Review: TOKYO BABYLON

 Since we have been mercifully spared the anime adaptation of this series until the spring, now's the time to talk about one of CLAMP's most underrated works.

TOKYO BABYLON, by CLAMP.  First published in 1990, and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

In the bustling city of Tokyo, there are mysteries too strange for any detective and too personal for any doctor.  In those cases, they need the help of young Subaru Sumeragi.  The latest in a long line of onmyoji, he serves as as sort of exorcist to save people from dark, nebulous forces around and within them.  Subaru achieves this not only with his power, but with his inexhaustible kindness and empathy for others.  In turn, Subaru's stylish, vivacious twin sister Hotaru looks out for him, along with family friend/local vet Seishirou.  Yet Subaru can't help but find himself drawn to Seishirou, for reasons he can't quite remember...

Review: SUKI: A LIKE STORY

 Well, it might have gotten off to a slow start, but it's January, which means it's time for yet another CLAMP Month.  This one is going to be a bit bittersweet, though.  We're running out of CLAMP manga to review, which means this will very likely be the last CLAMP Month here at the Manga Test Drive.

It's also going to be a bit bittersweet because there's no way we can avoid some of the dregs of CLAMP's library of works, such as this one.

SUKI: A LIKE STORY (Suki dakara suki), by CLAMP.  First published in 1999 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Hinata Asahi is a sweet-natured, ditzy high school girl who loves everything.  Even though she lives by herself with only a pair of teddy bears and the neighborhood cats for company, she approaches each day with joy in her heart and a song on her lips.  Her world changes when a new teacher moves in next door, and more and more she finds her thoughts consumed by ones about Asou-sensei.  Hina's not sure what any of it means, while her friends aren't sure that Asou-sensei's motives are entirely pure...

Review: LEGAL DRUG

Now we go from a weird early CLAMP work to a later work which might be the slashiest thing that CLAMP has ever written, which really says something considering their body of work.

LEGAL DRUG (Gohou Drug), by CLAMP.  First published in 2000 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Kazahaya wanted to run away from his past.  Rikuo wanted to find a missing woman from his.  Their quests ended up leading the two to the Green Drugstore.  When the two aren't stocking shelves and fighting with one another, their mysterious benefactor Kakei sends them off on strange supernatural quests that force the two to confront the mysteries of their  pasts.

Review: MAN OF MANY FACES

It's (a particularly late-starting) CLAMP Month again!

It's a celebration of my favorite mangaka group (and the lateness is a result of getting two nasty cases of the flu? cold? generic respiratory nastiness in a row), starting with what may be one of the weirdest works they ever made.

MAN OF MANY FACES (Niju Mesno ni Onegai!), by CLAMP.  First published in 1990 and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:

When Akira Ijyuin isn't busy with the CLAMP School Detectives, he spends his days refining his fine cooking skills and taking care of his two mothers.  By night, though, he is the infamous phantom thief 20 Faces, stealing only the finest, most whimsical things at his mothers' request.  Like his father before him, Akira can steal just about anything and get away, but what will he do when the kindergarten-aged heiress Utako ends up stealing his heart instead?

Review: X/1999

With the start of a disastrous, fatalistic new presidency, I think it's finally time to take a look at the CLAMP work that best sums up the feelings this new era embodies.

At least this version of the apocalypse has a lot more bishies and far fewer fascists than our own.

X/1999 (Ekkusu), by CLAMP.  First published in 1992 and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:

The year is 1999, and the apocalypse is nigh.  The fate of Tokyo and the world rests on the shoulders of a mysterious young man named Kamui.  As other, strange folks find themselves drawn to the city, Kamui finds himself among his childhood friends Fuuma and Kotori.  They don't know it yet, but all of their lives are about to change.

Review: CLAMP SCHOOL DEFENDERS DUKLYON

Speaking of CLAMP's weirder little short stories, let's return to the world of CLAMP School for yet another exercise in frivolousness.  This time it's tokusatsu flavored!

CLAMP SCHOOL DEFENDERS DUKLYON (Gakuen Tokkei Dyukarion), by CLAMP.  First published in 1992 and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:

When classmates Kentaro Higashikunimaru and Takeshi Shukaido aren't arguing amongst themselves and engaging in all the frivolities of CLAMP School, they suit up to become the CLAMP School Defenders Duklyon!  Together with their easily aggravated team leader Eri, they fight back against the dastardly Imonoyama Shopping District Association and their legion of bizarre monsters!

STORY:

Even by the low standards of the CLAMP School works, this might be one of the goofiest and slightest of the bunch.  Much of that is on purpose, but what few jokes it has to offer get old FAST.

The whole thing is one big riff on tokusatsu shows.  Even if you never watched anything beyond Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, this much is obvious.  That's a perfectly fine conceit, even if the jokes never dig particularly deep.  The problem is that there are maybe half a dozen jokes in the entire and every single one of them is hammered firmly into the ground.  There are only so many times you can be expected to laugh at how obvious everyone's secret identities are, the manzai-like routine between the boys, or even the villain's big dumb crush on Eri before you just start getting annoyed with each new instance.

There's also another problem: of all the CLAMP School manga, this one crosses over with all of them.  Duklyon is commanded by a very poorly disguised Nokuro, leader of the CLAMP School Detectives.  The last chapter here is a 2-on-1 battle between the Duklyon boys and Man of Many Faces, which is the phantom thief alter ego of another member of the CLAMP School Detectives.  These aren't even cameos!  They're basically supporting roles, and without having read those other works their appearances might as well be pointless.  When that pointlessness is combined with the annoying humor and half-ass parody, the end result is simply inane.

ART:

Being a CLAMP School-era work, the character designs here are a little rougher than later works.  The boys are perfectly cute in CLAMP's typical fashion, but their faces tend to be as stiff as their armor-like Duklyon suits.  At least they get off easier than their classmate/villain Kotobuki.  He damn near threatens to drown in hair that looks more like a Kabuki wig than hair, even when he's in his ridiculously oversized costume.  There's not much in the way of backgrounds, as CLAMP mostly leans on some rather plain screentones.  There's also not much in the way of action.  All the fights are basically over within a page, maybe two at a stretch.  All in all, there's not much here for anyone unless they really enjoy CLAMP's older character designs.

RATING:

CLAMP School Defenders Duklyon is meant to be goofy, but it's simply too lame and too immersed in the CLAMP School universe to be anything other than an annoying curiosity.

This series is digitally published by Viz, and previously by Tokyopop.  This series is complete in Japan with 2 volumes available.  Both volumes were published and are currently out of print.  This series is available digitally through Viz.

Review: WISH

Let's turn from one of CLAMP's newest works to one of the many weird little short stories.  This is one was kind of overshadowed by their biggest works from the 90s, but it remains one of their most charming works.

WISH (Wisshu), by CLAMP.  First published in 1995, and first published in North America in 2002.

PLOT:

Shuichiro was walking home from a long surgical shift when he found what looked like a doll with wings getting attacked by crows.  He frees this being, who turns out to be an angel named Kohaku. Kohaku wants to reward Shuichiro's good dead with a wish, but he can't think of anything that needs a wish to fix.  Regardless, Kohaku is determined to stay by Shuichiro's side until he can decide on that wish.  Unfortunately, the forces of both heaven and hell are determined to break up their cozy relationship before it can truly start.

Review: TSUBASA WORLD CHRONICLE

It's January once more, which means it's time for yet another month of CLAMP works.  Let's start things off with one of their most recent works.  Like most of those new works, it's a rehash of a previous work.  In this case, it's a rehash of their most...troubled work.  Has enough time passed that CLAMP can make some sense of it once more, or is it just more of the same?

TSUBASA WoRLD CHRoNiCLE:NIRAIKANAI, by CLAMP.  First published in 2014 and first published in 2015.

PLOT:

Syaoran and company continue their quest across the multiverse.  This time, he, Fai, Kurogane, and Mokona end up in the pleasant paradise of Niraikanai.  It's a tropical island overseen by a young girl who serves as a divine vessel (as well as a vessel for noodles).  To help them in their quest, she urges them to the entrance to the underworld.  There the gang will meet up not only with another guardian, but also a lot more danger and mystery than they could have anticipated...

STORY:

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle's ending was no more well-received than xxxHolic's was back in the day.  While its story fit the sort of "and the adventure continues!" ending it got, it went through a lot of convoluted nonsense to get there and most CLAMP fans wanted some actual closure after nearly 30 volumes.  So when they announced a sequel, there was a tiny bit of hope that maybe this time they might wrap things up in a way that didn't require a flowchart to make the tiniest bit of sense.  The joke was on us, though.  World Chronicle is just more of the same, with all the same charms and many of the same flaws.

