Clockwork Planet Vol. 5 (Manga Review)
By: I.Am.No.Man.Missed the previous review? Find my review of Vol. 4 here!
Recap
Anchor and RyuZU face off in a battle of the androids. RyuZU fights to protect the humans she serves and loves; Anchor seems to be controlled by the mysterious mask she wears that has locked away her free will.RyuZU uses her imaginary gear to take the fight into another dimension, where she uses her ability to bend time and space to help her fight. Anchor follows behind, getting closer and closer to RyuZU’s nimble evasions. Anchor’s incredible ability allow her to rip the fabric of time and space to outmaneuver her sister. RyuZU, desperate to find a way to free her sister and stop the fight, uses a daring plan… She uses Naoto as a human shield and takes Anchor’s split second hesitation to break the mask.
Once the dust settles and Anchor is defeated, Naoto and Marie jump into action to repair the damaged automatons. Naoto explains that he noticed Anchor would only attack other automatons and cyborgs, not humans, so he asked RyuZU to use him as a shield. Naoto and Marie manage to get both automatons up and working again. They all warily watch as Anchor regains consciousness and surveys the situation. A little bit out of it, she begins calling Naoto, Marie and RyuZU her daddy, mommy, and sister. Marie flies off the handle, but Naoto instantly falls in love with Anchor and accepts her as his daughter, also claiming RyuZU as his wife. Through a little bit of trial and error, Naoto manages to unlock Anchor’s free will and overrides her programing to be a deadly weapon. For the first time in a thousand years Anchor is free.
Taking a moment to look around after all the chaos, Marie notices a cyborg head laying on the ground nearby. It happens to be the secret agent cyborg that sent Marie the message that led them to finding Anchor. He is still functioning, barely, and recalls Anchor’s attack on his companions and how Anchor must have seen some semblance of humanity in him and spared his life at the last second. Naoto interrupts the conversation to say he hears a strange new sound, just as the ground beneath them explodes. The secret weapon has burst through the ground and now sits, threatening the City Akihabara. It is revealed that the man operating the giant weapon is the crazed scientist that Naoto and RyuZU encountered when they fell to the center of the planet. He seems to believe that Naoto is actually the creator of the planet, the mysterious Y. He plots to hunt down Naoto and extract the information of how he created the Clockwork Planet. Barrage after barrage of attacks against the weapon have no effect, and it can destroy entire army squadrons in seconds, RyuZU’s attacks are also useless against the machine. What can the hero’s do against this all powerful machine?
Review
This volume really enriches the world of Clockwork Planet. Anchor develops into a character with emotions and free will in a tiny, adorable, super-deadly package. Naoto and Marie continue to show their genius abilities in repairing and operating the Series-Y automatons, while simultaneously saving the world.The plot thickens with the government and the military both secretly trying to overthrow the other. Who really controls the secret weapon? Why do they want to take down all of Japan? This volume does a great job at setting up an exciting showdown between the great forces of evil and our pint sized high school heroes (or terrorists, as Marie likes to be known).The artwork in this Volume continues to be great in all but one part for me. I had a little trouble deciphering what the artist was trying to show in the space-time bendy fight between the two sisters. The artist depicts the space time continuum by drawing white, spider-webbed, lines across the panels and shows the two automatons fighting around them. I understand how difficult it may be to depict a fight like this in a limited medium, and the artist themselves even described the difficulty of drawing the fight. Still, commendable work, and the action scenes and story more than make up for it.Find Clockwork Planet vol. 5 here!Kondasha Comics provided us with a copy of Clockwork Planet Vol. 5 in exchange for an honest review.
