+ Anima 9
Posted: January 17, 2009 Filed under: + Anima 1 Comment »Natsumi Mukai – Tokyopop – 2008 – 10 volumes total
So, wrapping up the Sailland stuff in the first chapter, the characters find themselves back in Astaria. What else is there to deal with besides Cooro’s past? Nothing. I am very excited.
Nana and a few of the other characters talk about what they’re going to be doing now that they don’t have a particular destination in mind. They aren’t being followed, and are basically wandering from place to place, making a living and enjoying each other’s company. There’s a great panel where Nana imagines everyone as adults.
They still set themselves to little tasks, like helping other + Anima and whatnot. There’s a little story about a swan + Anima periodically appearing to the people of a small town as an angel and a legend springing up around him. Cooro and the others teach him a Very Important Lesson about how he doesn’t have to be an angel to stand out, and he should be himself if he wants to win the girl. Despite the cheesiness of the message, I still liked the story.
Oh, also. People throw rocks and Cooro has to hide because they think he’s the messenger of death. Cooro doesn’t seem to mind, but that still struck me as kind of weird.
Actually, the stuff about him being a messenger of death isn’t left at that story, and it’s also hinted that Cooro didn’t get his + Anima the same way everyone else did. There is a + Anima race that Cooro and Senri run in where they run into one of Cooro’s old friends, and it’s implied that Cooro has always had his + Anima… like, there was no hardship that he needed help with that was overcome by him suddenly having a crow + Anima. Cooro, in fact, seems like he’s never let himself be unhappy.
We also get to see that there’s apparently some organization that is not only giving kids fake + Anima, but is catching kids that get them for real for research purposes. The guy that runs the organization doesn’t seem like a bad guy… in fact, in his backstory, we get another little girl’s story about how she got a pidgeon + Anima, and it’s all very sad.
One more volume. I am very much looking forward to the Cooro backstory.
[...] 1 of Fushigi Yugi at ANN. Connie has been busy at Slightly Biased Manga, with recent reviews of vol. 9 of +Anima, vols. 1, 2 and 3 of I Shall Never Return, vol. 5 of Human Club, vol. 1 of Oishinbo: Japanese [...]