All You Need is Kill

January 12, 2015
Sakurazaka, award-winning author of numerous Japanese sci fi novels, and Takeshi Obata, artist of best-selling Death Note fame, team up for this one-volume omnibus manga adaptation of Sakurazaka's original novel, from which the Tom Cruise film The Edge of Tomorrow was loosely taken. Keiji Kiriya is a new recruit to a mech-wearing special unit of the United Defense Force, a multi-national effort set up to save the world from an alien invasion of brutal spike-ball-like creatures named Mimics. However, after his first battle he finds himself in a seemingly endless day-long time loop that concludes each time he dies. Striving to find the exit but stay alive through ever-increasing swarms of Mimics, Keiji soon becomes battle-hardened. The scope of the manga is smaller than the movie's, and sports a different, nostalgic ending that is not entirely satisfying. But the story's priorities along the way are appropriately different: Keiji's romance with superstar soldier Rita Vrataski is in focus, as is the emotional toll of repeating the same day for half a year. Obata's high-performance graphics show Keiji's deterioration to stunning effect and Takeuchi's storyboards keep things moving along cleanly and quickly. Overall, this book feels like a classic sci-fi novel much more than its movie counterpart, but it'll appeal to its target audience all the same.