Wow.
Simply just, wow.
In my previous review for volume two of Kent’s GAEA-TIMA the Gigantis manga, I had a slight issue with the pacing of the story after the battle with Hettorga, as I felt that it was simply stalling for the sake of worldbuilding. I will admit, I misread the situation. Volume two wasn’t stalling for time, but it was instead winding up to present volume three of this series to be a masterclass of storytelling that is the third volume of the series. This, dear readers, is what I want from a giant monster series.
Volume three begins right where its predecessor left off, as Tatsukuni and evolutionary biologist Michiru Shiogama (who is part of the Fune team that now resides in Sukuba to study the GAEA-TIMA phenomenon) have gone to Tokyo to report back to their higher ups. This leaves Miyako with the Fune agent Toru Tagajo, a biochemist, who has been portrayed so far to have distrust in Tatsukuni’s motivation for the monsters, and is very hesitant in believing that even the likes of GAEA-TIMA can be a good thing for humanity. While the two awkwardly get to know each other as they have had little personal interaction in the previous two volumes; there is calm in Sukuba as the monsters have seemingly not appeared for two weeks.
The story then focuses mainly on young Yutaka, a character introduced in the previous volume who looks to Miyako as a big sister and is the son of Takeru, a local fisher who has strong and somewhat understandable resentments towards the monsters and GAEA-TIMA especially. Yutaka is aggressively bullied at school, dealing with his beloved mother being hospitalized, and experiences “tough love” from his father, which are all challenging things for him to navigate with the looming threat of giant monsters ever present. He wishes to be strong and somewhat yearns to have the strength of the very thing that triggers so much pain in his life: GAEA-TIMA.
Yutaka eventually confronts his bullies by responding to their violence with his father’s belief of “fighting back,” which leads to an almost brutal conclusion if it wasn’t for being “saved” by a mysterious subterranean creature! He begins to feed it, thinking of it as his answer to defeat GAEA-TIMA and bring happiness to his broken family and town. As time goes by and Yutaka seems to bond with the monster, he is unaware that this strange beast is more wild than he believes it to be.
Eventually, the creature reveals its truly gigantic form, and GAEA-TIMA is once again summoned to do battle with this startling underground monster. When Miyako learns of Yutaka’s connection with the creature, she starts to see a raw and overwhelming truth: Even if it saves the day, a monster is still a monster. And monsters, no matter how good, will destroy the things around them.
Kent fires on all cylinders for this, bringing readers peak daikaiju storytelling. For starters, the exploration into Toru Tagajo’s past and why he has trust issues with the monsters is alluded to by emotionally gripping panels that illustrate that he was there then years ago with the first GAEA-TIMA attack and was desperately trying to call his wife to no avail.While this revelation is made clear to the reader,, Miyako in her innocence to it all is unaware of this fact; this illustrates that though this group is a team, Miyako is left in the dark of how truly affected these Fune agents are by the rise of the monsters. Even now I start to wonder, can we even trust the so-called leader of the group, Tatsukuni, with his fanboyish charm for the monsters? Even Toru joins our dreaded curiosity that Tatsukuni might not be as ignorant to the origins and motives of GAEA-TIMA as previous volumes have led us to believe.
Another fantastic character aspect is the dynamic between Yutaka and Miyako with the parallels the two have with each other. WHile both seem to have a bond with the monsters, Miyako’s connection to Gaea-Tima is one of nurture while Yutaka is one of nature. Yutaka soon learns the folly in believing in this bond because even if you feed a wild animal, it is still at the end of the day a wild and unpredictable thing. Yutaka is so blinded by his desire to be strong and have a happy home, he fails to realize that his bullies were in fact eaten by the creature and not just staying home from school due to the traumatic incident.
His world views are shattered even further in a chilling sequence where he yells for his subterranean daikaiju to destroy GAEA-TIMA and save his family, only for the crowd of people around him to start to chant and pray for GAEA-TIMA’s victory over his monster. The world continues to turn against him when he realizes that this man-eating monster begins to make a march toward the very hospital that is tending to his ailing mother. This leads the young boy to right his wrongs by trying to sacrifice himself to the creature as GAEA-TIMA and his unnamed monster brawl.
It should be noted that this fight between GAEA-TIMA and the subterranean monster is a true and awe-inspiring spectacle. GAEA-TIMA also has a new transformative ability in a gigantic frill that allows the titan to aid in listening and predicting its burrowing foe’s next move. The realization as well that the monsters can come from the land and not just the sea is a truly interesting narrative choice and adds more questions than answers for what Kent is trying to explore with this original series.
This aside though, the conclusion of this fight leaves a chilling impact for not just the reader, but for the characters themselves. As the clash of giant monsters rages, Miyako sees that the town’s rage-filled pleas for victory seem to have an effect on GAEA-TIMA. The outcry for violence leads the monster to be especially brutal towards its enemy to a point of monstrous horror. When Miyako realizes that GAEA-TIMA’s blinded rampage will destroy not just the hospital, but most of the town as well, she sorrowfully pleads for her monster to stop, to which it solemnly abides. For the last few pages, there are no words; just powerful and sombering imagery of GAEA-TIMA winning the fight and putting the defeated monster into a watery grave. There is victory for the day, but Miyako wordlessly wonders… at what cost?
I eagerly await to see what kind of aftermath we will see in the fourth volume of this series. Frankly, this is not just one of the best giant monster stories out there, but truly a manga that deserves wide praise. Kent is bringing a unique world of daikaiju to a wider audience with believable characters, confident worldbuilding and stellar action with incredibly detailed giant monster fights! If you see this on the shelf on the local bookshelf, please make sure to pick it up!
| Overall Score: 10/10 An astonishing piece of daikaiju storytelling, the third volume of GAEA-TIMA the Gigantis showcases some of the best monster action ever put to page in a riveting, character-driven masterclass. |
