What’s the definition of a classic? I might want to review that title. I just liked how alliterative “Clamp Classic” is.
I am a fan of Clamp manga. Their works are peculiar and not for everyone, but I definitely have a soft spot for them. So when I came across a title had never read, I was excited to see what it was all about.
Why I Picked up Kobato.
Honestly, the Clamp name is the only reason I picked this up. Neither the title nor the cover really grabbed my interest in any way.
Official Summary
Meet Kobato Hanato, a sweet and rather simple young girl on a quest to have her single, dearest wish granted. But first, she must learn the ways of the world from Ioryogi-san, a gruff blue dog whose bark is just as bad as his bite! Under his “tutelage” (read: constant verbal abuse), Kobato puts her efforts into passing various trials of common sense so that she may obtain the key to getting her wish-a magic bottle which must be filled with the suffering of wounded hearts that Kobato herself has healed. But with Kobato’s common sense sorely lacking, she keeps flunking Ioryogi-san’s trials left and right! It looks like the road that lies ahead of Kobato will be a long one indeed!
My First Impression
Well it is CLAMPY
Review
Kobato. (with the period at the end) is a reasonably short manga that was first published in 2005. The entire series is 6 volumes or 40 chapters, with an extra afterward chapter for those that just can’t get enough called: Kobato. Epilogue: Happiness.
There is an anime adaptation, but I couldn’t find it anywhere so for now, we’re going to stick to the manga only.
This is going to be a very odd review. I’m conflicted about Kobato. On many levels. CLAMP does have a well-established history of super inappropriate age-gap relationships. It’s just something they do. For instance, in the Card Captor Sakura manga, one of Sakura’s eleven-year-old classmates is established to be in a long-term romantic relationship with one of their 30-something-year-old teachers. And it’s just o.k. It’s more than o.k., it’s presented as an adorable relationship to strive for. Heck, even Sakura’s parents were teacher and high school student. I’m not gonna lie, I like CLAMP’s works a lot but that particular element always skeeved me out.
However, it tends to be secondary in a lot of their works. Relegated to past relationships or supporting characters. In Kobato. It’s pretty central. It’s softened by the fact that we don’t actually know how old the characters are until the very end but eventually, you realize that by the end of it, you are looking at a romantic relationship between a high school student and a full-grown adult.
So there is that.
However, the romantic storyline actually only starts to pick up towards the end of the series. Before that, it’s an urban fantasy about a young girl with a mysterious sentient stuffed animal who has to heal people’s hearts in order to get her wish.
We never quite know what her wish is or why the verbally abusive stuffed animal is taking it to heart. It’s all very mysterious. And I really liked that part of the series. In fact, I wish it would have stayed a slice-of-life a little longer. Unfortunately, Kobato gets employed at a kindergarten and pretty soon all her efforts are focused on keeping the place open. But that,s interesting as well.
However, other stuffed animals and supernatural creatures start to appear. We get whispers about a war in Heaven and grave consequences. And here’s my issue. Kobato. Hints at this grand and epic backstory that we never really get to see. We get some little tidbits here and there, but the full picture stays obscured. We never even get to see Iorogi’s true form even though it’s mentioned nonstop.
And this mysterious backstory just sounded so much more interesting to me. Sure the cute girl falling in love with the gruff Tsundere guy is fine and all that but I want to know about this “other world” that is neither heaven nor hell. I want to see the grand saga that ended with one of the generals in the war against heaven getting turned into a stuffed animal. I want to know why there’s a bear that runs a Baumkuchen shop and will sell his cakes for a literal song. Every time I learned a little more about the events that happen before the start of the story, I was more and more intrigued but I just ended up blue balled.
I noticed that the character list in AniList, for the anime includes a lot of characters that do not show up in the manga at all. So it’s possible that this gripe got answered in the adaptation.
In any case, Kobato. Is not a bad manga. Especially if you are looking for a more basic (compared to standard CLAMP works) shoujo. In my opinion, it is far from the collective’s best work though.
Yesss Kobato in all honesty is my personal favorite series from CLAMP but I’m a bit biased since it was one of the first manga series I ever read. In all honesty the anime rounds off the story much better (especially the ending it’s pretty much completely different and way more satisfying tbh/ the age gap thing is avoided) and it even has some stories not included in the manga that are very touching and let’s you see more of Kobato’s journey. My favorite thing about this series has always been how sincere and good natured kobato is as a character is and her interactions with other’s- it’s just very endearing to me. Definitely would have loved to see more about Ioryogi’s backstory too but since it’s pretty short there wasn’t too much time to explore that (knowing CLAMP if they would have dove into that the story might have never been wrapped up lol.)
P.s. You can find the full anime on Retro Crush for free 🙂
I remember this one, it was my first Clamp title so it made for an interesting start. I don’t think it holds up quite as well for me as it used to but at the time I thought it was pretty fun. I only wish the climax would have been more eventful, it sort of just felt like the series just ended all of a sudden but I don’t think I’ve ever read the epilogues so that may help now.
The ending was really abrupt. You’re right about that
Realy like the artwork here. Great review Irina. Thank you for sharing
CLAMP always creates beautiful manga!
Kobato. stands out among later CLAMP works just for being completed, LOL. But I don’t like how they incorporated so many of their standard story twists in their later works. Anime is just as cute and beats the manga in some areas, but the vibes between the two are the same. It won’t address your gripes with the manga. Didn’t know there was an epilogue though!
It’s just a single chapter with high school Kobato in uniform jumping on her office worker boyfriend…
er enough to know what gets answered in the anime and what doesn’t. I do think we may have seen Iorogi’s true from; we’ve certainly seen it from others (well, not certainly, my memory…).
As far as Clamp goes, this is middle-of-the-road stuff for me. It’s not on the level of Card Captor Sakura, Chobits, X, or XXXHolic; but I do like it better than, say, Magic Knight Rayearth and others I don’t remember right now.
I really do hope they make the Tokyo Babylon anime with a new studio, eventually. I was looking forward to this, before it got cancelled.
There is a new Clamp anime project in the works. All I know is that it’s based on Grimm’s fairy tales and it will be made by Wit. I’m quite excited about it
Ooh, I hadn’t heard of that. Intersting, and something to look forward to. Wit’s a pretty good studio, too, and versatile. They should be able to do a good job on this.
Wow, I haven’t seen anyone mention Kobato in a really long time! You really need to see the anime version, it explains a lot! I’ve only read the first few chapters of the manga version because it happened to be in a Shojo Beat magazine (or maybe it was in Otaku USA? I forget) so I’m not super familiar with the differences. But the anime seemed to give quite a bit more back story. The anime also had nice little cameos from the characters in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and XXXHolic. Hmm, I think the main character from Suki might have made an appearance too. I really do like the artwork in the manga better, but I feel like the anime explained the story better. Thanks for writing this review and shining a light on some little known or forgotten Clamp stories!
Yeah – I had completely forgotten about it as well!