Children of the Whales by Abi Umeda is a fantasy shojo set on a giant ship called the Mud Whale that has aimlessly wandered a vast sea of sand for 93 years. The ship is home to a population of 500 humans who are split into unmarked and marked - marked humans are born with a type of telekinesis granted to them by the use of Thymia, which is a substance derived from emotions. The community is relatively peaceful, if not bored, but death features prominently in their lives as marked individuals consistently die by the time they are 30. One day, the Mud Whalers spot an abandoned ship which they board to scavenge for materials and discover the sole survivor of a previous battle. This young woman, whom they name Lykos, joins the Mud Whale, but Lykos’s arrival brings a multitude of calamities which soon exposes the Whalers to the reality of the outside world.

The premise provides a satisfying level of intrigue and the Mud Whalers are a group of naïve eccentrics, which makes for a fun read. I love the main protagonist, Chakuro, the archivist of the island. He suffers from graphomania - a compulsion to write - and he religiously and meticulously recounts the daily lives of his countrypeople and major events of the Mud Whale. Chakuro is noble and loyal to his friends, but his fatal flaw is his constant belief in the goodness of others. Sometimes, he manages to get to the heart of his enemies in order to turn dire situations around, but it is sometimes frustrating that he has no second options. If the talk-no-jutsu fails, he then spends the subsequent time desperately reacting to the fall out, and in this manga, fall out usually means a bombardment of chapters filled with endless disaster, death and tragedy.

Lykos, initially hostile, finds herself deeply touched by the easy and empathetic nature of the Mud Whalers, especially their open displays of emotion. Where Lykos comes from, emotions are banned. She provides a refreshing counter to Chakuro and becomes the tactician of the pair. Her progression over the story is stunning to witness: from stoic and unspeaking to energetic, emotional, and empathetic. She feels deeply for the Mud Whalers and regularly puts herself in mortal danger to protect their peace.

After Lykos's arrival, the Mud Whale is brutally attacked by another ship that appears from nowhere. This ship is captained by Orca - Lykos's older brother - by the order of the empire. The Mud Whalers are stunned and confused by all these new people that they didn't know existed, as well as their violence and hostility. Their ignorance of the outside world leads to fatal consequences. Many of the Mud Whalers are slaughtered in this attack, and they are warned that another is on its way - and by that time, they will be exterminated completely.

The Mud Whale community is soon brought up to speed on the last 93 years - they are in fact descendants of criminals who were exiled to the sea of sand due to their rejection of the emotion ban. Everyone else in the empires of the world feed their emotions to the supernatural organisms that steer their ships, called nouses, in exchange for bountiful Thymia usage and the ability to stoically kill on command. The Mud Whalers do not feed their emotions to their nous and it instead slumbers deep within the Mud Whale as its rudder. However, through their many trials and tribulations, they discover the nous has been feeding on their life essence all this time, which is the real reason for the high mortality rates of the marked humans. The mayor, kind himbo Suoh, makes it his mission to find land for the Whalers to live and save the fates of the marked.

Their voyage is fraught with disaster. After barely surviving Orca’s second assault, they embark upon Amonlogia, a thriving community without Thymia users, but the country is hostile towards outsiders and are in the midst of a war with factions of the empire. Their king understands Thymia and its usefulness, and decides to hold the unmarked Whalers hostage until the marked agree to fight in his army against Orca’s ship, which just so happens to be on its way. The Whalers once again survive this conflict but still find themselves at the mercy of Orca for a third time, who manages to kidnap Ouni, the Whalers’ child of prophecy born and created with the unique ability to destroy nouses, and Shuan, the commander of the Whalers’ defence force, and strongest Thymia user after Ouni. The Whalers then fight among themselves as they consider saving Ouni and Shuan, or continuing on the journey to find land before their dwindling marked population dies prematurely.

The first thirty or so chapters of this manga move slowly and episodically, and whilst I was interested in the story, it was hard to engage deeply with the narrative because the characters still needed some development. Apart from Chakuro and Suoh, the massive extended cast easily melted into each other, and Umeda crammed many of them into the chapters at once, which made for a conveyer belt feeling and did not leave me enough space to really know them individually. New characters who are very important to the story would be dropped into a chapter with no build up, which sometimes made them feel like sudden editorial additions.

However, the story ramps up from Amonlogia onwards. The action doesn't stop until the penultimate chapter, which is both exhilarating and exhausting. Children of the Whales is a story of great tragedy, and we lose many characters during the Whalers’ journey to find land. Whenever a battle seems to have reached its end, another villain arrives, or some natural calamity puts everyone on another disastrous course. Considering this is a manga with only 97 chapters, the high death toll and low character-focused content means that not every death is impactful.

My biggest complaint about this series is that sometimes, characters appear to behave in a way simply because the plot demands them to. When Lykos finally warms to the people of the Mud Whale and expresses her loyalty to them, we are shown her worried and anxious expression. There is clearly something troubling her, but she says nothing to anyone, even though the concern - that her brother and the empire are on their way to execute everyone on the island - is incredibly important information. It seems her unwise reticence is used to make Orca’s attack appear as a huge shock to the reader and the Mud Whalers. Furthermore, after they survive the assault, she does not sit everyone down and explain all that she knows about the history and politics of the world, instead, she continues to withhold information so that the plot forces the Whalers to make the discoveries themselves in several dramatic ways.

