I often feel I was a bit spoiled for manga. My first encounters were this, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind, Akira and Lone Wolf And Cub. These blew most comics of any type and from any region completely out of the water, but with manga in particular I always ended up comparing them unfavourably with these three, and they usually came up short, though admittedly lots of otherwise great manga turned... skeevy, let us us say, which I found off-putting. I shall have to see what I can find via the library and maybe remedy that.

The final volume of Nausicaa, and I finally run completely out of bits that I sort of vaguely remember reading before. Nausicaa is in charge of a god-warrior with a mother-fixation. Everyone's racing towards the crypt at Shiwa where the knowledge that lead to the recent daikasho came from. It must be sealed, but there are some final truths about the nature and origin of the Sea of Corruption that means such an act could ensure species extinction for humanity. Nausicaa may have more in common with the emperors and the vipers, Kushana's brothers, than she realises. The rather huge problem of human suffering and the nature of death hangs over this crowded, fast-paced climactic volume. Nausicaa is becoming all to well aware of the problematic nature of her own role as messiah, as saviour and destroyer.

In the end, the upshot is that humanity continues to move towards futures always made uncertain and dangerous by our own actions. We are often the authors of our own, or other's suffering, but life survives and we try to carry on. And really, it's hard to dispute those truths at this time.