A dark manga, magnificently rendered, about the breakdown of social norms and fight for survival by a group of kids trapped about a broken derelict spaceship with 60 hours left before they run out of oxygen, with only one chance for a single survivor.

A trio of raiders find a derelict Leviathan class spaceship, decades after it was knocked out of commission, and find a journal that details the attempts of a small group of child survivors who remained in a sealed off pressurized area. At first they are skeptical of the account in the book, a journal account of the survivors last hours by Kazuma, who discovers a secret, that there is a cryo-pod that can save one person, but that there's only 60 hours of life-support left.. The bulk of the story is the rendering of Kazuma's journal, as he and his companion, the loner Futaba, go down some dark paths as a teacher tries to murder them, and Futaba is willing to do just about anything to keep the secret of the pod's existence from the larger group. When the raiders encounter evidence that some of the journal account really happened, they move deeper in to try and find the pod, and the potential survivor.

Though its getting a lot of comparison to Battle Royale and Lord of the Flies, Leviathan is probably more like Alien, but the monster is a quiet girl, who quickly manipulates the protagonist and commits murder for the sake of survival. Starkly rendered in inked linework, it shares some visual similarity to Tsutomu Nihei's earlier work, but more claustrophobic. If you squint, it looks a bit like if someone took another, high contrast manga and ran it through a Xerox machine, shades rendered in precise black line and meticulous hatch-lines. This stark rendering makes the blacks seem almost darker, and gives the faces and surfaces an almost washed out look, like everything is just a little too bright.

The tension in this manga's first volume ramps continuously, as does the sense of dread, especially once all the kids learn of the only avenue of escape.

Battle Royale-- in space! A trio of looters discover an old journal on the ship they're exploring, only to discover it's a long missing ship at the heart of a horrifying mystery. A school fieldtrip to Earth vanished on the Leviathan years ago. But the journal details more than a simple explosion. After the ship is irreparably damaged, students and teachers begin killing each other off when they learn that air is running out and only one cryopod exists to save them. Even worse, the looters realize that means one person on the ship may still be alive. This was horrifying in the best way. Truly space horror at it's finest.

For fans of Junji Ito and science fiction horror. I literally could not put it down from the moment I picked it up. This is a Lord of the Flies if Junji Ito had written it. A necessary read for a horror lover.

A derelict ship holds a history of horror in this spine-chilling manga that tries to piece together what happened aboard the luxury liner Leviathan.

What a strong first volume to this horror manga! There are lots to love this collection! The characters, the plot and creepy factor of the art are the fine elements that brings an astonishing story that will linger to your mind even after you put this manga down. You'll get involved in the dilemma of not just the main story (read through a diary) but another story ( the astronauts that found the diary) which will leave you at the end of your seat. The violence (or deaths of the characters) are shocking. The two protagonist (?) have a great dynamic. The cliffhanger is so so good you'll crave for more!

A fast-paced and exciting survival horror manga compared to Battle Royale and Attack on Titan? Of course, this is my jam. I'd personally compare it to Lord of the Flies mixed with Battle Royale in space, but without the opera, thankfully.

The narrative bounces from the present with three looters who stumble across the Leviathan spaceship, which has been missing for quite some time. Looter 2 finds a journal of Kazuma, a student aboard the ship with his class on its final voyage. Through Kazuma's journal the looters, and therein, the readers are transported back to the circumstances of the Leviathan before and after its accident. But something may or may not be waiting for them after all this time.

Coupled with intricate stippling and an attention to detail on characterization, this is a great beginning to a thrilling series.

Thanks NetGalley and Abrams Comics for an ARC of this work. I'll be sure to check the other volumes out!

Shiro Kuroi is a rising star manga author who lives in Toyko, Japan. Leviathan is his first international serialized work, which has been published simultaneously in France and Japan. Highly praised for his character writing and illustration, Leviathan went on to become one of the top 10 bestselling new manga titles in France, and he has already received international attention online from manga fans hoping for an English release of his work. Fortunately, the wait is over, as Leviathan, Volume 1 has finally arrived.

Leviathan opens with three raiders breaking into an abandoned shipwreck. They discover the journal of young Kazuma Ichinoze, which details the events of an onboard disaster and the resulting chaos. The journal begins when part of the ship is destroyed, and the remaining humans, most of them children, aboard have less than fifty hours to survive. What results is a struggle for survival wherein children and teenagers battle for the last remnants of oxygen and supplies. Parallels to Battle Royale, Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies, and similar books are not undeserved, but the added element of space survival advances Shiro Kuroi’s graphic novel beyond these other books.

What makes Leviathan such a standout is the graphic format. Kuroi pulls no punches with his illustrations, and this graphic novel is as brutal and violent as any other survival story. Blood and corpses abound in this text, with added elements of horror contributed by the weightless atmosphere. Furthermore, once readers come to terms with the fact that these are children trying to survive, the story and its underlying tensions just accelerates, dragging the reader’s adrenaline along with it.

This is a great graphic novel from a unique voice that’s clearly making waves in manga. All praise for Shiro Kuroi is well deserved, as Leviathan is a standout graphic novel of scifi horror and survival. This is a violent, bloody novel packed with an adrenaline-pounding storyline and brutal scenarios for the poor students trying to survive. Shiro Kuroi loves putting his characters in uncomfortable, life-threatening situations and watching to see if they can squirm out of them. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don’t. Readers who are fans of survival horror, especially that set in the vast expanse of outer space, will thoroughly enjoy this graphic novel, but fans of horror graphic novels in general will thrill to read Leviathan Volume 1 by Shiro Kuroi.

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.