WARNING: CLAMP fans will probably hate the introduction to this post. Simply skip to the review proper if you consider yourself a fan of CLAMP and their work.
My experience with CLAMP manga hasn’t been an exceptional one. Each of the CLAMP manga I’ve read has at least one, if not more than one, reason for me to hate it – and I really mean hate instead of simple dislike. For example: Magic Knight Rayaerth‘s bullshit plot, Chobit‘s bullshit ‘theme’, Card Captor’s Sakura‘s bullshit relationships, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle‘s bullshit action, and Angelic Layer‘s complete bullshit. Even as a series I like, XXXHolic gives me grieves with its bullshit connection to Tsubasa. The connection doesn’t add anything to either stories, and it’s purely a gimmick to forcce readers to read both manga. It pisses me off that while I really enjoy reading XXXholic for its interesting stories, I’m forced to feel like I’m missing out on some things because I don’t follow Tsubasa, which has a really weak story (up to the point where I dropped it anyway) and unintelligable action scenes.
So I’m reviewing Kobato now, 4 chapters into its serialisation proper, before I find something to really hate about it as well. This review covers Kobato (Temp) chapter 1-7 and Kobato Exam 1-4.
Note: There are currently two incarnations of Kobato – Kobato (Temporary) and Kobato. The temporary version was in serialisation before the proper version, and runs for seven chapters. The proper version has 4 chapters scanlated so far, and shares characters with the temporary version, though it remains to be seen whether Kobato’s relationships with them will be the same as in the temp version.
With that out of that way, let’s start the review proper.
Story
Kobato Hanato arrives in a new city with her laser-shooting-fire-breathing pet(?) Ioryogi-san. In order to fulfill a wish, Kobato must fill up a bottle with the broken hearts she heals, and with this in mind she wanders around the city looking for people to help.
And that’s it.
Thoughts
The first thing that should strike you when you read Kobato is that, in typical CLAMP style, the drawing is fantastic. The coloured covers are done in a dreamy pastel palette that fits Kobato perfectly, and they’re absolutely beautiful to behold. The black and white drawings take a departure from the two other recent CLAMP titles and makes a return to the more sketchy, dreamy shoujo style seen in their earlier works, but it continues the trend of using minimal screentones. Personally, I love the art style in Kobato. I prefer it over both Tsubasa and XXXholic, though both of those have their own charm. CLAMP also uses a lot of chibi in Kobato, which fits with the light-hearted tone of the story.
Kobato herself is a klutz with zero common sense – in one scene she opens a big bag of garbbage for crows to feast on, thinking that it would reduce waste. In another scene she asks to spend a night at a hotel with a stranger, thinking that’s what you give as a present on Christmas. This lack of common sense opens up a lot of oppurtunity for comedy, with a lot of gags ending in Ioryogi-san blasting Kobato with his laser beam. The combined effect of Kobato’s cheerful and klutzy personality and the omni-present chibi is that Kobato is a very cute and feel-good manga.
That will probably change as the story progresses, as it’s all about Kobato healing people whose hearts have been hurt. It’s likely to take an episodic approach like XXXholic where we meet different characters in each arc, and many of those characters will have a burden that will dampen the bright, cheery aura that surrounds Kobato. This can be seen in the later chapters of Kobato (Temp). But since it’s all about how Kobato heals those hurts, it should still ultimately be a feel-good manga with strong comedic elements. It’s still early in its serialisation, so we’ll have to wait and see if Kobato really continues its feel-good trend.
In the end, Kobato‘s story is shallow. If you’re looking for compelling characters with deep story elements, Kobato is not the place to go to. However, if you want something that’s cute and funny, Kobato is the manga for you. Add to that CLAMP’s stylish and beautiful art, it’s hard to find another manga to recommend over Kobato with it’s gorgeous art, cute set-pieces and light-hearted comedy.
Comparisons
Ichigo Mashimaro: Kobato’s comedy isn’t as over-the-top as the type often seen in Ichigo Mashimaro (courtesy of the annoying Miu), and the art is a different kind of beautiful. It’s cute in a different sort of way as well – where as IchiMashi is more of a base cute that appeals to your instinct, Kobato’s is a more heart-warming cute that appeals more to your emotions. It’s hard to describe and compare, but if IchiMashi is like seeing cute girls in cute dresses, Kobato is like seeing a mother bird feeding its babies.
Penguin Revolution: They’re not really that similar, but the art for both are pretty and cute. PR isn’t as stylish or detailed as CLAMP, but I often find myself just staring at the beautiful characters (mainly Ryou as a girl… shit what did writing for Impz do to me!?). In terms of story PR is a much more typical shoujo, but that’s an entirely seperate review.
