Look, it's a CLAMP Scientist.

I love CLAMP. In fact, when I started to write this I did tons of research. I started pouring all sorts of theories and trying to bring it all together on how Kobato. makes perfect sense for CLAMP and today’s market. It started to grow out of control, turning into a thesis of sorts with no real completion in sight. While I’m no Doctor in CLAMP-ology (I still haven’t seen/read X/1999 or the second half of Card Captor Sakura) I get the CLAMP world. They’re just as much business superstars as they are creators. Chobits and Card Captor Sakura were superstar blockbusters worldwide.

While I’m pretty sure Kobato. will not reach that status, It’s still a great, play it safe anime.

Having dropped Shugo Chara just before moving to Japan and then discovering how much of a franchise it’s become here, I was wondering where the whole magical girl franchise would go. It hasn’t changed that much over the past few decades. Pretty Cure is still going strong, too. When I saw the first episode of Kobato. I was sure that it was going to be another Sakura only with an older girl. (which honestly caught me by surprise.) I mean, she is collecting things…. And she does have a stuffed animal looking familiar. But I like being proven wrong, so I played along and continued watching.

Rare moment of Kobato not being ignorant or the most caring person ever.

Hanato Kobato is a lot of things. While I can’t help comparing her to Kannagi (same voice, Kana Hanazawa) I also have to bring in Choco from Chocotto Sister and even Chi from Chobits. The whole “being completely functional but has no idea how the real world works” naivety resonates from all of those characters in parts of Kobato. Though I’m not sure how much of it is absent minded yet. We have no idea where she is from or what entity she is. CLAMP really plays with our minds here. Part of me wants to hate her because she can be really annoying, but then they go and pull things like having her sing that amazing song in episode two. I don’t know, I usually end up liking annoying characters anyway. I also usually hate it when things just continue to go absolutely perfect and things like jobs, places to live, and love interest just happen like they are suppose to. But they kind of portray Kobato at the beginning as somebody who things ARE suppose to happen to, unlike so loser harem guy or a lead girl who is having a bad day. It’s kind of hard to explain. Maybe it’s because she literally came from nowhere and had nothing, the progression seemed a bit more natural than out of nowhere. It is a fantasy story after all.

He's angry because he cares.

Ioryogi is the one I should hate. I usually can’t stand mascot characters. And I ALWAYS hate ones with that super Japanese manly attitude. Ah-kun from Moetan and Onsokumaru from 2×2 Shinobuden, who  is the most hated character ever for me, are examples. But I absolutely love Ioryogi and I have no idea why. Maybe because he actually yells at the dumb girl at all the right moments and doesn’t get beat the crap out of by a third wheel for making her cry. Maybe it’s because he has no ulterior motive, like seeing her naked or escaping from his stuffed animal shell because he’s been imprisoned. I’m curious to know his story. When the merch starts rolling out he’ll be the first mascot character since President Aria I’ll buy stuff of.

And there will be merch. Clamp designed this show well. It has the item (bottle), the mascot (Ioryogi), the girl, the CLAMP name… all it needs is a loli villain and the circle will be complete. But it won’t be the superfranchise that Shugo Chara is, or even Card Captor Sakura. They are doing their best to tie in the clam name more… I just about lost it when I saw Chitose, “Chiho & Chise”, and that baker guy I just about lost it. What a crazy way to tie it to their current fanbase more. How can we Chobits fans not love it now? Also, Chobits was a strange deviation for CLAMP at the time. But if Kobato. came first… maybe not so much? I’m not sure.

Chiiiiiii.

When the Kobato. manga came out it was just about the start of the moe era. The reason I think that it’s not going to do too well is that it almost feels… dated in comparison to all the other shows out. Even the style does. But I don’t think that will hurt it too much. CLAMP had a pretty good formula to make this story. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it just make sense… even if it’s not completely original. The best part being is that we have no idea what’s going on, and yet it still makes enough sense to continue. Not many writers can do that these days, though it may just be a page out of the “talk about nothing” Slice of Life boom. All in all, for CLAMP it’s perfect and predictably unpredictable.

All in all, it’s kept my interest because I know CLAMP. It’s perfect for what it is and predictably unpredictable. I can’t wait to see how this goes… CLAMP won’t let me down.

Right?

Right????

Also, QUESTION OF THE DAY: What other rhyming anime character names besides Hanato Kobato can you think of?

Tags: anime, Chobits, CLAMP, Kobato., review

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