To their credit, reading this you'd never guess that CLAMP stopped writing Tsubasa for the better part of a decade.  They pick up right where they left off and our team of adventurers are just the same as we left them.  Syaoran is still his blandly heroic self, Kurogane is still a grump, and Fai and Mokona still team up on the regular to tease the hell out of Kurogane.  The interepersonal dynamic between the group was always the most charming (if predictable) part of Tsubasa, so for me that's not a bad thing.  Alas, the plot demands that Sakura be left home during all of this, so all she can do is pray from the sidelines and be just as bland as Syaoran.  I guess that's better than being an often literal load like she was for most of Tsubasa, but it's little consolation.

When I say that it picks up right where it left off, that means all the little plot-related details too.  That means that if you dropped this series at some point, you might not understand why Syaoran is so concerned about Kurogane's arm or why Syaoran and Watanuki are having a nice long chat at the very beginning.  This intro actually pissed me off, albeit for reasons not related to this manga. The worlds of Tsubasa and xxxHolic are still as intertwined as ever, you see, and the same is true for their sequels.  So Watanuki has to go right ahead and explain what he's been up to in the meantime.  In doing so, he spoils the big twist about xxxHolic Rei.  Good job spoiling your own manga before you finish it, CLAMP!  Maybe I wanted to watch that unfold as it was released instead of you ham-handedly explaining it all here! 

After that, the gang mostly dithers around this new universe for a while taking in the sights and enjoying the food.  Quickly enough, though, the CLAMP multiverse cameos begin, and this time it's Gate 7's turn.  Sadly, I lost interest in Gate 7 once it entered hiatus and Hana and her associates got less compelling over time so this inclusion didn't exactly thrill me.  Also, it's probably not a good idea for them to so blatantly compare Fai and Kurogane to the expies of Sakura and Tachibane.  It kind of makes it obvious how much the latter rip off the former in both looks and concept.  Still, they're the ones that start pushing the plot forward, so I can deal with it.

It doesn't go very far, though, and it's not entirely clear what's going on.  CLAMP has gotten into a bad habit lately of keeping their plots so mysterious and cryptic that it becomes nonsense.  Tsubasa always suffered the worst from this and it seems that this has not changed where the sequel is concerned.  That doesn't give me much confidence that CLAMP is going to make this manga any more focused or comprehensible than its predecessor.  It's still got some of its old, pre-Acid Tokyo charms, but it's also got the same dawdling pace and the same refusal to explain the necessary details versus all the ancillary stuff.

ART:

CLAMP's art here hasn't changed either, and that mostly is a good thing.  We've got the same clean confident linework, the same noodle-like character designs, and the same sorts of action scenes full of beautifully chaotic swirls and tendrils of magic.  While this series is still technically shonen, there's a lot more shoujo-esque visual excess here, almost an artifact of their art style of old.  They do a lot of layering of panels and staggering long, narrow panels and there's a lot more flowers and sparkles than we've seen in a lot of their modern works.  It gets kind of confusing at times, even outside of the action, and it drowns out what beauty is there.  I didn't really expect them to shake things up too radically at this point, but I did hope that the new start would let them simplify things a little.

PRESENTATION:

As per usual, we've got a translation notes section.  Apparently in addition to the Gate 7 & RG Veda cameos, there's a lot of references to Okinawan culture here, so that's kind of novel.

RATING:

Tsubasa World Chronicle is everything you would expect from a Tsubasa sequel.  It's got all the charms and beauty it held before, but it also comes with all the nonsensical plot threads and excess that came before.  Unless you were really invested in Tsubasa, this can be easily missed.

This series is published by Kodansha Comics.  This series is ongoing with 4 volumes available.  3 volumes have been published and are currently in print.

Review: XXXHOLIC REI

I always like to end CLAMP month with one of my favorites, but there's just one problem: I already reviewed my favorite of their works, xxxHolic.  Thankfully, in recent years the ladies of CLAMP decided to revisit it and its sister series Tsubasa with new sequel series.  In the case of xxxHolic, though, it's less of a sequel and more of a 'what-if.'

xxxHOLIC REI (xxxHolic Return), by CLAMP.  First published in 2013 and first published in North America in 2014. 

PLOT:

Kimihiro Watanuki spends his days working at Yuuko's wish shop, trying to manage the demands of his boss, his friends, and their many clients.  As time goes on, though, Watanuki starts to wonder why things feel weirdly familiar.  He has knowledge of supernatural beings he shouldn't have and Yuuko keeps talking about making choices.  Is Watanuki's world all that it seems to be or do Yuuko and Doumeki know the truth?

STORY:

A lot of xxxHolic fans were not happy with the ending for xxxHolic, namely because it wasn't so much a conclusion as it was the equivalent of a weary shrug.  They gave Tsubasa a similar treatment, but that series is better suited for a "and the adventure continues" sort of ending.  xxxHolic fans want to see some sort of closer for Watanuki and company, and surely their hopes must have risen when this series was announced.  It's hard to say if those same fans will be happy with the result, at least based on the first volume.

The story itself isn't bad at all.  If anything, it's like CLAMP never stopped writing the series, as the clients and mysteries on display here fit in perfectly with those we've already seen.  They possess the same mixture of spookiness and sadness that many of the best chapters had.  It's also hard to deny how nice it is to see all of the main cast again acting in much the same way that they did before the more dramatic events of the double-digited volumes.  It's almost comfortable in a way, like slipping on an old pair of pants.  That's precisely what CLAMP wants you to feel, so that they can start unnerving the reader with all the little differences.  This might seem like the same old xxxHolic at first glance, but you don't have to read all that closely to figure out that something is up.

It's not just the fact that Yuuko is in charge of the shop again, or that the Watanuku-Doumeki-Himawari trio is back together as is nothing ever drove them apart.  It's the general sense of deju vu that pervades the whole volume, and it's something that everyone - even Watanuki - is able to sense to some degree.  Things are seemingly peaceful and normal, at least as normal as everything can be around the wish shop, but then there are little differences all around.  Yuuko keeps talking to Watanuki about making choices and she and Doumeki keep exchanging worried yet knowing glances.  It's clear that something is up; the only problem is that no one is willing to explain precisely what that something is.  That has to be the biggest problem with xxxHolic Rei.  CLAMP keeps things so vague that it becomes downright frustrating.  You can only hint so long at a mystery without any sort of answers before it starts to look like stalling.  It's almost enough to make one fear that CLAMP is once again making shit up as they go, and only time will prove if this is true or not.

xxxHolic Rei isn't a series for newcomers.  It presumes you are already familiar with the main series and it's not the least bit interested in getting anyone else up to speed or explaining anything that wasn't already explained.  Still, it's nice to see CLAMP returning to one of their better series and I am curious to see where it's going to go.

ART:

The art has always been my favorite part of xxxHolic, and the same remains true for xxxHolic Rei.  It's the same sleek, elegant, dark and lanky style that distinguished the main series.  It still has the same slick, almost minimalist approach to the paneling that balances the needs of the story with CLAMP's desire to show off the fanciness of Yuuko's wardrobe.  Again, it's like Nekoi never stopped drawing this series because it looks just as good as always.  The only downside is that it doesn't leave me with much to say about the art that I haven't already said.

RATING:

xxxHolic Rei is beautiful and familiar, but it's hard to tell what (if any) direction it's taking and it's the sort of kinda-sorta-sequel that's made only for the oldtimers, not the newcomers.

This series is published by Kodansha Comics.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 3 volumes available.  All 3 have been published and all are currently in print.

Review: THE LEGEND OF CHUN HYANG

It's time to take another look at one of CLAMP's many unfinished one-shots, and this one is truthfully one of the better ones of that lot.

THE LEGEND OF CHUN HYANG (Shin Shunka-den), by CLAMP.  First published in 1992 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

In the land of Koriyo lived the young girl Chun Hyang.  She lives with her beautiful mother Wall Mae, a powerful magician and healer and she spends her days defending her mother and her fellow villagers from their corrupt leader and his spoiled son.  When Chun's efforts are not enough to save her mother, she decides to team up with a lecherous wanderer named Rong Myong so take down all the corrupt leaders one at a time. 

STORY:

Chun Hyang is a notable Korean legend, but it's not necessarily one that you would think could inspire a manga.  It's mostly about a beautiful woman who marries a noble, is separated from him by a villain, and maintains her virtue the whole time until they are reunited.  It certainly doesn't bear much resemblance to what CLAMP came up with.  If anything, the legend is little more than set dressing for what is a basic but satisfying shoujo action piece.