Verdict: 4/5 Ioryogi-san would stop blasting Dobato if she drew this manga.
37 Comments
Despite your harsh opinions about CLAMP at the beginning I expected the review to have at least a bit more meat on it. I call this writing bullshit.
Lol, For anoy, it will definitely be much better if you will provide a bit more insight for the rest of us so as to understand what you mean. I actually felt that I know a little bit more about the manga from Lupus’ review, as it feels like a very happy-go-lucky manga with beautiful art, as well as a rather typical ditsy female lead.
It is always nice, be it flamers, readers or stalkers (ha ha ha!) to have criticism for us. Thanks nevertheless, even though we always appreciate improvement points than anything else.
No one reads CLAMP for the story.
You must revel at the art.
For someone who hates CLAMP manga, you’ve read quite a lot of it.
I haven’t really looked into the non-temporary version, so I’m not sure if the random CLAMP-esque references are still in there. Well, likely I’ve already checked and found the answer, but am blanking on it at the moment.
Anon: If you can tell me what I can improve on (i.e. what else I should cover) I will gladly do so. I think I’ve adequately given my opinion of the manga in its current form. What more would you like me to add to give it more meat?
I’m very bad at writing reviews, so any advice would be very much appreciated.
Lainforce: That’s only partly true. I actually read XXXHolic because I feel both the story and characters are very compelling.
DKellis: Yeah… I stopped reading most of them through the middle though, don’t quite know why I keep reading new CLAMP manga despite what I think of the previous ones.
I’ve yet to read Kobato, since it only has 4 chapters so far and I hate waiting for more so I’ll just “ignore” it until it has more to read on xD
Actually, Holic’s ties with Tsubasa’s is getting stronger than the “bullshit connection” with the latest chapters
But we still don’t know what the connection is, and since Holic is on a break to make way for a certain plot to “happen” in Tsubasa, it might take a while still to know…
Lupus, I’d say your writing was specifically called bullshit by the first commentator because you excessively used the word bullshit to describe these mangas.
Bullshit is good. It fertilises the ground. Clamp is NOT bullshit. Clamp is more like.. potassium cyanide. Apply on and cause death!
Nononono… CLAMP is all about the spontaneous blindness. You just wait and see. Sooner or later, somebody in Kobato WILL lose an eyeball.
Cheers.
Anon: At least post a name where Lupus can get feedback from.
Lupus: Your review’s awfully vague in nature — 11 chapters and the only things you can say from the two paragraphs “That will (…) light-hearted comedy” hardly tell me anything. Probably another two paragraphs would’ve made it a lot more better, IMO. But that’s about it.
And yeah, Danny probably has it down pat. I’d use “inadequate” or “lacking” if it wasn’t for the lazy and obtuse generalizations at the beginning (notice how he doesn’t justify his usage of the word ‘bullshit’ at all — what part of Chobits’ theme is bullshit? Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle’s action — how can action be bullshit, pray tell) of the review. Was planning to elaborate later during the day anyway.
*hardly tell me anything about the story
Because there is nothing to tell about the story. The plot is simply what I said above, and nothing worth noting has happened so far, unless you want me to go into summarising what happened each chapter. I can go into the half-completed arc in the temporary version of Kobato, but that would be confusing because, as I said, it’s only half complete and will likely never see a conclusion in its current form. It’s much better to just concerntrate on the story f the proper version of Kobato, and 4 chapters in, that’s all I can give you. If you want to say that I’m reviewing this manga too pre-maturely, go ahead, I was fully aware of that fault before I wrote that revview.
As to justifying my views on the other CLAMP manga, there was no reason to do so in my review, because it’s not a review of CLAMP or those manga, but a review of Kobato. If you want me to justify them, here it is:
Chobit’s theme of ‘the person for me’ is completely retarded. The whole story book thing is overwrought and the theme it promotes about finding the person specifically for you is bullshit of the highest calibre. You want me to tell you why I think that? Because it is badly written but pretentious, and the whole idea reeks of stupidity. I’m not going to justify why I think it’s stupid because if I’m going to justify every reason I have for thinking something about something, we’ll be here all day.
Tsubasa’s action is bullshit because it is completely unintellegible. To re-phrase my sentence to make more sense instead of just trying to fit it into my scheme during the writing of that post (you can accuse me of being a bad writer, I was aware of that too when I wrote that bit of the post), it’s bullshit for a shounen action series to have such badly planned and drawn action. There are reasons why One Piece, Naruto and Bleach are the most outstanding shounen series at the moment, and the biggest reason is that the fight scenes are easy to understand and comprehend, and as such, exciting. Reading Tsubasa’s action sequences is like trying to decipher Egyptian hieroglypic without the Rosetta Stone, and that is neither exciting nor fun.
