+ Anima 6
February 11, 2008
Give me a minute to shift mental gears from MPD Psycho to + Anima. They’re just… very different, you see.
Anyway. This volume is mostly just a big chunk of explanation about the Kim-un-kur tribe and Senri’s past. All the chapters are connected into one long story, and the characters struggle against some military men from one of the neighboring kingdoms who… either want the Kim-un-kir on their side or want to conquer them, I can’t quite remember.
I always feel like the story is just about to reveal something wonderful about the children who are +Anima users, but always winds up sort of taking it back in the end. The Kim-un-kur featured in this story are all +Anima users, but I don’t think it’s for quite the same reason that the children are. Well, for Senri it is.
The story in the volume was pretty satisfying. It fleshed out many aspects of the story as well as a few of the characters. The children had a clear goal in mind at the end of the volume, so I’ll be excited to see where that takes them.
I would love more than anything a background story on Cooro, but I don’t think we’ll get one. Maybe if we do, it’ll be tied into the series finale. I can imagine it being fantastic. This series has a way with doing really understated, emotional kind of stories. I kind of feel that it’s overlooked, the author is wonderful at telling the stories with the animal children and getting across the themes, plus it’s just a great adventure series, and I love all the different places the characters travel to. The different one-shot stories stay just shy of using tired devices, and I really like them for that.
What I’m trying to say is that more people should really be reading this great series. It’s not the kind of thing you run out and buy, I guess, but pick it up while you’re at the store getting something else, maybe. You won’t regret it.
March 22, 2008 at 6:29 am
oh man. i remember reading +anima way back when at toriyamaworld.com in 2002+ or sometime way long time ago and liking it, but the scanlation didn’t continue on and i was disappointed. and now i’m REALLLLLLLLLYYY glad they decided to publish it here :3 it’s a really wonderful series with colorful characters <3
March 23, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Yeah, I remember seeing it over there and thinking it odd it was licensed since I never saw any new chapters over there and I NEVER saw anyone talk about it. I read the plot summary, and I was pretty pleased with it when I started reading the Tokyopop version. I have no idea why it wasn’t (or isn’t) more popular, it’s pretty fun.
April 22, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Any word on this? I just got into +Anima (whose pronunciation I seem to despise as much as you do), and the Wikipedia article says it ended at issue 10. I don’t have any definite proof about that, though, as you’ve left off at issue 6. Please, I don’t want such a great series to have ended!
April 25, 2008 at 5:02 am
Yeah, it definitely ended at volume 10 in Japan. I stopped at volume 6 here because that’s as far as the English release has gone, but I just got 7 in the mail. It comes out very slowly in English, but I think we’ll be able to read the end of the series either at the end of this year or very early next year.
April 26, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Ah. Well, at the very least they didn’t end it abruptly.