It's weird that I found this story so entertaining despite the fact that the characters are all so stereotypical.  Chun is very much in the spunky vein of your standard shoujo heroine, Rong is the goofy lech who is secretly a badass, the villains are one-dimensional tyrants, and everyone on the sides is too good and pure to be believed.  In spite of all that, I found myself not minding all that much.  I suspect that it was mostly due to the fact that I liked Chun so much that I was willing to overlook the rest.  She strikes a good balance between the tendencies of a shoujo heroine and a hero of justice.  Best of all, no one ever tells her not to do these things or that she can't do these things simply being a girl.  We even get a flashback to her (UTTERLY ADORABLE) 6-year-old self to demonstrate that this is simply who Chun is and always has been.  She's fierce, just, loyal and very endearing.

Unfortunately, like so many of CLAMP's short works, this series was cut short by the fact that its magazine was cancelled.  It was so sudden that CLAMP didn't even have time to fake an ending, leaving this manga forever unfinished.  It's a real shame as it feels like that the story is starting to find its footing by volume's end.  We're only just seeing the beginning of how Chun and Mong can work together as a sort of crime-fighting team and there are loads of plot threads that will forever remained dropped.  The three adventures we do get with them are fun but it's hard to not look at this volume and wonder what might have been .

ART:

Like with so many early CLAMP works, the artwork is where this series truly shines.  The characters are all drawn in the lushly inked style of CLAMP's early days, but this one has a slightly unique edge in that they used ink and brush in the early chapters.  It was meant to capture a certain old-fashioned quality, although in practice it's mostly pretty subtle outside of the action scenes.  Apparently they abandoned it for more conventional methods in the later chapters for the sake of saving time, but it's a shame since it was pretty and just unusual enough to make Chun Hyang visually distinct.  I suspect that they might have dropped it as it allowed them to clean up the panels a little, as they can get a bit busy from time to time.  They are often full of swooshes of swinging weapons, bursts of flowers, and swirls of magic and the characters and panels alike are often layered in a wily-nily fashion.  The panels only really open up for the odd vista or particularly dramatic moment.  You can argue amongst yourself as to whether Chun Hyang's artwork has aged well or not, but it does manage to distinguish itself visually from its light and frothy contemporaries.

RATING:

 It might be built out of a lot of familiar elements but The Legend of Chun Hyang manages to coast by on the charm of its heroine and the prettiness of its art.  It'll never be finished and it's far from an essential CLAMP work, but fans should at least give this one a look.

This volume was published by Tokyopop.  It is currently out of print

Review: GATE 7

Now we're going to shift gears from one of CLAMP's earliest works to one of their latest series.  CLAMP's fortunes have risen and fallen greatly since that time.  One has to wonder if they still have the ability to make a really impressive, memorable manga.  Going by this, the answer is...um...kinda?  Maybe?  I dunno.

GATE 7 (Geto Seben), by CLAMP.  First published in 2011, and first published in North America in 2011.

PLOT:

Chikahito has always been drawn to Kyoto.  He's never been able to fully explain why, but he feels a connection to the city and he's determined to make the most of his first trip there.  While wandering the streets, he finds him in the middle of a strange battle. He passes out, only to find himself in the home of his saviors: the tall and strapping pair of Tachibana and Sakura and the tiny, androgynous, noodle-loving, and deeply moe Hana.  These three turn out to be spiritual guardians caught up in a modern-day incarnation of historic battles, battles where the reincarnations of the great generals wield powerful oni against one another.  Now Chikahito has to choose a side whether he wants to or not, and his newfound power makes him a target for both sides.

STORY:

When it first debuted, Gate 7 was somewhat anticipated.  It was CLAMP's first new, non-spinoff series in many years.  Maybe that's why it's so disappointing to see that all it led up to was a rehash of various bits and bobs from previous works tossed together with a bunch of the usual Sengoku-era mumbo-jumbo.

It's hard to read this and not get a few flashbacks to xxxHolic because of Chikahito.  He not only bears a good degree of resemblance to Watanuki, he's also a great cook like him.  It's because of that quality that this series sometimes threatens to become little more than a litany of various Kyoto-area noodle dishes.  At the same time, Chikahito is also far less interesting than Watanuki was even at this early stage.  Watanuki was grumpy and contrary, but it was obvious even from the earliest points in his story that those were merely symptoms of his loneliness and pride.  Chikahito is far more gentle and temperate in comparison, but that means that he also tends to blend into the background more readily and that's a bad quality in a protagonist.  He's frequently forced into situations instead of choosing to join them, so he's a hero that basically gets overwhelmed by his own story.  That's not a promising foundation for a story.

So eventually the story reveals itself to be yet another modern-day reincarnation of Sengoku-era battles that has become something of a trend in recent years.  Hell, I'm surprised that they haven't already broken out the reincarnation of Oda Nobunaga at this point, since he always seems to be the one they break out right away for otaku appeal.  Here, though, CLAMP has taken a more esoteric take on the battles.  They aren't literal battles so much as they are on magical duels fought by supernatural familliars.  Wait a minute...this is basically a tournament-style fighting series!  Sure, the ranks and the purpose are hazy at best, but it's just one long power struggle with the leads working their way up to the ultimate boss.

While CLAMP tries to sneak that fact under the readers' noses, they do their best to try and build up the mystery around the premise and Chikahito.  Are they successful?  It's hard to say.  The problem is that everything is affected by it: the battles, the opponents, the powers involved, all of this and more is explained as vaguely as possible even as they keep adding more and more Sengoku-period people and places.  They even try to make Hana's gender a mystery, but this feels more like fangirl baiting than anything else.  Anyway, all this cyrpticness ends up backfiring in CLAMP's face.  I don't find myself intrigued by the mystery, I just want them to stop and explain something - anything!  It's especially confusing for non-Japanese readers as most of us are not deeply familiar with all of these names and places.  Dark Horse does their best by adding plenty of translation notes, but I honestly couldn't tell one personage from the other.

It's a shame to take such a premise and drag it down so fast by being too vague and too focused on the dinner table.  Instead of getting a strong, clear, and engaging premise, we get something that doesn't feel too far removed from the messy, mixed-up dregs of Tsubasa.

ART:

CLAMP's storywriting might be found wanting, but their artwork is still top-notch.  There's a softness to the characters that you don't see in their more recent series, especially around the eyes and hair.  It almost reminds me of the artstyle they used for Kobato, but maybe that's just because Hana tends to make a lot of the same expressions she does.  Otherwise they all fit fairly comfortably in the noodle person mold that CLAMP has employed for the last decade or so.  If there's any sort of visual highlight to this series, it's the fight sequences.  It's only during these times that the panels open up.  They start dramatically, as the world goes as still and dark as water with only the characters standing in relief.  Then they burst forth into massive and lively swirls of magic the likes of which I haven't seen since Magic Knight Rayearth.  Sometimes it goes too far and the characters start to get lost in the chaos, but the overall effect is stunning.  Unusually for CLAMP, there are a lot of blatantly rotoscoped backgrounds taken from (presumably) real-life places in Kyoto.  It's an understandable choice for them to make, but they still come off as flat and lifeless.  Overall Gate 7 is a pretty book to look at, but sometimes it can get as muddled as the story.

RATING:

It's not unfair to say that Gate 7 is a return to form for CLAMP, but that's not necessarily a good thing.  It's a return to form in a positive way when it comes to the art, which brims with beauty and energy.  It's a bad thing when it comes to the story because it means that they're falling back on old, bad habits and schtick.  I don't get a sense that there's a clear plan of any sort behind this manga, and I fear that this will lead to disaster.

This series is published by Dark Horse.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 4 volumes available.  All 4 have been published and all are currently in print.

Don't forget to check out my latest Crunchyroll Manga Sampler over at Infinite Rainy Day.  Astronauts! Violence! Incest!  All of this and more is contained within the article!

Review: CLAMP SCHOOL DETECTIVES

It's January, which mean's it's another round of CLAMP Month!  Hurray!

These days, CLAMP are notorious for making their works crossover into one big happy multiverse.  Most people would point to Tsubasa as the start of this, while others might point to X.  The truth is that their need for crossovers was present even in the early days of their career, in a place known only as CLAMP School.

