Introduction

Erik Suaste — I had the pleasure of reviewing the first volume of his creation, Project 100 (which you can read here), and even getting to meet him in person at Anime NYC 2026. This creator deserves a round of applause not only for producing a work that pays such genuine love and respect to the manga world, but for telling a story with both heart and reality drawn into every panel and page. Volume 1 ended on a cliffhanger that had me desperately wishing for the second volume, and after just under a year, it’s finally here.

We return to the world of Nicholi Breitling, a man who has lost his love Mari Santos and now has two souls relying on him to stay strong despite that devastating loss. Can Nicholi take these two children, seemingly born from death and destruction, raise them right, and keep standing despite his broken heart? The answers are in Volume 2 of Project 100 — but are they the answers you want, or will this second volume leave you in tears for an entirely different reason? Time to find out.

Art Style

Honestly, if you removed Erik’s name and told me this was a manga from Japan produced by a working mangaka, I’d believe you without hesitation. While not a perfect echo of traditional Japanese manga conventions, Project 100 carries the soul of manga, and that is only more apparent in Volume 2. Erik Suaste once again captures the human side of his characters with impressive precision, conveying their emotional responses to interactions and events in ways that even many professional manga struggle to pull off. Most series only show heightened emotion during extreme moments of drama or pain. Project 100 Volume 2 finds beauty in the quiet spaces — in a world we know from Volume 1 to be far from perfect — and explores how grief has settled into Nicholi and those around him, like Amy and Leonardo, in the six years since the incident. The art leans into capturing pain in a way that anyone who has lost someone will recognize in some form. Erik’s work continues to impress and I have yet to see it fail to deliver.

Story and Characters

Project 100 Volume 2 is set six years after the end of the first volume. Without spoiling everything from Volume 1 (though I’d encourage you to read our first review before this one), we know that Mari died and Nicholi was forced to save two children being used for the sake of humanity’s preservation. That’s as far as my Volume 1 spoilers go. Now into Volume 2.

Nicholi has raised the two children, naming them Apollo and Atlas, despite the constant reminder they represent of his failed mission and the loss of the woman he loved. Now living in what appears to be the countryside, Nicholi is doing his best to raise them the way Mari would have wanted, giving them a happy and seemingly normal life. But despite the joy they bring him, it becomes clear very early in Volume 2 that Nicholi is far from okay. His posture and expression project confidence and strength, but underneath, he is still deeply broken, still questioning whether he’s doing the right thing and whether this was truly what his journey was leading toward. Volume 2 explores Nicholi not as a fighter but as a father carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. The naming of the children is a particularly thoughtful touch by Erik, one that becomes a recurring point of reflection for the protagonist and carries real emotional resonance.

Pacing

After the intensity that defined Volume 1 (a mixture of shock, awe, and political intrigue), Volume 2 makes a deliberate U-turn on the highway. The chaos is largely gone here, aside from a small but significant incident involving one of the boys in a later chapter. Instead, this volume commits fully to exploring human emotion, processing grief, and pushing forward despite loss. Will Nicholi rise to the challenge of fatherhood? Are these children truly safe? And what awaits them after that jaw-dropping final page? The pacing of Volume 2 is actually stronger than Volume 1 in my opinion. It establishes everything the reader needs to know quickly and without confusion, and moves through its quieter emotional beats without ever feeling slow or meandering.

Panel Layout and Flow

In my Volume 1 review I was candid about not reading a great deal of independent work. Since then, I’ve made a genuine effort to explore lesser-known titles, and one pattern I’ve noticed in some independent manga and graphic novels is an inconsistency in panel layout — a sequence can go from visually extraordinary to tonally flat so abruptly that it feels unintentional, suggesting someone still developing their structural instincts.

Project 100 Volume 2 doesn’t have this problem. I won’t pretend I can identify every subtle technical choice being made, but from years of reading manga and graphic novels, Volume 2 reads like the work of someone with real, hard-earned experience. The dialogue flows naturally from panel to panel, and even the more emotionally tense moments never tip into visual chaos. Volume 1 was strong, but Volume 2 refines the panel work further, and I love seeing that growth clearly reflected in the finished pages.

Themes and Tone

By this point in the review it’s likely clear that the central theme of Volume 2 is human grief and perseverance. The government conspiracies are gone. The survival politics are set aside. What remains is a quiet, honest examination of what it means to lose someone you love, how to keep moving when moving feels impossible, and whether life can still feel like life in your darkest moments. Volume 2 commits to a deeply relatable emotional register and doesn’t miss a note. None of these characters feel fabricated, and I can easily imagine readers seeing themselves in Nicholi, recognizing his struggle to push the loss aside and keep walking forward. When a series achieves that level of immersion, it’s doing something genuinely special. Project 100 Volume 2 does it excellently.

Conclusion

Project 100 Volume 2 may not carry the political and science fiction energy of the first volume, but the calmer, more introspective story it tells works remarkably well. Watching Nicholi transform from a fighter into a quietly grieving father of two boys who aren’t biologically his, and who are a constant reminder of the worst moment of his life, creates a gravitational emotional weight that most manga and graphic novels can’t come close to replicating. Erik’s work continues to impress me deeply, and if you want to stay ahead of the story before Volume 3 arrives, he shares completed chapters early through his Patreon. I will keep championing this series for as long as it keeps delivering, and Volume 2 makes it very clear that Erik Suaste is the real deal.