Clockwork Planet Volumes 7 and 8 (Manga Review)
By: I.Am.No.Man
Recap
Volume 7Naoto, Marie, and their motley crew of friends continue their quest to save Tokyo. After uncovering a secret government/ military plot to purposefully destroy several cities around Tokyo, Naoto and Marie know they have to take drastic measure to stop this. They pose as international terrorists, threatening to start a coup and take over the imperial palace. They hope that this plan will buy them some time to stop the gigantic machine from blowing a hole in Tokyo and force the government and military to stop fighting amongst themselves and unite to fight the supposed terrorists.Using the two Series-Y automatons, RyuZU and AnchoR, along with a cyborg friend they picked up along the way, they fight their way through the amassed armies easily and without killing a single person. The Second Upsilon, the name Naoto and Marie chose for their terrorist group, successfully invade the imperial palace and capture the princess. They broadcast a message across the whole of Tokyo, surrender or the Princess dies. While all this is going on, Naoto and Marie frantically figure out a way to stop the purge from happening, save the millions of innocent people in Tokyo and discover who is behind the secret military plots.Once they finish the broadcast, they know they have 72 minutes to carry out their plans before the machine reloads its cannons. In the down time, Marie reveals that she and the Princess know each other and are actually dear friends. The Princess promises to aid them in their mission while maintaining their façade as terrorists. Marie asks for help rebuilding her cyborg body guard, Halter, who was severely damaged in a previous fight. Marie figures out a genius way to upload Halter’s consciousness into a war machine, and the cyborg reboots himself, happy to be back in service and ready for a fight. Naoto has also discovered that the man behind the military coup and the plot to purge the entire Clockwork Planet is actually the crazed scientist who is convinced that Naoto is the reincarnated creator of the world, the mysterious Y.Naoto and Marie come up with a plan to super heat the lower levels of Tokyo, hopefully demagnetizing the apocalypse machine and stopping the purge. Their plan is working, but the machine has loaded its weapons and fires a ferocious blast at the imperial palace. Naoto, with his specialized hearing manages to warn everyone in time and they all escape the blast, but the machine has done devastating damage to the structure. 
Volume 8
The Second Upsilon must now find a way to safely demagnetize Tokyo without causing further structural failure. Marie begins to despair, unable to think her way through the problem. Naoto tells her that she is looking at things all wrong. She is looking at all the parts to try and see a whole, but Naoto says she must first see the whole and all the parts will fall into place. Marie tries to comprehend what Naoto is telling her, and slowly she realizes that their theories on how their world works are completely wrong. She lets Naoto explain his perception of the world and she is drawn into a reality where up is down and wrong is right. 
Together they formulate a plan to repair the Tokyo gear enough to get their plan to work. They know they have 72 minutes once again before the cannon can fire and completely destroy Tokyo. They work furiously, but AnchoR worries that her masters will not finish in time. She decides to go rogue, fight off the military forces on her own, buying them a few more desperate minutes. RyuZu tries to stop AnchoR, but ultimately knows that her sister will do what she needs to in order to protect everyone. She watches as her sister leaps into action.AnchoR attacks the doomsday machine, destroying it from the inside out. As she nears the core, her weapons seems to falter, and she is suddenly not strong enough to break through. The cables and wires begin to break her limbs, her parts melting away with each strike. It’s a trap. He knew that she would be coming. The mad scientist confronts AnchoR, mocking her for thinking she could win. He pulls out a gun, pointing it at her smoking head and fires. 
As his finger pulls the trigger, RyuZu leaps into action, severing the mad scientist’s arm and saving her sister. RyuZu scoops up the battered AnchoR and leaves the mad scientist with the knowledge he’s failed and Tokyo is safely demagnetized and the weapon is useless.Naoto and Marie have successfully heated the core of Tokyo enough to stabilize it. They have won. And now, they must escape and keep up their disguise as secret terrorists. They know there is more to this plot than just Tokyo. Someone is still out there trying to destroy the Clockwork Planet.The Second Upsilon flee by boat, drifting from gear to gear, staying just out of reach of the military. RyuZu has also captured the mad Scientist and is keeping him prisoner on board the ship to get more information about who is behind the plot. As they interrogate him, all the lights on the ship go out and one single tv screen flickers on. A mysterious figure who calls himself OMEGA speaks to the Second Upsilon. He reveals that they have all played into his plans perfectly. 
Naoto traces the broadcast signal and discovers that OMEGA is broadcasting a secret message. Figure out where I am, or I kill you all. Naoto correctly guesses that OMEGA is broadcasting from the military planes flying overhead. OMEGA chuckles and agrees that Naoto is correct, but that only Naoto deserves to live seeing as he is the only one who answered correctly.An enormous explosion rocks the ship and Naoto tells everyone to run. Enemy forces begin to close in on them. It seems that OMEGA has secret control of the military. Luckily, Second Upsilon has a few tricks up their sleeve too. The Princess manages to create a blockade and orders the military to abandon pursuit of the ship. OMEGA and the Second Upsilon call a draw and retreat.The Second Upsilon make their way to Thailand, stopping in several cities to steal parts and weapons. They find themselves in Shangri-La, a criminal headquarters for all of Asia. They’re hoping to blend right in with the worst of the worst. They plan to lay low and continue repairs on the still severely damaged AnchoR. While in Shangri-La, some hidden pasts and secret motivations begin to come to light. It seems that not everyone in the Second Upsilon is who they say they are. Who is friend and who is foe?
Review
I’m a bit split on how much I liked these two volumes. When it’s good…it’s really good! But then the story takes some…interesting turns that just….no. I enjoy action scenes, crazy robot fights, secret government subplots and hidden motives. All of that make for really interesting layers in the story. What I don’t like are the gratuitous, graphic artwork scenes depicting a sexy cyborg robot destroying other robots with her breasts and vagina. I get that this kind of artwork attracts a certain kind of reader. And fine… I get it… I just don’t like it. I can kind of get past Naoto’s pervy obsession with his ‘wife’ and ‘daughter’ robots, but I’d rather not have bikini thong clad, weirdly sexy battle scenes.Anyway! Let’s talk about what worked in these novels. I really enjoyed the story about halfway through volume 7 and partway into volume 8. Like I said before, secret plots and epic robot battles really get me. The story really picked up once they got all the sex stuff out of the way. The sexy cyborg was barely present in the second half of volume 7…which definitely made it better. I thought that the depiction of “Naoto’s Reality” was super interesting and I liked the trippy, Tim Burton-esqe artwork.Speaking of artwork, I was really impressed by a lot of the full panel artwork pieces and the different styles that the illustrator incorporated. There were some really gritty scenes with the mad scientist and with OMEGA that were beautifully rendered and really set an unsettled tone. The action artwork as usual was spot on and the fight with AnchoR and the doomsday machine was absolutely beautiful. I loved the way you could see AnchoR falling apart more and more in each cell. The final panel with the gun pointed right at her head was fantastic. A + for artwork!I am hoping we get to see more of the mysterious, all powerful OMEGA in the next volume, though my guess is they’ll tease that story out a bit longer. It seems like we are going to get into the backstory of Halter and the Ubersexy cyborg whose name now escapes me… we’ll call her Boobs for now. There seems to be some kind of betrayal/ secret spy identity plot going on that could be really interesting if done right. Hopefully it’s not one of those, only exciting for one chapter kind of plots and we actually get to see the Second Upsilon falter for a volume or 2. I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for Volume 9! 
Want to read Clockwork Planet? Find volume 7 & 8 here!NOTE: Kodansha has provided us with a free copy of Clockwork Planet Volumes 7 & 8 in exchange for an honest review.