CLAMP SCHOOL DETECTIVES (Kuranpu Gakuen Tanteiden), by CLAMP.  First published in 1992 and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:

CLAMP School is one of the most illustrious academies in the world, a place where the best and brightest of every subject and activity can come to learn and teach.  Still, few can compare to the talents of the elementary student council.  There's the president Nokoru, whose genius is second only to his sense of chivalry.  Then there's secretary Suoh, heir to a long line of martial artists and self-appointed protector of Nokoru.  Then there's Akira, the treasurer and finest chef on the entire campus.  Still, that's not enough to keep these wunderkinds occupied, so Nokoru has roped them into becoming the campus detectives.  Be it a dispossessed widow, a missing microchip, or merely just an unhappy girl, no case is too big or too small for the CLAMP School Detectives!

STORY:

CLAMP School Detectives is a kid-friendly shoujo series that's loaded with charm.  That's a very good thing, as it has about as much substance as a soap bubble.  It's plenty of fun if you're willing to roll with what it has to give, but this won't be confused for any of CLAMP's great works any time soon.

For a manga that so blatantly advertises the fact that it's set in CLAMP's own private little universe, there isn't much by the way of continuity.  Each chapter is its own little self-contained story, and while they start somewhat big and ambitious, by volume's end the boys are simply pursuing any girl who doesn't immediately start fawning over them and their many talents.  Oh, did I mention that these chapters often spend a ridiculous amount of time having a Greek chorus of girls and women idolizing a trio of preteens?  It gets a bit awkward at times as many of their fangirls are old enough to be their mothers, and certainly old enough to not be talking about young boys as being attractive.  Oh CLAMP, you and your weird fondness for big age gaps.  Thank god you moved on from that phase.  The earliest ones are the strongest, as they are the ones who at least try for a little bit of drama and mostly succeed.  Even then, the drama is fairly mild, and between that and the frequently silliness of the stories, I would consider this a very child-friendly series...as long as you're willing to overlook those adult fangirls.  That's a weird notion considering that these boys - hell, any of the kids in this volume - don't act anything like real children, but it's something

At least the boys themselves are adorable.  Nokoru is basically what I would imagine Ouran's Tamaki Suoh to have been like as a child.  They're both innately flirtatious, prone to getting carried away by their own schemes, and somehow simultaneously wise yet dumb.  He's both your standard shoujo princely type and frequently the butt of the joke, and it's a combination that's weirdly charming and amusing.  Suoh is his opposite, the serious one there to keep Nokoru from getting too carried away with their latest case.  His presence is necessary to keep things from getting too silly, but it also means there's not much of interest about him other than his close (and possibly fangirl-baiting) relationship with Nokoru.  Then there's sweet, simple Akira, who is practically the mascot of the group.  Sadly, anything that's mildly interesting about him can only be found in his spin-off manga.  The only other character of note is the mysterious school chairwoman.  Her only gimmick is that she's constantly blocking her face, and that only came about out of necessity than anything else (namely, that she was created by one of CLAMP's former members from their doujin days and this was their way of using the design without having to credit her). 

CLAMP School Detectives is fun but inconsequential, and even its skeevier bits can't ruin it.  This is the manga equivalent of cotton candy: fun, sweet, and insubstantial.  It's a fun treat, but doesn't linger on the palate long enough to stay with a person.

ART:

Being an early CLAMP work, you can expect a lot of very dark, lush eyes, big hair, and pages that are busy yet somehow never cluttered.  Honestly, the only thing missing from this are the chibis that they tended to use a lot during this era.  What is unusual is how thick and dark all the outlines are.  Even early CLAMP tends to be drawn rather lightly, lending those lush character designs a certain delicacy.  Here the dark lines give this fluffy story a more solid look, helping to give some visual substance to an otherwise silly story.  The paneling is a bit loose with characters frequently moving out or overlapping over the other panels on the page, but CLAMP makes it work in a way that's never gaudy.  Overall it's not entirely atypical of CLAMP's output at the time, but it's got just enough differences to distinguish itself without becoming visually obnoxious.

PRESENTATION:

Aside from the usual omake, if you're really lucky you might still be able to find a copy of the first volume that still has the fold-out color poster.  I'm always a sucker for CLAMP's colored artworks, so that's a nice little bonus.

RATING:

CLAMP School Detectives is silly and mostly insubstantial, but it isn't trying to be anything more.  It's not a must-read for CLAMP fans, but it's an enjoyable diversion from their early days.

This series is published digitally by Viz and formerly by Tokyopop.  This series is complete in Japan with 3 volumes available.  All 3 have been published.  The physical Tokyopop volumes are out of print, but the entire series is available in e-book form via Viz.com.

Review: CHOBITS

Of course, no CLAMP month these days can go by without featuring one of the many classics Dark Horse Comics picked up in the stead of Tokyopop, and today's review is no exception to that.

CHOBITS (Chobittsu), by CLAMP.  First published in 2001, and first published in North America in 2002.

PLOT:
Persocoms are the latest technological craze.  They are walking computers shaped like beautiful people (mostly women), and it seems that everyone in Tokyo has one...well, everyone but Hideki Motosuwa.  He's a poor cram school student from the countryside who barely makes ends meet as is, but he dreams of getting a Persocom for practical purposes ('practical purposes' meaning 'Internet porn').  Hideki's luck seemingly turns for the best when he finds a Persocom put out amongst the evening trash, but his lucky find is not all that she seems.  His new Persocom is seemingly unable to perform the slightest task on her own and is unable to say anything but "Chii."  Hideki now has to focus on teaching Chii about the world all while he works on finding out her origins, which may be tied to an urban legend about the Chobits, Persocoms that are capable of genuine emotion and thought.

STORY:
So what happens when everyone's favorite all-woman manga team tries to tackle the male-oriented world of magical girlfriend manga?  Well, like so many of their previous works, they flip some of the old clichés on their head, insert a bit of humor, and build their story around a unconventional love story.  Mind you, all of this isn't obvious from the outset.  After all, Chobits stars a spastic, horny young guy who is down on his luck who happens to be surrounded by a gaggle of beautiful women, whose actions in turn only make him more awkward.  How is this any different from the others?

First and foremost, it flips the idea of the perfect magical girlfriend on its head.  Hideki thinks that by getting a Persocom he could solve all his troubles.  He could have the status symbol item of the moment, have a sentient sex doll to stand in for the perfect girlfriend, and he could at long last stop perceiving himself as a failure compared to his peers.  Of course, Chii is anything but the perfect girlfriend, there to service all of Hideki's needs.  If anything, Hideki has to service her needs because she is essentially like a child.  She has to be taught to do just about everything - to speak, to dress herself, and how to function in the wider world.  Like a child, she readily imitates anything that Hideki does.  This becomes what is easily the funniest running gag in the volume, as Chii is often imitating Hideki's every moment to perfection as he freaks out over whatever issue has come his way.  Still, Chii and Hideki's oddly parental relationship makes for an interesting bit of role reversal in a genre that tends to stay firmly entrenched in traditional gender roles, even if it makes Hideki's growing affection for her more than a little weird.  Sure, he's aware that it's weird because he's human and she's a computer, a fact which gets drilled into his head more than once, but it becomes rapidly apparent that their relationship occupies a weird place between parent/child and innocent romance.

That same sense of subversion can be found in the rest of the female cast.  At first it seems that Hideki has his choice of women in tradionally fetish roles - sexy landlord, sexy teacher, and sexy coworker.  In any other story, all of these women would pose some degree of romantic interest in our leading man.  Here, though, that applies only to one out of those three women.  Chibiya (the landlord) is more of a motherly figure to both Hideki and Chii.  Shizuma-sensei (the teacher) does end up drunk and half-clothed at Hideki's place due to circumstance, but even then neither of them makes any sort of move.  Only Yuna (the coworker) has any actual romantic interest in Hideki, and even there she's shown to be less than keen on the concept of Persocoms.  While none of these characters get a lot of screentime or deep development in the first volume, they are shown to have lives and thoughts outside of Hideki, a fact that makes them more interesting than their equivalents in similar manga.

Chobits has a lot going on for it story-wise.  It's got a great sense of humor, which can't be said for most magical girlfriend manga.  On the other hand, much more effort is put towards the jokes than "boy falls into boobs" or "boy gets nosebleed from girl being sexy."  A lot of it stems more from Chii's innocent misunderstandings of everyday life and having no conversational filter.  It also tends to follow a lot of the usual story beats for such romances (boy meets girl, brings her home, buys her clothes, etc.), but by flipping a lot of the typical character roles and dynamics on their head CLAMP has breathed some life into this dull genre.