The main populace of the Mud Whale realises that the unmarked council of Elders know the truth about the world and has hidden it. Chakuro and team decide to fight their way to the inner chambers of the island to discover this hidden history. During their descent, they conveniently forget that the council has its own special defence force of exceptional Thymia users that they will have to engage with. A member of the Chakuro team abruptly reminds his crew that he used to be a member of this defence force, which once again makes it strange that no one had prior anticipated meeting them in battle before this whole expedition takes place. One member of the defence force inexplicably turns against her warrior colleagues and allows Chakuro’s team to pass to the inner chambers. Apparently, this warrior, Ginshu, likes Chakuro, but we only see her briefly in a previous chapter during which it seemed like this was the first time she and Chakuro had met. This is unusual within a population of only 500.

Just when the Chakuro team is about to reach their goal, a mysterious man with an eye patch appears. He is the commander of the defence force and apparently the strongest Thymia user on the Mud Whale, and once again our team is surprised to see him. The plot demands a sudden final foe and so it grants it to us, but unfortunately Shuan’s entrance is a bit forced. Despite Shuan's exceptional skill, which means he would have easily beaten Chakuro and team and then moved onto his real goal of fighting Ouni the child of prophecy, he also inexplicably allows the team to enter the chamber, after which he and Ouni have their battle off page. The character introductions of the volumes tell us that Shuan is the top fighter of the island, but after this battle, his profile changes to “strongest, after Ouni”. Once again, I wondered how much of Ouni and Shuan’s story had been planned before this encounter.

One character I dislike immensely is Liontari, a pantomime villain that is just ridiculously sadistic for no meaningful reason. His reasons for being obsessed with the Mud Whale are incoherent, but it appears he enjoyed ruining their innocence and seeing them help each other in the face of death. He clings onto Orca and wants his full attention, and hates Lykos because he knows Orca still deeply cares for her, but most of his speeches are wild and rambling, filled with laughter, and always leaning towards childish descriptions of violence. He's akin to the equally derided Garm from Vinland Saga. These types of characters aren't very interesting because they have no real substance. Their purpose is to add chaos to the plot, to create a spark and disappear just as quickly. To counter this, Juuzo from Tokyo Ghoul is chaotic done right: his traumatic past provides a reason and a motive for his madness, and even though he remains unconventional throughout the manga, he still develops some coherence and empathy. Shija from Hell’s Paradise offers a similar impact: they are more than just chaos, but they have proper character development and add value to the story.

Many fans of Children of the Whales have compared it to Attack on Titan. This was the reason why I was keen to read this manga, but I think such a comparison is deeply unfair to Children of the Whales and sets it up for unattainable expectations. I understand why the comparisons are made as they both feature similar elements: a minority population exiled on an island that is hated by the rest of the world; the exiles are purposely kept ignorant of their true history by the world and the leaders of their island. But that is where the similarities stop. Attack on Titan is renowned for its foreshadowing and the precision of its plot, down to the first panel and the title of the first chapter, the meaning of which is not fully understood until over 100 chapters later. Children of the Whales is more simply written and its focus is not on mysteries and intrigue, but there are other things Umeda wants to explore here.

The story presents several meaningful ideas about empathy, emotion, and the purpose of our lives. The major conflict centres around the Emperor's plot to remove unhappiness from the world by feeding everyone to the nous and starting the world over, where the new humans will be nothing more than clay dolls imbibed with false euphoria. Usually, the populations who feed their emotions into nouses are convinced to do so because it will make them forget their unhappiness and all the terrible experiences of their lives. Chakuro and the Mud Whalers counter this practise by arguing that both trauma and joy are instrumental to the human experience, that forgetting the pain of their loved ones’ deaths would mean forgetting about their loved ones completely, and all the wonderful memories they shared together, despite their devastating endings. The Mud Whalers urge the world to accept hardship and the growth that comes with it. Everyone has a reasonable motive for the different stances that they take on these topics of suffering and peace, and this is where the story really shines.

I also adore the artwork of this manga. The world has been previously ruined by a long ago calamity, so all the ships are designed crudely, with great blocks of stone and thick towers. The designs are so unique and genuinely appear as moving islands than actual ships. The nouses are equally striking, often comprised of inchoate shapes that imply something psychedelic - lots of swirls and paisley prints. Umeda’s characters are all rather androgynous. Suoh is disarmingly effeminate, which often provides comical moments as he is either proposed to or accused of trying to manipulate his enemies into granting his requests simply by standing there and looking sad. There are several characters I assumed were women only for them to have male pronouns. It's a skilful way to introduce gender fluidity in a fantasy setting.

An interesting aspect of this story is Umeda’s meta writing. Like Lemony Snicket, she has presented herself as a narrator summarising real past events. The omakes at the end of the volumes tell the story of her discovering the writings of The Archivist in a strange bookshop that has since vanished. She has retold the story of the Mud Whale based on the archivist’s manuscript, and gives us tidbits about her journey of translating the pages, localising the foreign terms, and adapting the descriptions of people and settings based on the manuscript. The manga is written as recounted by Chakuro, the graphomanic archivist of the Mud Whale, a being we later discover has been reincarnated in several eras. It gives the story a unique touch.

Although this series has its issues, I love the setting of island ships on the vast, dangerous sea of sand. I love the philosophy and the adventure of it all. I admire the resilience of the Mud Whalers to fight for each other and their freedom, their commitment to help each other survive no matter what. There is a lot of tragedy in this story, but it makes for a satisfying pay off when Chakuro is finally free to travel and explore the world, no longer tethered to the Mud Whale and the nouses.

6/10