Kobato 4
Posted: July 31, 2011 Filed under: Kobato. Leave a comment »CLAMP – Yen Press – 2011 – 6+ volumes
Hmm… there’s more story to my liking in this volume. Rather than following the issues surrounding the kindergarten, Sakaya, and Fujimoto, we actually get some information on Ioryogi, the bear, and other creatures inhabiting the world. It’s still not quite clear what’s going on, but we know that Kobato’s time to fulfill her wish is very short. We still don’t really know what that wish is, though, nor what’s under her hat.
Because this is a CLAMP series, love enters the picture here. What can you do? I’m not really sold on the relationship yet, nor do I expect to be. I am curious, though, since Kobato seems rather ignorant of the whole process.
I’m curious how the kindergarten plot overlaps with the rest of the series. With this new twist, it seems like the characters will stick around. Kobato can fill her jar while still helping them. So are Fujimoto and Sakaya relatively permanent fixtures now, and their problems will be resolved at the bitter end?
That only raises more questions. That’s a good thing, given the fact that this was boring me with how predictable everything was in the earlier volumes.
We do see some cameos. Usyagi make an appearance (and, in an awesome chapter illustration, we see Ioryogi in a vending machine with Usyagi, both Mokona, and both Atashi), as do some of the characters and elements from Wish. Some definite structure to the planes of existence were spelled out too. I had thought Ioryogi was a reincarnation of one of the demons from Wish, even though the personalities weren’t a match. Apparently he and the other animals are new…? I wonder why their identities are such a secret, then?
This volume’s better than the others, but I’m still fairly disappointed with this series so far. Neither the plot or the characters have caught my interest yet. But perhaps it is an appropriate follow-up to Wish, which was very similar to this series and also not one of my favorites. I intend to keep reading, because I can’t stay away from CLAMP or their crossovers, and I do hope my patience will be rewarded. CLAMP hasn’t been very good to me lately.
This was a review copy provided by Yen Press.