Now, now… your elaboration here is very subjective and generalised – some people may like a heart-warming, cute romantic ‘one true love’ theme, or action scenes that aren’t painfully ‘in your face’ (reason why I hate both the One Piece and Naruto manga, having read a good chunk of both of them). It’s true, but only from your point of view true the way you phrased it :3
Anyway, I agree with your Kobato review. It a tad too pastel pink for me, but I’ll be following it for the pretteh art.
I never said that anything written here isn’t my opinion. Of course they’re subjective, this is a blog I write for and I write my opinions in it. Every word I write in here, unless it’s some sort of news, will be my opinion. And reviews are, by their very nature, an expounding of an opinion concerning a subject matter anyway; my review explicitly says ‘Thoughts’, and the same applies to my replies.
I welcome you to disagree with my opinions and to present counter arguements. I welcome you to constructively criticise my writing and to point out any factual inaccuracies.
Anca: “some people may like a heart-warming, cute romantic ‘one true love’ theme, or action scenes that aren’t painfully ‘in your face’ (reason why I hate both the One Piece and Naruto manga, having read a good chunk of both of them). It’s true, but only from your point of view true the way you phrased it :3″
I don’t see what’s so heart-warming about Chobits, but maybe that’s because I’m a cold-hearted cynic. Personally I believe that all shounen manga needs good action – I mean, that’s what characterises the genre. A shounen with bad action is like a hamburger with rotten burger patties in it – unconsumable.
“Lupus: Your review’s awfully vague in nature — 11 chapters and the only things you can say from the two paragraphs “That will (…) light-hearted comedy
..ya, u defensive man.
*gets ready lynching weapons*
TROLL TROLL TROLL IN MY OWN BLOG!!!!
My favorite manga from CLAMP is Chobits. I felt that the story was quite well done and was quite heartwarming. I’ll never forget how much I was getting teary-eyed towards the end of the manga.
Glad to know someone notices the bullshit that is Clamp. ^_^
Lainforce: “You must revel at the art.”
Remove all of the sparkly stuff in their drawings, as well as those useless petals, their drawings would be far too ordinary if you ask me.
Yeah CLAMP is totally bullshit
Lupus: Alright, I get where you’re coming from, thanks for clearing that up. I know how it’s like to want to comment on something you really like but isn’t finished, so I guess I can understand your reasons for wanting to review Kobato at this point in time. Do keep in mind that if you make what seem to be huge generalizations (I do agree that Cardcaptor Sakura had bullshit relationships, anyway) diehard fans or those wanting more detailed explanations will definitely call you out for it.
In defence of Chobits, I guess calling it an indulgent satire on the harem/bishoujo/visual novel genres would probably justify why it’s “bullshit” in your opinion. Even if CLAMP always took their “person for me” thing seriously, viewing it as a long-overdue satire changes a pretentious series into something poking fun at a few of CLAMP’s works, and every other shounen series before. Yumi’s “are you staring at my boobs? I’m an E Cup” is a self-irony, an allusion to a common practice in shounen manga and anime everywhere that’s never really been given voice before; Chii’s “person for me” pseudo-philosphy in turn can be read as poking fun at the ridiculously disproportionate emphasis given to the (superficial-made-deep) relationships present in visual novels/shounen/harem series. I like to analyse things past the surface level anyway, so I hope you’ll excuse the wordy explanation. There’s more than just one side to the coin.
Tsubasa Chronicle’s fault probably doesn’t lie in how their action is “completely unintellegible” like you said, but rather an indicator of how the drawing of shounen action scenes has been rather stale in recent years. I’ve read Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece — the action, while undeniably of quality, is in a different league with CLAMP’s, and I could follow both. IMO it seems that CLAMP, by breaking away from the norm and trying out more abstract in a different art style, resulted in something you weren’t used to at all, and something you found disagreeable with as a result. That’s just my guess though, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
(Lupus): [i]but I often find myself just staring at the beautiful characters (mainly Ryou as a girl…[/i]
Lol, maybe it’d be more fun staring at Kaicho from Mekakushi No Kuni/ Land of the Blindfolded since they have the same character appearance…
I disagree with your comments on CLAMP’s mangas. Well, I’m a “goody-goody-two-shoes.” But I sierously think that’s kinda mean. On some things I have to agree but I don’t think that it’s bull, I just think somethings are a little *off*. I really wish you had tried to be a little more, you know optimistic about them instead of focusing on the negative points.