ART:
While the character designs here couldn't be mistaken for anything but CLAMP characters, they bear a stronger resemblance to the simpler forms of Angelic Layer or Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles than their previous shoujo works.  Another notable difference here is that this is one of the few CLAMP works with male-oriented fanservice.  They've never been short on manservice, what with all the pretty bishies who sometimes touch and pose in homoerotic ways, but Chii ends up flashing more than her fair share of cleavage and suggestive poses.  This can even be found in the otherwise lovely and delicate splash art, where Chii is the sole focus.  Of course, in context this suggestiveness is more than a bit awkward, considering her child-like nature.

The page composition here is rather restrained, which is surprising considering how often Hideki likes to fill his panels full of gasps, tears, and flailing.  While CLAMP does take advantage of the background for some additional jokes, they don't draw a lot of backgrounds and add a lot of screentone.  That restraint can even be found in those previously mentioned pieces of color artwork.  The color palatte there tends to be restrained to a lot of delicate pastels and flowery, natural settings.  It's an interestingly shoujo-esque affectation for what is meant to be a seinen work, but I suspect that that same flail helps to explain why this series appeals just as much to CLAMP's traditionally female audience as it does to the guys who normally read magical girlfriend manga.

RATING:
Chobits succeeds where so many magical girlfriend series fail because it's willing to subvert a lot of the usual tropes to create a narrative that embraces some of the weirdness within.  It also finds a way to combine seinen cheesecake with shoujo prettiness to create artwork that appeals to a wider audience.  Even those who are normally wary of such premises should give this series a chance.

This series was previous published by Tokyopop and is currently published by Dark Horse.  This series is complete in 5 volumes.  The single volumes from Tokyopop are out of print, but the 2 omnibus releases from Dark Horse are currently in print.

This volume and many more like it can be purchased through RightStuf.com!  If you buy through this link, part of the purchase go towards supporting The Manga Test Drive!

ONE VOLUME WONDER: The One I Love

Let's take a quick break to take a look at a tiny little CLAMP one-shot put out by Tokyopop back in the day when they would literally publish anything with CLAMP's name on it.

THE ONE I LOVE (Watashi na Sukinahito), by CLAMP.  First published in 1995, and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:
This anthology peeks into the lives of twelve young people united by a single concept: love.  Some are trying to gain it by winning the hearts of others and some may be trying to maintain it in their relationships, but all are connected by the various ways they experience love.

STORY:
This is CLAMP at their briefest and utmost fluffiest.  Depending on your mood and tolerance for fluffy shoujo cuteness, it can be entertaining, but all that brevity and fluff comes at the expense of depth and drama.

These are very brief vignettes, with none of them numbering over 10 pages in length.  As such, you only get the briefest sketch as to who our lead characters are.  Many are so brief that their leads don't even get the benefit of a name.  The conflicts within are also appropriately brief and simple, with most being variations on "Oh God, does he like me? Oh goodness, he DOES love me!" or "Oh no, he doesn't love me anymore!  Oh, my mistake, he actually does still love me!"  The stories are structured in a way that resembles the progression of a relationship, starting with stories about first love and building up all the way to a story about a bride with a case of pre-ceremony cold feet.  True to form, CLAMP did include a same-sex couple amongst these stories, and to their credit their story is treated no differently than the hetero ones.

All that being said, the collection is ultimately hurt to some degree by being so short and sweet.  In many ways, this anthology is like the manga version of cotton candy.  All that fluffy sweetness can be fun in the short term, but the pleasure is fleeting and there's little to no substance behind it.  This collection feels like CLAMP just took a bunch of half-baked outlines for scenes and draped the barest minimum of storyline upon them.  They didn't bother with character or drama, they simply threw out what they had so they could fill up a few pages, make a few yen, and then move on with the rest of their day.  The One I Love may be a pleasant read, but without anything serious to anchor it down it simply passes out of one's mind the moment the reader puts down the book.

ART:
The artwork here is just as cutesy as the story.  It's very much in the same vein as manga like CLAMP School Detectives, with lots of delicate linework and loads of chibis.  Backgrounds are rather minimal, with just a hint of floating petals or light washes of color or pattern to frame the characters.  Despite the small size of the book, the panels are large and spacious, which supports the overall lightness and airiness of the artwork.  The art may not be all that much more substantial than the story, but it's beautifully drawn and matches the sugar-sweet tone to a T.

PRESENTATION:
Despite being such a small, slender work, Tokyopop put some effort into making it look good.  The first few pages, along with the first chapter, are rendered in full color watercolors on heavy, textured paper.  There are notes from the members of CLAMP after each chapter, along with the chibi-heavy omakes that they made so frequently back in the day.

RATING:
While The One I Love is a sweet little confection with lovely artwork, all but the most dedicated CLAMP fans will consider this more of a curiosity than anything else.  It's enjoyable to consume, but lacks the substance needed to stick in one's memory.

This volume was published by Tokyopop, and is currently out of print. 

This volume and many more like it can be purchased through RightStuf.com!

Review: TSUBASA RESERVOIR CHRONICLES

Well, it's January once more, which means that it's time for another month full of CLAMP works.  To kick things off, let's take a look at one of CLAMP's biggest, most notorious, and most intimidating works.

TSUBASA RESERvoir CHRoNiCLES (Tsubasa: Rezaboa Kuronikuru), by CLAMP.  First published in 2003, and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:
On the world of Clow, Syaoran spends his days working on archeological sites when he's not spending time with his oldest friend, Princess Sakura.  When she comes to visit him at the mysterious ruins he's excavating, she is seized by unknown forces that scatter her memories to the winds and leave her unconscious and on the brink of death.  Now Syaoran now must travel to another world to find a way to save Sakura before it's too late.

On the world of Nihon, the warrior Kurogane is the fiercest, most fearless swordfighter in all of the kingdom, but it's come at the cost of his humanity.  In an attempt to teach humility and the value of life, the Princess Tomoyo sends Kurogane away to another world, even as he wishes only to return to his own.

On the world of Celes, the mage Fai D. Flowright has sealed King Ashura in a crystal tomb under a deep pool of water for reasons only known to Fai himself.  Now he needs to escape to another world in the hopes of escaping his troubled past.

All four find themselves transported to Yuuko, the Space-Time Witch.  She can help all of their causes, but at a steep personal price for each member.  Now they must team up together along with Yuuko's creation Mokona to travel between other, distant worlds to recover Sakura's memories and find the solutions to their own troubles.

STORY:
A lot of people feel intimidated by Tsubasa.  They know that it's this sprawling series with numerous cross-overs to CLAMP's other previous works.  As such, some think that the only way one can get Tsubasa is to read all their other manga first, and for many that's simply too much homework to do for a single shonen series.  Speaking as both an honest reviewer and as someone who has read most of CLAMP's works, I can say with some certainty Tsubasa can be in fact enjoyed on its own merits.  Yes, there is a lot of crossovers and cameos, but the characters and settings are altered enough that even those who have never touched a CLAMP book previous can follow and enjoy this series on their own.

That being said, there are a LOT of CLAMP cameos in just this single volume alone.  It features cameos or alternate versions of characters from:

• Cardcaptor Sakura
• xxxHolic
• X/1999
• Chobits
• RG Veda
• Miyuki-Chan In Wonderland
• Magic Knight Rayearth

Their inclusion doesn't interrupt the flow of the story, though.  If you can recognize them, then it's a fun little bonus for a fan, but you don't have to know a thing about them to continue.  This is even true for the characters from Tsubasa's sister series xxxHolic.  Yes, Yuuko is the one who sets our main cast upon their way and serves as the primary source of exposition, but one doesn't need to know the events of that universe to understand what's going on here.

That's even true for our leading man and lady.  While they do share names and basic personality points with the Sakura and Syaoran of Cardcaptor Sakura, they are not the same characters.  In all fairness, it's harder to say that for Sakura than for Syaoran, but that's because she spends most of this volume in a coma and as such we don't learn much about her beyond the odd flashback.  Still, that lets them fit in smoothly with the original characters of Fai and Kurogane.  Those two have long been the most popular cast members, and it's easy to see why.  While their respective dilemmas are quite opposite of one another, both are simple and compelling in their own right.  The two also form what is essentially a manzai duo, with Fai being the one dishing out the sly jokes and teasing and Kurogane being the straightman whose frustration is always met with laughter.  Admittedly, this is used mostly for a bit of ship-teasing on CLAMP's part, which was (and still is by many) met with enthusiastic approval.  Still, I enjoyed that they were treated as characters in their own rights with their own issues and dynamic and not just the chaperones for the rather milquetoast leads.

