Clockwork Planet Volume 2 (Manga Review)

By: I.Am.No.Man.

Missed the review for vol 1? Find RogueSymbiote’s review here!

Recap

Marie Bell Breguet, Meister of the Forces, is amazed to see a functioning series Y animation, RyuZU. She begs RyuZU’s caretaker, the awkward high school kid Naoto, for help in her mission to save Kyoto from the purge. Naoto at first refuses, angry that Marie barged into his life, destroying his home, and nearly killing him. Marie threatens to kill Naoto and take RyuZU as her own, but RyuZU leaps into action to protect her master and hovers her deadly blades inches away from Marie’s head. Marie’s handler, Halter, calms the situation and begs Naoto to reconsider.

 RyuZU reveals she has a younger sister hidden away somewhere in the central Core Tower and asks Naoto to help Marie and Halter in exchange for finding her sister. Enthralled with the idea of having two beautiful automations at his service, Naoto leaps at the idea.Using RyuZU’s amazing combat powers and Naoto’s super-powered hearing abilities, the trio break into the Core Tower to repair a failing gear and foil the ___ plot to destroy the city. The fighting escalates until RyuZU realizes that she must activate her ‘imaginary gear’ to distort time and space and take on the military’s forces single handedly. She risks her life, knowing that activating her ‘imaginary gear’ is what broke her in the first place. Before Naoto can stop her, RyuZU activates and destroys the entire battle field in the blink of an eye. Luckily, Naoto is able to repair RyuZU quickly and they rush into the Core Tower to continue their mission. Naoto, using his amazing ability, locates the broken gear just by listening. Marie, with her extensive knowledge, fixes the gear and saves the Core Tower from destruction and saving 20 million lives. Before they can celebrate though, the government Forces deviously continue the purge of Kyoto. They realize the Forces will not stop the purge even though the Core Tower is repaired and Kyoto begins to fall.

Marie realizes there is only one way to stop the purge, but she must use RyuZU’s ‘imaginary gear’ to do so. Naoto refuses to sacrifice RyuZU, even to save the city, but RyuZU displays an amazing sign of independence and sacrifices herself, sending her own blades through her body and dislodging the ‘imaginary gear.’ In her final moments she asks for Naoto’s forgiveness and asks him to find her sister Anchor. He vows to do so and to do his best at repairing RyuZU and returning her to consciousness. Marie hacks into the city’s gravitational gears and returns the city to its place in the planet of gears. They furiously work to repair RyuZU before the military’s forces can find them.

After escaping, and faking Marie’s death, the trio try to continue life as normal. Naoto still despairs over nearly losing RyuZU and failing to find her sister Anchor. He returns to school to find that Marie has transferred to his school, and her handler Halter is his home-room teacher. Naoto continues to fail his classes, while Marie enchants the entire school with her genius level knowledge and athletic prowess. Marie continues to dig up government conspiracies and searches for any news of Anchor. She vows to become a rebel terrorist and take down the corrupt Forces and save RyuZU’s sister. Naoto eagerly follows along and prepares for the new rescue mission. 

Review

This volume was amazing! I loved the action sequences and character interactions a lot. Marie Bell Breguet is an awesome little genius with a hot temper. RyuZU finally gets to show off some of her badass moves. Naoto fits right in as the bumbling, clueless kid with a special hidden talent that saves the day. I haven’t read any of the novels that the manga is based on (No Game No Life by Yuu Kamiya and Tsubaki Himana) so the story and action is all new and exciting for me. I can’t wait to see where the story goes and meet Anchor for the first time. The teaser image of her at the end of volume two looks incredible. The artwork is pretty solid, but sometimes it was chaotic and hard for me to tell what was happening during the more intense action scenes. I also read this volume on my phone, and noticed that a couple of the fonts used occasionally were difficult to see on my small screen. Other than those two tiny details I sped through this volume and can’t wait to dive into the next one!

You can find Clockwork Planet here!Kodansha Comics provided us with a copy of Clockwork Planet in exchange for an honest review.