"Unlike other Gods, I am compassionate! But Buddha I ain't!"
Orion is a single-volume manga written and drawn by Masamune Shirow. Set roughly 200 million years ago, the Yamata People's Empire seeks to use its psychoscience to destroy all the negative karma in the universe. Unfortunately, as anyone how knows even a bit about Buddhism can tell you, the desire to rid oneself of a disease is a disease itself; this is bad news for our intrepid scientists. Essentially, the idea is that the princess, a woman of extraordinary spiritual power, will sacrifice herself to summon the 9-headed naga, who will consume all that nasty negative karma. Unfortunately, it will actually eat everything, and the only thing standing in its way is Susano, a proud, upstart, and rather homicidal deity, who turns out not to be that bad a guy, once you get to know him.
Essentially everything, from spaceships to weapons, are powered by mental energies. In one scene, it is shown that a spaceship is powered by a vast array of tanks, holding disembodied brains. The so-called 'boosters' hold artificial brains which enable the user to increase his own mental energy. Weapons, entertainment, everything is based on psychoscience and the Tendai Naga rituals.
The artwork has the familiar Shirow style, quite similar to Ghost in the Shell, and significantly more polished than his earlier work, Black Magic M-66. I would say that Orion is good, without being great. If you like Shirow, and are willing to wade through some rather confusing discussions about yin and yang, nagas, and gods, it's a pretty decent read. It will be very helpful if you know a bit about Buddhism, at least to the extent
of knowing what an arahat and bodhisattva are; Orion goes way beyond most of his other works in terms of strange philosophical musings, and a reader who doesn't understand the terms and backgrounds he uses will most likely end up frustrated, bored and confused.