I do have to say that as a shonen series, Tsubasa starts off on a strong note.  It doesn't waste any time introducing our main quartet, setting them upon their quest, and ending on a cliffhanger fight.  It doesn't rush through things, but neither does it have the glacial pacing of its animated counterpart.  The tone is light and breezy, and exposition dumps are kept to a minimum.  Tsubasa really is just a very pleasant sort of action-adventure story, and it does a good job at finding the balance between introducing the cast and premise and getting the plot proper moving.  It has a lot of callbacks for the fans, but they don't get in the way of telling the story or engage those new to CLAMP.

ART:
The artwork here is very much in the same vein as previous shonen and seinen works from CLAMP like Angelic Layer and Chobits.  The linework is dark and thick, but the long, lanky bodies and faces are far more simple and less stylized than those of their older works or the finer, more elegant style of xxxHolic.  In particular, I really like Kurogane's striking visual design, who spends most of the volume looking like a block of stark black accented only by his face and a few minor details. 

There's not a lot of action here, and most of what we see is the sort of swirly tendrils of magic that fill the page instead of a lot of hack-and-slash sort of fighting.  The page composition is rather free and easy, with plenty of big, roomy splash panels and characters often spilling out over the panel borders, and this is emphasized by the fact that backgrounds are rare and sparsely drawn.  There's just a general sort of lightness to the art which fits the tone of the story perfectly and helps visually distinguish Tsubasa from CLAMP works of both past and present.

RATING:
In spite of its reputation, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles can be just as enjoyable to a CLAMP newcomer as it can be to the hardened fan.  It's a light and breezy adventure helmed by an engaging cast (well, half of one at least) and it's simple a well-assembled bit of shonen.

This series is published by Kodansha Comics, formerly Del-Ray.  This series is complete in Japan in 28 volumes, and all have been published in North America.  The single volume releases are out of print, but the series is currently available in 3-in-1 omnibuses, of which 3 are currently in print.

This volume and many more like it can be purchase through RightStuf.com!

No, I don't get why the title is so randomly capitalized.  I doubt even CLAMP knows at this point.

Review: xxxHOLIC

Well, as CLAMP Month comes to an end and my birthday grows ever nearer, it's time to take a look at not only my favorite CLAMP work, but one of my favorite manga ever.  Consider this a birthday present from myself to my readers as we conclude:

xxxHOLIC (Horikku), by CLAMP.  First published in 2003, and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT: 
Kimihiro Watanuki is a lonely young man with a big problem.  You see, not only can he see spirits, but they are voraciously drawn to him, tormenting and threatening him on a daily basis.  Their torments lead Watanuki to stumble (quite literally) upon a mysterious little shop that drives them away.  The shop belongs to Yuuko, a self-proclaimed witch who grants wishes to those who need them.  She recognizes Watanuki's gift, and she makes him a deal: she will find a way to keep the spirits at bay, but in turn he must work for her.  Watanuki agrees, but he soon finds himself over his head.  Not only is he now stuck as Yuuko's in-house cook, servant, and go-fer, but he discovers that Yuuko can indeed grant wishes, sometimes at a terrible price.

STORY:
Being my favorite CLAMP series, it's hard for me to explain this series without either launching into fangirl squeeing or massive spoilers, but I shall try to do my best.

So, what makes xxxHolic so appealing?  I think part of it comes from our two leads and the way they play off one another.  Watanuki is a surprisingly comic lead, as he is often angrily (and vocally) overreacting to...well, just about everything that's strange.  It's never stated outright, but it's clear that Watanuki wants to be normal.  He's also stubbornly independent, wanting to be dependent upon no one save for his lovely classmate Himawari.  Of course, being responsible, he'll do what he's told, he'll just grumble the whole way through, especially as Yuuko teases him and presses all of his buttons.  Still, we do occasionally see him in calmer moods, where he gets to demonstrate some compassion and understanding of others, and it's these moments take keep Watanuki from being purely comic relief. 

So what about Yuuko?  The long and short of it is that she's a genuinely fun character, even if you can understand at times why Watanuki finds her frustrating.  Off the job she's a playful tease and a lush, taking delight in commanding Watanuki and setting off his all-too-short temper to get a reaction.  Yet when she's on the job, she's at once cryptic, sage, and deadly serious in her efforts to help her customers.  We also occasionally get glimpses of something more affectionate in her, be it the way she coddles her familiars Maru and Moru or her own admiration of Watanuki's potential.  These shifts in tone never feel too jarring, like one is something affected for the benefit of others; it simply feels like part of a single, complex, and endlessly interesting character.

The title "xxxHolic" is meant to represent addiction, with the "xxx" standing in as a blank space.  This theme of addiction is prevalent in the customers we meet in this volume: one who is habitual liar, and another who cannot tear herself away from the Internet.  Yuuko's solutions to their problems are unconventional, to say the least, and not always in the client's favor.  But then, as Yuuko notes, she can only do so much unless the client wants to change - she cannot simply magic their problems away.  The story does feel rather episodic in a 'monster of the week' sort of way, at least until the end when the story collides with its sister series, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles.  At this point it's impossible to say how the interweaving of the two series will play out.  CLAMP is notorious for bring characters from their multiverse into their works, but it's usually only in the form of cameos, little nods or in-jokes for long-time fans.  How well this more direct form of crossover will work out will partially depend on the plot of both series, and partially on one's own opinion of both xxxHolic and Tsubasa.

Ultimately, xxxHolic's appeal lies in how well crafted its lead are and how well they play off one another, which for me was more fun and interesting than the more obvious supernatural elements.

ART:
xxxHolic features what may be some of my favorite artwork by CLAMP, as it marries the more ornate, Gothic style of their past with the simpler, more streamlined qualities of their modern works.  The character designs are very much in line with CLAMP's modern style - in other words, a lot of long limbed crazy noodle people.  They also have a lot of fun playing dress up with these weird, gangly people, and nowhere is that more evident than with Yuuko.  Yuuko is visually striking with her long dark hair and wide variety of robes and dresses, each more lovely and fantastical than the last.  Mind you, on the covers and chapter splash pages, every cast member gets a chance to lounge about in gorgeous, heavily patterned robes and things.

What is most striking about xxxHolic's art is not in the details, but its overall visual style.  There's a sleekness and elegance about the characters which makes them work in spite of their gangliness.  It also can be found in the panel composition, as CLAMP makes a lot of use of stark black washes for backgrounds, where the only highlights come from the characters faces and the ever present curliques of smoke, magic, and spirits.  The panels are tightly focused on the characters, but CLAMP uses a lot of different angles and a lot of panel sizes to keep things interesting.  The page composition is rather straightforward, but spacious, giving the art plenty of breathing space.  Backgrounds are variable, ranging from well-drawn and mundane to dense hatching to blank white.

The art of xxxHolic is sleek, dark, elegant, and beautiful, and it's a perfect match for the story within.

PRESENTATION:
Those who are lucky enough to have a copy from the first print run may have color pages in the front, duplicates of the first few pages and the chapter splash page.  True to form for a Del Ray/Kodansha release, there is an honorifics guide in the front and copious translation notes in the back. 

RATING:

Did you expect anything less?  xxxHolic is first and foremost a visual treat, but it's also fun to read thanks to the dynamic between its two leads and the fact that unlike its sister series, it's not so entrenched in CLAMP cannon.  It's one of my favorite manga ever and I heartily recommend it.

This series is published in the USA by Kodansha, formerly Del Ray.  The series is currently being rebooted in Japan, but all 19 volumes have been released and are currently in print. 

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

One Volume Wonder: MIYUKI-CHAN IN WONDERLAND

CLAMP has plenty of long running series, but they also have a lot of one-shot manga, some that were cut off before their time due to a magazine ending, and others simply meant as self-contained works.  Today we look at one of their more self-contained works as not only a One Volume Wonder, but as part of:

MIYUKI-CHAN IN WONDERLAND (Fushigi no Kuni no Miyuki-chan), by CLAMP.  First published in 1993, and first published in North America in 2003.

PLOT:
Miyuki is an ordinary girl who can't seem to stop getting swept up into strange new worlds, be it an all-girl version of Wonderland, a mah-jong manga, a JRPG, or even the world of X.  Every time she enters one of these alternate worlds, she is all but assaulted by beautiful, scantily clad women who flirt with the clueless Miyuki and try to take her clothes off.  What on earth can a normal girl do to survive with her sanity, virtue, and wardrobe intact?

STORY:
Rarely have I ever read a work by CLAMP that felt so half-baked.  Most of these chapters could be summed up in a single phrase, and they're so brief that there's barely any action (in every sense of that word).

