Clover
Author: Clamp
Genre: Manga, Science Fiction
Publisher: Tokyopop Manga
Cost: $14.95
Rating: *** (out of 4)
Availability: Widely Available
It all sounds so simple from the text on Tokyopop’s web site. It’s a straightforward little science fiction story about a child with special powers and the former government agent assigned to take care of her.
Of course, this is a book by Clamp – the most revolutionary Manga team to come out of modern-day Japan. Clover is more than just a supernatural military story. In fact, Clover is a book about…. Well, what is it about, anyway?
Clamp is not known for making their stories easy to understand. They are geniuses of graphic design with a cinematic flair. To hold a piece of Clamp manga in your hands is to hold a triumph of design and art.
The writing in Clover is sparse and spare. Very little is explained to you in the course of the book. Rather than stopping to explain every little detail, the members of Clamp opt to clip along at their own pace and trust in their readers to be intelligent enough to follow along. And with Clamp, you have to be quick.
You have to be quick to learn the lingo. You have to be quick to analyze motivations. You have to be quick to learn that everything that happens in the course of the story happens for a reason. Clamp does not waste frame space on worthless grandstanding – every panel means something.
The bizarre thing is that I have yet to decide whether I really like this book or not. This is the first book in a series, and to pay $14.95 apiece for the rest of the slim volumes that make up Clover, I first have to convince myself that the story is worth continuing. But is it? I don’t know.
I don’t understand it yet.
Monday, June 3rd, 2002