Singing Robots and Exploding Hands Aren't Always That Exciting

Clover: Volume One
Clamp
Published in 2001 by Tokyopop, and in omnibus form by Dark Horse Comics in 2012


Before I go on too much, I have to say that Clover (Volume 1) is one of the prettiest comic books, or manga, if you want to be more specific, that I've ever read. Even with all of their empty spaces, the pages of this look lovely, covered in characters that wear flowing clothing and never have a hair out of place, even in the middle of a one-on-one army guy yelling and stabbing fight. The character designs are well done, the backgrounds, which are filled with a disproportionate amount of giant curtains and a lot of things that look fairly robotic, are really detailed, and, because of all of the aforementioned empty space, the panels look like they're floating, leading to a comic that's never cluttered or difficult to read.

As pretty as the first volume of Clover is, however, it doesn't make a lot of sense. I realize that, as the first volume of the comic, it has quite a bit of time left to explain things and fill in all of the blanks that the reader is left with after reading this segment of the story. For now, though, all that's evident is that Kazuhiko, who has a dark past and is involved with the military, has to escort Suu, a clueless, but, of course, super-cute robot girl to a location that is undisclosed, not just to the reader, but also to them. At some point before the story starts, Kazuhiko also got a robot hand that can turn into weapons and things like that, but that seems slightly less relevant to the characters and all of their massive amounts of mysterious despair than the un-directed journey does.

I have no problems with a story taking a while to get started, and, since I have the omnibus edition of Clover, I'll keep reading it until the end. For now, though, it seems much more concerned with being pretty and atmospheric than it does with telling a story. When I was first buying manga, I'd always look at it in stores, wanting very much to read it, but instead buying other books, since it was both the most expensive and shortest of anything on the shelf at Waldenbooks. Now that it's come out at a lower price and I finally have it, I think that I was probably better off reading Paradise Kiss after all. Still, I'm hoping that the next three volumes are better, and, regardless of their quality, will continue to write about them here.