A lot of abuse, apparently. Kobato is one of the newer manga titles to hit the States by the four-woman manga powerhouse CLAMP. The titular character is a strangely clueless and oft clumsy girl named Kobato Hanato and she is accompanied by a small and constantly angry stuffed blue dog named Ioryogi (pronounced “ee-oh-riyoo-gee”). Kobato must pass Ioryogi’s tests of common sense to obtain a bottle to begin her quest to fill the bottle to the top with wounded hearts that Kobato has healed through good deeds. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. Kobato is, presumably, not from this world and knows nothing about how it works except what she watches on TV in stores or reads in manga and magazines. That means she doesn’t even know about Wikipedia! She’s kindhearted, but is detrimentally naive to the point that, at one point in the book, she is mistaken for a prostitute. Ioryogi isn’t exactly the best teacher, either, with his constant verbal and physical abuse when Kobato does or says something dumb. (How can a stuffed toy even breathe fire?)
The series ran serialized in Japan’s Newtype Magazine till just recently and Yen Press was quick to step up to the plate last year to bring the six collected volumes of Kobato to American shores. Given that it’s a newer title, Kobato is drawn in the minimalist style that CLAMP has adopted in the last decade as they dropped from their lavish art styles of Magic Knight Rayearth and Cardcaptor Sakura to the softer, gentler style seen in Angelic Layer and Chobits. This art style is especially beneficial in Kobato’s case because it truly represents her character as she is—soft, gentle and sweet. And, true to form, they’ve thrown in character cameos for background characters from their other series. Half the fun of a CLAMP manga is playing “Where’s Waldo” in recognizing all the different characters that appear from other CLAMP titles.
Yen Press has done volume one of Kobato justice. They made the initial few pages glossy and color to showcase CLAMP’s color artwork for the splashpage of the first chapter. In the back they’ve included a handy glossary since they kept the translation fairly true to the original, so in-jokes like Ioryogi calling Kobato “Dobato” are explained as well as cultural nuances of Japanese life expressed in the manga. Even better is that, in this section, they also point out the character ogicameos from earlier/ongoing CLAMP manga series and books so that you don’t have to rack your brains over why certain side characters look so bloody familiar.
Kobato is a fun, sweet manga of a kind you rarely see anymore. There is no moe fodder to represent a nice girl, Ioryogi is menacingly ridiculous as he should be given his form as a stuffed dog, and even though much is left unsaid in the first volume of the series it isn’t hard to just jump right in. You don’t feel it’s necessary to know where Kobato comes from, and, yet, as the book progresses that becomes a hooking question and the mysteries of just what she and Ioryogi are. I already know, since I looked it up on Wikipedia, but if you don’t want it spoiled then it’s best to just get this and the other books.