Miyuki is a cipher - all we know about her by volume's end is some of her taste in media and that she tends to be late for just about everything.  She's also completely passive in her own story, always sucked into a world against her will, passed about, and abused.  She might as well have been replaced with a mannequin for all the action she takes.

I'll admit that I was initially sold on this series due to usually being summarized as a 'yuri sex comedy.'  After all, there's plenty of male-oriented ecchi titles out there, but rarely any that are yuri-oriented and rarer still to be connected to such a well-known mangaka group.  Sadly, the stories are all too brief and all too tame to live up to that phrase.  Miyuki just keeps getting passed from one scantily-clad woman to another, all who are dressed according to the theme of the chapter.  The sauciest the story gets is when Miyuki gets stripped or has her clothes torn off, something which happens with startling frequency.  It's a strange thing to find myself complaining that a story doesn't have ENOUGH fanservice, but a sex comedy without much sexiness feels weak and even a bit empty.

The worst chapter is the one that I initially had the most hope for: Miyuki in X Land.  There, Miyuki is sucked into the X universe while watching the movie adaptation in the theater (and frankly, she should be thankful for that, considering the X movie is a beautiful, shallow, confusing mess).  I briefly hoped that CLAMP would take this chance to have some fun or at least make some fourth-wall breaking jokes about their own super-serious, dramatic, and violent series, but my hopes were soon dashed.  Instead, the various female cast members believe her to be the Kamui and beg her to join their side, only for her to pop back out of the screen. 

It's clear that while CLAMP at least had an idea or gimmick for each chapter, they had NO IDEA how to end them, which is why the vast majority of the chapters end with Miyuki just snapping out of the alternate world for...er...um...reasons, followed by "THE END...OR IS IT?"  It's insanely lazy, but then why put effort into an ending when so little effort was applied to the beginning and middle of the story?  Miyuki-Chan doesn't work as yuri, as a comedy, as a fanservice piece, or as a manga.  It's just a half-finished bunch of story sketches with a bunch of sexy set dressings.

ART:
 The character design is very much in line with CLAMP's classic style, so everyone is very willowy, pointy, and broad-shouldered with dark, lush eyes.  CLAMP was clearly using this manga to clear out a backlog of unusued female character designs, and each one is distinct and pretty.  If I haven't made it plain by now, there is a lot of cheesecake in this volume, with plenty of cleavage, bondage, and suggested nudity.

The panels are surprisingly cluttered for CLAMP, as they are filled to the brim with swirling hair, magic, and speed lines but the panels are too small to give those effects the space they need.  The page composition is also rather packed, which again is unusual for CLAMP, so the art just has no space whatsoever.  In the end, the artstyle might appeal to those who enjoy CLAMP's classic style, but they damn near drown in the overly busy pages and the whole work comes off as cluttered.

PRESENTATION:
Like most of CLAMP's older works, there's a cute omake comic where CLAMP in chibi form discuss working on this and the Miyuki-Chan OVA.  There are also quite a few color splash pages in the front, as well as color pages of character designs and story art for the OVA in the back.

RATING:
This odd, pointless little work is not all that sexy and definitely not funny.  Maybe we can all hope this manga was just a strange dream...OR WAS IT?!

No, wait, it was real, and it sucked.

This volume was published in the USA by Tokyopop, and is now out of print.

You can purchase manga like this and much more through RightStuf.com!

Review: KOBATO

We've been lingering a while on CLAMP's past, but let's take things closer to the present with their most recent finished series, in this new installment of:

KOBATO, by CLAMP.  First published in 2005, and first published in North America in 2010.

PLOT: 
Kobato is a girl who has a wish, and to get that wish she has to earn a magical bottle with the help of Ioryogi, a brash, hard-drinking, fire-breathing blue dog plushie.  She has to earn the bottle by proving herself capable of navigating the everyday events and some of the holidays of Japanese life.  Once she earns her bottle, she manages to find a job with a down-on-its-luck kindergarden in need of helpers.  Will Kobato be able to fill her bottle with the healed hearts of those in need?

STORY: 
Kobato is a cute and lighthearted story, but it takes waaaaay too long to get to the point.

3/4s of the volume is spent on watching Kobato earn her magic bottle, and CLAMP mostly uses this to riff on a lot of seasonal Japanese cliches.  The biggest problem with that it's incredibly repetitive: Kobato is sent out to demonstrate her common sense about [insert event/holiday here], she screws up a lot, but manages to make things work out in the end, earning some points from Ioryogi.  Worse still, this repetition gets tedious FAST.  Oh sure, there are a few hints about Ioryogi's true nature, and there are plenty of cameos from characters from other CLAMP works (specifically from Chobits, Suki, xxxHolic, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Angelic Layer), but these alone are not enough to save the reader from tedium by the sixth or seventh time they've had to read essentially the same freaking chapter.

Once Kobato gets her bottle and gets her new job, the plot finally gets going...only it doesn't because so much time was spent on earning the bottle that the actual plot won't get going until the next volume.  We only get enough space to get Kobato to the kindergarden and to introduce the two caretakers there (the kindly teacher Sayaka and the grumpy part-timer Fujimoto).  This wouldn't have been so much of an issue in its original serialization, but in book form it's a bit frustrating to finally get somewhere, only to find out that the plot doesn't really start until the next volume.

Kobato is very typical for a CLAMP heroine, in that she is sweet, naive, and a little bit ditzy.  She's also hopelessly klutzy, something which is mined constantly for jokes.  Basically, she's so moe that it almost hurts, and it's played complete straight, which may frustrate those of you who are not moe fans to begin with.  There are hints, but little is explained of Kobato's background, so questions like "Why does she need to make a wish?" or "How did she end up with Ioryogi?" or even "Why can't she ever remove her hat?" will simply have to wait for an eventual answer.

Ioryogi at times seems like a crasser version of Cardcaptor Sakura's Kero-chan, being a small plush-toy like being with a big mouth and even bigger appetites, but Ioryogi is much more abusive and blunt than that; he spends a lot of time yelling, smacking, or breathing fire at Kobato when she screws up.  He's not completely without heart, though, and through his gruffness he is trying his best to guide her, keep an eye on her, and keep her focused.  His backstory is also a mystery, as all we learn about him is that his current plush form and name are not his true ones, and that he has some sort of rivalry with an eyepatch-wearing hare named Ginsei. 

Storywise, I feel like CLAMP spent too much time with the set-up and not enough with the actual story, riffing on cultural cliches instead of exploring the main plot or characters, and thus this first volume may drive readers away before the story truly gets going.

ART: 
I guess it's appropriate that some of the characters are reminscient of Cardcaptor Sakura, as the artstyle is also very similiar to that series.  Both are full of soft, sweet cuteness and are drawn with very fine linework.  There are elements from CLAMP's more modern style, as Kobato does spend a fair bit of time in Angelic Layer-style superdeformed mode, and the character designs for the adults are very much in line with the long-limbed, rectangular designs for works like Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and xxxHolic.  The panels are rather simply drawn, with few backgrounds and a lot of close-ups.  The pages, on the other hand, tend to be much looser in composition with a fair bit of image layering and a nice variety of panel shapes and sizes.  Kobato isn't CLAMP most visually striking works, but it is delicate, pretty, and easy to follow.

PRESENTATION:
There's a color splash page in the front, and translation notes in the back.

RATING:
CLAMP's artwork is as lovely and light, but it takes too long for the story to get to a point beyond a lot of tired riffs on holidays and moe klutziness.

This series is published in the USA by Yen Press.  All 6 volumes were published, and all are currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

Review: RG VEDA

My month long tribute continues, this time by taking things all the way back to CLAMP's first published original story, as yet another part of:

RG VEDA (Seiden: Rigu Veda), by CLAMP.  First published in 1989, and first published in North America in 2005.

PLOT: 
In a mythological land, the wicked king Taishakuten has overthrown the king and now rules the realm with an iron fist, even going so far to slaughter the Ashura tribe for daring to oppose him.  One day, he sends his finest general, Lord Yana, to force his wayward stargazer to prophecize for him, but Yana learns that her prophecy is about Taishakuten's downfall.  She tells of a child who will bring together six warriors who will in turn bring down the king.  Shortly thereafter, Yana discovers a strange baby trapped within a tree in a dense, ancient woodland, who grows quickly into a child who calls himself Ashura.  Taishakuten wants Ashura dead, but Yana chooses to take mercy on the child and goes on the run.  Now the two wander the land seeking allies all while trying to keep themselves alive.

