Merry Month of (Shojo) Manga: HYPER RUNE

Shojo and sci-fi are two flavors that go together like chocolate and peanut butter, but there are definitely ways to screw up that combo and today review is an example of just that.

HYPER RUNE (Saiba Puranetto 1999: Hyper Rune), by Tamayo Akiyama.  First published in 1995 and first published in North America in 2004.

PLOT:

Rune Ayanokouji just wants to be a normal 8th grade girl, but her mad scientist grandfather keeps saying that she's some sort of space queen who needs to needs to save the universe, forcing her into ridiculously ornate costumes.  Meanwhile, Rune just wants her dreamy childhood friend Masaya to notice her.  Little does she know that her grandpa is completely correct, and intergalactic fighters disguised as humans are on their way to either protect her or try to stop her.

STORY:

There might be a good idea for a shojo-style sci-fi story in here, but it's hard to tell because Akiyama doesn't give the reader a single moment to rest, much less digest what the hell is going on.  There's a lot going on here, between the different factions, the different identities within them, and all of the silly slice-of-life stuff (which is treated more like a joke than anything else). 

Maybe it wouldn't feel so confusing if any of them possessed a personality to speak of.  Instead, they are just DROWNING in lore, all of it delivered with the breathless speed of a cocaine high and the subtlety of an Acme anvil.  You'd think that this was another one-shot with how much Akiyama is rushing things.  That too might be more compelling if it possessed any sort of real identity, but not even the backstory is all that distinct.  Instead it feels like bits and pieces stolen from other works, all of it pasted together like letters on a ransom note.  Together it becomes a constant, grating parade of noise and anime cliches that only becomes more dull as it goes along.

ART:

As noted before, the only thing Akiyama is known for is being part of CLAMP in their doujin circle days, and her artstyle never evolved beyond that point.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if (like me) you enjoy CLAMP's old-school style.  The problem is that Akiyama isn't as good of an artist as the actual members of CLAMP.  Her character models can never shake the feeling of an amateur copying designs from a "how to draw manga" book. 

It's a shame because she gets kind of ambitious here with Rune's many fanciful 'space queen' costumes and the battle suits that the various cast members use to fight one another.  There's an angular and sleek beauty of them that sells the reader on them being literally alien technology.  Alas, Akiyama is poor at panel lay-out and worse still with action, so a lot of it is obscured.  Honestly, it's impressive that she can take so much from such a talented group of  artists but not once figure how to make it her own or improve herself as an artist.

RATING:


Hyper Rune is chaotic, derivative, and not worth reading.  I don't know who at Tokyopop was convinced that CLAMP fans would accept Akiyama because of how close her works resembles theirs, but they were completely and utterly wrong.

This series was published by Tokyopop.  This series is complete in Japan with 4 volumes available.  All 4 were published and are currently out of print.