatures in the universe, teenagers. Leviathan Volume 1is written and illustrated by Shiro Kuroi, and tells the story of a group of students on a simple tour to Earth, who suddenly find their trip has become more about survival than tourism.

The group of salvagers in the far future have come across quite a find. The Leviathan, a passenger ship that has been lost for decades, and one that could be quite the prize. Entering the wreck, three salvagers find only a journal, which tells of the events following the wreck of the Leviathan, written by a student. The ship was hit by something, a weapon from pirates, a space rock, that killed almost everyone on board in authority. The only survivors seem to be a few teachers and a group of students on a field trip to Earth. Told by their teacher that rescue ships are on the way, things start off well. Until the same teacher is found dead in the kitchen. Later another teacher commits suicide. Or did she? There are things going on, secrets that might mean the survival of some, at the expense of others. As the salvagers read the journal, something else becomes clear. Someone else is on the wreck of the Leviathan, something dangerous.

This is the first book in what I believe a three part series. This is a really well-written and laid out story, told in two different times, but without losing tension, or the plot. The story starts almost like a manga about school, and people that bully, standout, or are the main characters, before going into a sort of mystery, survival story. I really like the characters, they are all fleshed out, and believable, even the ones who are there just to advance the plot. They get a little time to show they have meaning, even as they escorted out into the next life. There are a few red herrings, but the story has a really strong build, leading to a cliffhanger ending that can take the book in a lot of different directions. The art is really good. The character designs really fit the way the characters act. The main teacher is drawn in a weasel kind of way. A few students seem mysterious, a few heroic. The background and technology have that lived in worked in feeling, and I like the space suits the salvage people are using quite a bit. The art and story really work well together, creating a story that keeps on flipping pages to know more.

Fans of Battle Royale, or horror mangas will really enjoy this. There is a lot going on, and some really good storytelling. Finishing this I wanted to know more, and can't wait to read the rest of this series.

Leviathan begins with a group of astronauts discovering a derelict spacecraft who slowly unravel the catastrophe that befell the students aboard through left behind diaries and environmental clues. As is quickly revealed, a series of disasters and design flaws within the spacecraft have left the students with no way to communicate with the outside universe, limited resources, and little hope of rescue. These building tensions are documented by a student struggling to maintain his own sanity as the events unfold. Fans of Battle Royale and The Drifting Classroom will likely appreciate the horror and gruesome imagery, all of which is skillfully rendered in this graphic novel.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Abrams ComicArts | Kana for the advanced copy to review.

Leviathan is dark and brutal right from the first volume. The art is great, detailed and expressive, and I really liked the style of the space suits and ship. The shading and textures of the illustrations really give this manga a more unique quality. However, this also means the murder scenes are just as detailed, and combined with the eerie plot it really has an impact. The story cuts between present and past, with looters reading a journal found in an abandoned spaceship, and the events of the journal taking place for majority of the book. These jumps between narratives felt a little clunky at first but had a better flow as the story went on. The plot escalates quickly, hinting that subsequent volumes could be even more intense.

The artwork and formatting made it very hard to follow. I read a handful of graphic novels each year, but this one seemed to jump around or have the speech bubbles out of order.

A dark, brutal & intense beginning to a series. Leviathan wastes no time throwing you straight into disaster and conflict, the volume practically flies by as we see how quickly all sense of normalcy and civility fall away.

It's the Lord of the Flies in space, and I can't wait to see what happens next!

*ARC provided by NetGalley & Abrams ComicArts*

There's a thrilling narrative at work here, as a group of school students are thrust into a Lord-of-the-Flies-like situation aboard a budget space cruiser which has become destroyed and marooned in transit. A frame narrative works as our window into the story of the mysterious events aboard the ship as we ponder who the last person left alive will be. Found this book to be decent enough, although I often found the art a little confusing during action scenes.

Leviathan is a scifi horror manga and only three books long. It's set in space on The Leviathan, an enormous spaceship, that ends up being hit and now drifts. Our story starts when looters find the ship and find the diary of Kazuma that explains everything. The story switches between the current time timeline and what happened. Kazuma and others kids where on a school trip and thanks to the explosion of sorts they don't have oxygen all that much and only one escape pod. Only Kazuma and a nasty weirdo girl know the truth until it's mayhem time and everyone trying to save themselves. The story moves fast, but still manages to create an interesting and credible situation. The atmosphere is suffocating and I enjoyed the moral struggle Kazuma has to go through. It's interesting to see whether Kuroi can pull this off in only three books and so that the other two books aren't just a kill fest.

The art is very realistic and dark. It fits well with the story and adds to the story too. The realism does wonders to the story and how the kids act and feel. Well, except the psycho girl perhaps. The series is wonderfully nasty, but perhaps I wanted more? Slower story with more psychological elements perhaps.

There’s beautiful art contained in these pages, but it also has some pretty gruesome scenes of graphic violence. Things devolve pretty quickly when a school field trip class finds themselves on a damaged spaceship.

Apparently the knowledge that you have a dwindling air supply and only one cryo unit turns people into savages.

Oh, the lack of humanity!

Read on, if you dare, but don’t say I didn’t warn you about the violence.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kana for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.