P.S if you find my comment rude i’m sorry.
I disagree with some of your comments on CLAMP’s mangas. Well, it’s hardly fair to point out the negative stuff.. Some of CLAMP’s stuff it the way it is because they try to include a bit of a larger audience it all. You can’t blame them for trying.
Why no love for CCS’ relationships? I thought they were cute (um, except for the adult/preteen relationships, which I agree were squicky, so if those are the ones you mean, I agree wholeheartedly).
O my o my!!!! i LOVE the manga that CLAMP made!!! the first volume its so funny, Kabato tis so cute!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry i meant Kobato
Sorry, I’m way late here. I came across this on a search (for something completely unrelated, lol) and clicked it cause it was an anime blog, but I just have to say one thing: don’t the Tsubasa lameness get you down from xxxHolic manga! It’s not really THAT related – CLAMP actually did a pretty good job making them two completely separate manga that just happen to have a few crossovers. You don’t have to read Tsubasa to get anything in Holic (other than the few crossover scenes) because they’ll usually explain things in a way that Holic fans will understand without Tsubasa knowledge.
please please please knock this off, lupus CLAMP doing their very BEST they can to produce a new well unique story if your disappointed, we as well but that doesn’t mean we downrate CLAMP. some of manga-ka doesn’t produce such art as CLAMP did they really put their craft into it
you’ve just written the worst review ever by adding your hate for CLAMP that has NOTHING to do with people wanting to know about Kobato and my experience with all CLAMP mangas that you call bulshit is good. I don’t think you’ve read enough of any of them and maybe it’s different for each person, I didn’t like as much tsubasa as I’ve come to love it now. But maybe if you kept reading it you would come to hate it. So it’s for each person different, different tastes so don’t give a general opinion like ‘all clamp bullshit’, it makes your writing bullshit as well.
Let me start off by saying that i respectfully disagree with your opinion on CLAMP. It is stated in the review that most of CLAMP’s plots are bullshit but you give no reasons why, not that you need to but it would help to keep people from getting pissed. My question to you is; If CLAMP’s plots are so bullshit then how do they sell so well, and why are they so popular? I also noticed that above in one of your responses you stated that Tsubasa’s fight scenes were hard to understand- Tsubasa is meant for people that expect more of a challenging manga than that of One Piece, Bleach and Naruto(the americanized versions especially). Most every fight scenes in those shows are expected so of course everyone likes them. I might add that you should go beyond the obvious plots in CLAMP’s manga. Like Chobits. The plot there is not just Chii’s “special person” but the fact that it is a robot able to feel that cannot ever concieve or have a normal human life with Hideki. CLAMP’s manga is usually a bit more challenging with some odd or “cute” characters and relationships. You should expect nothing more from CLAMP as from your own writing, you, (and probably most any of us, including myself) could not come up with stories and plots like CLAMP. Anybody who says CLAMP is ordinary or crap probably reads Americanized versions which are HORRIBLY edited and changed which is why some people don’t like CLAMP. Trust me, if you read the Japanese versions you would probably like it a little better. However it is clear that you admire the shounen type mangas so i can see why your opinion is what it is.
so… your saying that you could write a better manga than Camp? and if u hate Clamp manga so much i shutter at the thought of what kinds of manga you DO like. i mean Clamp manga can be rather boring but its not awful. like chobits started out strong and the ending sucked but that does not mean all clamp books are bad and it does not mean chobits was all bad. oh well its not my fault u have bad taste in manga. and what the heck is wrong with u?! u set up a hole site just 2 dis Clamp manga and make people mad! u must have lots of time on your hands! is this some kind of hobby for u?!?!
If you don’t like it then don’t read it, its as simple as that.
wow the fangirls/boys are pissed and nonsensical, how unexpected.
how do mangas do well when they are crap? the answer is simple, people are infintely stupid, take for example religion: so many people believe so many different things yet clearly only one theory can be right and it may be that every religion is wrong.
people are easily influenced/coerced into things, thus the term sheeple.
I find it ridiculous that people keep bringing up points such as “if you can’t do better you have no right to complain” (paraphrased obviously)
1)if you can’t do better you’re in no position to like it either by this logic.
2)it’s damn retarded and hypocritical, you yourself as well as every other person who ever lived has judged something that they could not exceed.
