3 out of 5

This ending makes sense.  You should reread Blame! from start to finish, knowing where it’s going, and this ending is affecting.

But, as was the case with the previous volume, being down in the trenches from tankobon to tankobon is a very different experience, and the depressive, quiet, black-slathered descent that Blame! goes in to post Megastructure-rattling explosions is, firstly, in the dark Tokypop printings, occasionally hard to read, which certainly mars the experience, and secondly – it can feel like a little bit of a letdown.  Cibo and Killy came so far and then it feels like there’s just an endless cycle of dying, picking oneself up, and moving on, and we’ve forgotten our memories and switched allegiances, and goals are less purposeful or more just functioning on automatic…

…Which is all part of the point, and why Blame! benefits from rereads.  A huge part of volume 10 is silence, Killy trudging across outskirts, Cibo’s sphere in tow.  A brief Sanakan dream, let’s call it, offers up some minimal explanations before the final few steps toward nothingness, and toward, perhaps, another cycle of Blame!…

Even in the trenches, it’s affecting, and effective.  But you will be left wondering as to the point of everything, and I couldn’t help but feel let down at the suggestion from the tale’s previous momentum that there’d be a conclusion.  However, this is all in service of making me pick up volume 1 again.