50 Million Km

Aliens. Plenty of sci-fi fans love them, and so stories involving them can get popular very fast if done right. There is some charm to be found in this alien story, but it's not quite enough to lift this to the heights of fame.

The story is simple, and actually reminds me a lot of the Star Ocean video game series, in that there is a large space federation that is not allowed to reveal itself to planets that are considered underdeveloped. The story never goes anywhere new, and there are no plot twists to speak of. Everything that is going to happen is painfully obvious.

There are three alien species that we meet in this manga. The species that the main heroine belongs to, the species that the antagonist belongs to, and some little green men looking species that is wreaking havoc on Earth. The little green men are never explained properly. We see them do some stuff, but all the sudden the mangaka drops them and they disappear from the story without any explanation. It's like the mangaka forgot about them.

I did find the relationship between the main character and his brother to be interesting, which is the part that I payed attention to the most. Aside from that, the characters don't get more than a small dose of shallow development, if any at all.

Fortunately, the art was gorgeous. It was very crisp and clean, with good character designs and splendidly drawn special effects. The only qualms I have are that the backgrounds were plain, and most panels didn't even have background in them. Still, the rest of the awesome art mostly offsets this.

While this manga could be worse, it's hard to find a reason to recommend it. It isn't bad, but doesn't try to explore any new ground in relation to aliens. It comes off as a pretty, yet generic, sci-fi manga that can't rise above the realm of mediocrity. While I don't recommend this, if you do find yourself wanting to read it there are worse ways to spend your time. If you are a major sci-fi fan you might even get a small dose of enjoyment out of it.

It could have been an amazing story. The plot is catchy and characters are pretty decent. The art is also really enjoyable without unnecessary ecchi when it comes to female humanoids. I was really pretty hyped up about the development but! The story was rushed and ended poorly in the last (short!) chapter.
I would recommend it only if you're going to stop reading before last chapter and imagine the rest of the story yourself, otherwise you'll probably be pretty disappointed.