“if you don’t like it don’t read it” seems sensible but how about reading it first then disliking it rather than having a divine premonition telling you to stay away.
clamps stories are simple, they have to be because their target audience is little girls (btw i don’t mean that girls are dumber than boys, just that the targets are kids (who happen to be female)) If you think the stories are great i urge you to start reading books (real books aimed at adults and older teens). you’ll soon find that clamps stories are drivel in comparison.
you can choose to make clamps work satire if you want but they have never mentioned anything of the sort so undue credit as far as i’m concerned.
clamps art is cheap and effortless, how many years have they been working? no evolution over time, no improvement in their art either. in fact to call the artwork “art” is to do the term “art” a great injustice. all they do is put flowers and sparkles everywhere (Oh my gosh, how beautiful… -_-) and in an action sequence this in no way is appropriate. action sequences in Blade of the Immortal and Blame and Lone wolf and cub (to name a few) are well thought out with composition, pose and flow kept in mind at all times.
the stuff clamp do is easy to replicate, seriously even if you’ve never picked up a pencil before just draw for a few months and you’ll find that you’re now equals.
If you’ve read any of clamps mangas you’ll see that characters are almost cut and pasted into their other works. they can’t create more than a handful of characters (visually speaking), pretty lame considering there’s four of them.
btw i’m a concept artist/illustrator I know creativity and technical skill when i see it, clamp are not artists. they do the bare minimum and exploit their fanbase while desperately clinging to a facade of well intentioned artists.
Card captor does have bullshit relationships: prepubescent kids falling in “love” with each other and older men, older teen boys acting like “prince charming” as if they don’t have their own lives to lead, superficialy mysterious characters acting mysterious just so that the plot can be stretched but the truth is ccs as well as many of their works are written for prepubescent girls in the first place, of course it’s bs.
I call this the HATER SITE!!
Well theres things i agree and dissagree w/..i personally like clamp, i won’t deny it, and i like CCS, but its true, the whole little kids falling in love thing, or the teacher falling 4 a ten year old, besides being disturbing was, well unbelievable. I mean, yeah, nowadays kids aren’t as innocent, but c’mon, not even teens find “true love” until they reach the age where they can even understand what true love is.
I tried reading Chobits and i didnt like it at all. Same goes 4 angelic layer, somehow just reading the summary 4 it didnt make it interesting for me.
i gotta say, though, i really liked RG Veda, Tokyo Babylon and Clover, and I am liking Kobato. As far as Tsubasa, it started out w/ an interesting premise, but lately, its been going down to hell. I don’t want to spoil anything, but lets just say Clamp’s knack 4 mildly disturbing relationships is sticking its ungly head in the latest chapters.
Adn as for if they are crap why do ppl rad them? That’s very simple, ppl don’t like to think, so they follow the masses, or is anyone gonna deny that inuyasha was way over rated, and yet it went on strong 4 554 chapters anad over 12 yrs!
Im not saying i dont read what some ppl may call shallow manga, i do, who doesnt like mindless entertainment now and then, but that doenst mean i hang on it.
well i think i’ve ranted enough….
So far, I’ve never hated any manga that I’ve read before.
Personally, I love CLAMP’s artwork, although I’ve only read a few of them(CCS, Tsubasa, XXXHolic and of course, Kobato).
The impression these mangas gave me is:
CCS was well, WEIRD, in terms of the relationships between characters. But other than that, its quite cute. But the anime added a lot of useless cards, which I dunno why those cards even exist.
As for TRC, I’m sad to say that the chapters lately aren’t really interesting. It’s as if they are trying to delay the climax, which I hope it will be the climax. Besides, its not really hard to understand the actions in the manga, i think you, lupus just don’t understand it well.
I like XXXHolic too, especially the stories in it. It would be even better if its relationship with TRC is…I dunno how to put it…more interwoven? Btw, do u understand wat Yuuko said in the latest chapter? I’ve no idea wat she’s talking.
Indeed, the plot for kobato was quite simple, no matter which website i read. so its not anyone’s fault if they can’t get a single thing about kobato from the plot lupus wrote.
Plus, why aren’t there any kobato chapters lately?! I really need to know.
One last thing, everyone has different tastes, so our opinions about CLAMP’S artworks are different.
Well I agree with about Tsubasa having weirdest action scenes xD. I don’t hate clamp But I don’t like them either. There work seems way too weird sometimes. And I don’t know why, sometimes everyone seems to have same face and only different hairstyles. And Sakura from Tsubasa annoys the heck out of me (I probably have a grudge against useless girl that have are reckless and stuff), but this is my taste. Sorry if I’m offending your favorite character/anime. And I sometimes find it too boring to watch, I mean I barely watched 10 episodes of Tsubasa, before I gave up on it. But if I have to say what manga I like the most from Clamp’s work would be xxxHOLICS. I don’t like any other. And again let me apologize for offendng any of you. Please do not hate me. My taste is more of Naruto, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter. And even in BlEACH I hate Orihime.