Deus Vitae

(Tokyopop, 2004)
™ and © 2000 Takuya Fujima
Black and white

Although this title violates the unwarranted use of a foreign language in a title when simple English would suffice statute, Deus Vitae is one of the most refreshing manga series in a while.

It’s definitely not the plot (which seems to consist of bits cobbled together from pieces of The Terminator and Matrix movies involving yet another war between mankind and machines in which humanity lost) that does that.

Once again, there’s a supposedly superior machine species that chooses to look and act surprisingly like humans—especially improbably hot female ones. Fan service dictates these predominately top–heavy automata get naked under the flimsiest of pretexts (even taking gratuitous baths), especially their leader, Mother Seishia, who badly wants to fuse bodily with Ash Lemy, one of the last remaining humans. Although he belongs to a group dedicated to overthrowing robot rule, Ash makes the time to make a love connection with the sensitive, school–girlish fembot, Lemiu.

Readers have seen it all before, but what it lacks in originality is more than made up for by stunningly beautiful art.

— S.A. Bennett

Jump to issue:

Notes

Writer

Artist