STORY:
This may be CLAMP's first professionally published story, but you wouldn't know this was a debut just from reading it.  While the story follows a lot of the conventions of fantasy stories, it's solidly written, polished to a gleam, and confident.

For all its vaguely Hindu trappings (right down to the name, which is a reference to the Rigveda, an ancient collection of Hindu hymns), this story has a lot of its roots in traditional fantasy and mythological storytelling and thus features a lot of familiar archetypes.  You've got a wicked king, a brave warrior, a supernatural child who is part of a prophecy, and so on and so forth, all of it played serious and straight.  Now because these tropes are so familiar, one might think that the story would be highly predictable - stop at Place A, pick up a. few allies, repeat until party is complete, battle a few minor bosses, then head to the final stage for the big boss battle.  CLAMP subverts this to a degree by staging Yana's quest more like one long chase, where he and Ashura must always keep one step ahead of Taishakuten's forces and fight off those they cannot outrun.  This becomes complicated by the very presence of Ashura himself. 

When Yana first found him, he saw a vision of a full-grown Ashura stating that a great evil had been released onto the world, and that he will grow up to kill Yana.  Sure, Ashura seems like a sweet and innocent child, but he also possesses great supernatural power which frightens those who would conceal them, and there's the fact that almost every person they befriend tends to end up dead.  Thus, Yana often finds himself questioning the vision he saw - did he make the right choice when he chose to save the child, and just what is the true nature of Ashura?  There isn't an answer yet, as of the first volume, and Yana's conflict between his own unease and his fondness for Ashura pervades the volume.

This series is unusual when viewed as part of the greater CLAMP cannon, as there aren't any of their signature gut-punch twists or genre-twisting; this story is (so far) played straight.  Still, they did manage to craft a solid fantasy story from those familiar tropes which is full of tautly paced action.

ART:
While CLAMP had yet to perfect their own storytelling style, they had clearly perfected their own visual style.  The character designs here are very much in line with CLAMP's classic style, with willowly bodies, linebacker-wide shoulders, large, shining cat-like eyes, and the use of chibis for the admittedly brief and uncommon silly moments.  The pages are full of long, flowing hair, as well as swirling tendrils of flame and magic that seem to brim with life of their own.  The page composition is rather free and easy, breaking out the larger panels and even some 2-page spreads for the action scenes and big dramatic moments and layering smaller panels over these.  It sounds like a mess in words, but on the page it works; while the artwork can be dense, it is never too busy to be followed or too cluttered to be attractive, although the big hair and heavy, pointy jawlines do reek of the 1980s.

RG Veda's art is a tiny bit dated by today's standards, but it's full of vibrancy and features CLAMP's classic style.

PRESENTATION:
Like most of CLAMP's earlier works, there's a silly little omake in the back where CLAMP themselves (in chibi form) talk about themselves and update their fans on their then-current newsletter.  There's also a strange bonus chapter that goes nowhere and is frankly too random to be truly funny.

RATING:

Both fans of CLAMP and fans of fantasy will find a lot to love about RG Veda, be it the solid storytelling or the lovely art.

This series was published by Tokyopop.  All 10 volumes were published, and all are currently out of print.

You can purchase manga like this and much more through RightStuf.com!

Review: ANGELIC LAYER

I'm back!  It's a brand new year, a brand new month, and a brand new theme!  January is the month of my birthday (the 29th, to be precise), and as such I decided to focus on something that I love and on works that I really, really want to review, an idea I've had since the creation of this blog.

Thus, this month will be all about everyone's favorite doujinshi circle turned team of legendary manga creators, CLAMP.

The first selection for CLAMP monthh will focus on one of the many CLAMP series Dark Horse has licenced rescued and released in omnibus form.  CLAMP has always made an effort to try and subvert the genres and accompanying cliches of the manga they work on, and today's selection is one of the simplest yet enjoyable subversions.

ANGELIC LAYER (Enjerikku Reiya), by CLAMP.  First published in 1999, and first published in North America in 2002.

PLOT:  Misaki Suzuhara is moving to Tokyo to live with her aunt, as her mother went away for a job when Misaki was a small child.  She barely has time to step off the train before she's exposed to the craze that is Angelic Layer, a gaming tournament where people compete by using customized dolls controlled by their thoughts to fight.  Misaki soon runs into a strange man in a lab coat who calls himself "Icchan," who ends up convincing her to stock up on just about everything a girl could need to equip her own Angel.  Misaki quickly takes to the game, and she ends up joining the Angelic Layer tournament, where her ability to remember and imitate the moves of others helps her to advance.  Will Misaki become an Angelic Layer champion?  And why is Icchan so invested in getting Misaki into Angelic Layer?

STORY:  The story structure here should be one very familiar to shonen fans: a plucky young lead wants to be the best [insert subject] ever, so they fight their way to the top, all while making friends and learning lessons and so on.  So, what makes Angelic Layer different from the rest?  Well, this is a shonen fighting tournament series with shoujo sensibilities.

As I said before, you almost expect some sort of twist or subversion with a CLAMP work, and Angelic Layer features what may be the simplest twist on a genre they've written: take a shonen fighting tournament, and make the vast majority of the competitors (and their battle dolls) female.  It seems like a simple change, but by doing so they shift the  focus of the story - more on that later.

Of course, like many CLAMP works, there's a reference to one or more of their other works.  In this case, Misaki names and models  her doll off of Magic Knight Rayearth's Hikaru.  Also like many CLAMP works, it stars a girl who is not terribly bright, but good at domestic chores, and remains cheerful and friendly through most situations.  Because of her gentle nature, she's very different from the usual tournament lead: she has no particular interest in winning Angelic Layer.  She's simply in it to learn and have fun, and she's more focused on the well-being of her doll than she is with her ranking.  This is where the aforementioned shoujo sensibilities enter the picture - the focus here isn't on winning and losing, but on emotion and friendship.  Indeed, Misaki soon assembles a group of pleasant, if not terribly complex schoolmates, including a violent, tomboyish girl and a rather bland Love Interest Guy.  There are a couple of character that do stand out, though.

The first of these is Hakuto, the little sister of Love Interest Guy who is an Angelic Layer prodigy.  She is a fierce competitor - indeed, she defeats Misaki early on, and only circumstance keeps Misaki in the tournament - but she also admires Misaki and becomes not only a fan, but a friend.  The second of these character is easily my favorite, as they bring the lion's share of the humor in this series.  Of course, I'm talking about Icchan, with his penchant for wiggly surprise entrances and bizarre punishments for his assistant.  We soon learn that he is the creator of Angelic Layer, and that he encourages her at Angelic Layer for still-unknown reasons which seem to have something to do with her mother.  Thus, he not only provides comic relief, but he also brings with him another emotional plot thread for Misaki to follow.  Sure, he's something of a blatant plot device, always prodding Misaki forward, but at least he's an amusing plot device.

Angelic Layer is built upon a familiar skeleton, but it fleshes out its story with a few little twists and a lot of charm and humor and thus helps it to stand out from its genremates.

ART:  Being a shonen work by CLAMP, the artstyle here is much less stylized and detailed than their previous or (then) contemporary shoujo works.  The style here is similiar to that seen in Chobits and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles, with simplified character designs and broader, darker linework.  Angelic Layer is at time even more simplified that those works, as the characters are transformed in wackier moments into flapping and flailing paper doll-like sihouettes.  Even in this simplified form, the  characters are distinct, attractive, and expressive.

CLAMP does put a bit more effort into the fight scenes, even if it seems that the dolls damn near drown in speed lines at times.  In spite of that, the poses are strong and there's a very strong sense of fluidity in the panels.  There's a lot of visual variety in the panel size, which naturally tends to expand during the battles.  Surprisingly, the backgrounds are surpringly absent - CLAMP tends to either leave them blank or break out the speed lines.  It's a touch lazy for CLAMP, but it's a minor fault.

Angelic Layer's art is as simple as its heroine, but also like her it's not without its charms, namely that it's also light, fluid, and attractive.

PRESENTATION:  This is one of the rare situations where I have read both the original single release and the omnibus rerelease.  I don't recall any extras present in the Tokyopop singles, but the Dark Horse omnibuses do feature color art at the beginning and end of the book.

RATING:
Angelic Layer is a simple but endearing entry into the CLAMP cannon, one that would be easy for a CLAMP novice to get into  and a pleasant diversion for established CLAMP fans.

This series was formerly published by Tokyopop, and was rescued by Dark Horse.  All 5 volumes were released by Tokyopop, and all 5 are out of print.  The first of two omnibuses have been released by Dark Horse, and is currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!