Title: Bokurano: Ours
Genre: Mecha, Drama, Seinen
Artist: Mohiro Kitoh
Publisher: Shogakukan (JP), Viz Media (US)
Translation: Camellia Nieh
Original Release Date: 2010-2012
If there are two things that fan favorites Neon Genesis Evangelion and Madoka Magica taught us, it’s that kids shouldn’t pilot mecha and that you really shouldn’t trust that cutesy mascot character offering a reprieve from your boring life. Indulging in either can only end in tragedy, and with 15 kiddos making up the cast of Bokurano: Ours, there’s plenty of chances to meet tragic ends. Long story short: There’s nothing here you haven’t seen before, but I couldn’t stop reading it.
A bit of history first: My review of Mohiro Kitoh’s Bokurano: Ours comes right on the heels of the news that Japanese magazine, IKKI, is closing its doors. There was tons of great stuff coming from the creators published in IKKI, and when Viz teamed up with them for their SigIKKI imprint it was a match made in heaven. Most of what came from that line — under-appreciated gems like Saturn Apartments, Children of the Sea, and not simple — proved to me that I could basically blind pick from SigIKKI and find something that I like.
That being said, Bokurano does feel a little more generic than the rest. While out exploring, 15 middle-school children stumble across a hippie-ish looking man in a cave, who then offers them a chance to play a “game.” Some are a bit more apprehensive than others, but there’s an excitement in the air; seemingly otherwise normal kids getting to pilot giant robots and saving the world sounds like the stuff of daydreams. All but one of the 15 children agree to an ominous contract, but when the monsters start to appear and the “game” turns into people really dying, it’s obvious there’s far more than meets the eye.
The first three-ish volumes of Bokurano follow a pretty predictable format: The creepy mascot of the series, Koyemshi, summons each child when it’s his or her turn to pilot the mecha — eventually named “Zearth” — and doles out rules little by little and as necessary. No one ever knows when it’s their turn to fight, or what they’re fighting, or what they’re fighting for. Each pilot gets a handful of chapters exploring their respective back stories; the first, Takashi Waku is the most naively excited of the bunch. Having been fairly talented at playing soccer then suddenly deciding to give it up, Waku jumps at the chance to add meaning and purpose to his life again. The backstory is admittedly pretty generic, but it establishes the formula of the series. Waku is also the first death post-battle, and while it’s chocked up to either a fall or push — no one knows for sure — it plants the seed of doubt in the kids’ minds. “When will it be my turn? Was it an accident?”
I feared that the story would grow stale pretty quickly: 14 kids, 14 heart-wrenching but predictable back stories before they’re sent to battle essentially against their will could get old fast. At the very least some of the stories get surprisingly darker than Waku’s. One girl struggles with an inappropriate relationship with a teacher who then takes advantage of her. For her, piloting Zearth is a chance for revenge. In another, an adopted girl desperately hopes to avoid her turn in the cockpit until after her sibling is born, and she tries to protect her family from harm. In yet another, a boy struggles with resolving a long-standing love triangle before he’s sent off to fight. The repetitive format doesn’t lend itself to much depth for the characters and the volumes go fairly quickly because of it.
Volumes four and five bring in the larger storyline involving the government Defense Force, as they too have been trying to fight the mysterious Evangelion-esque monsters that randomly decimate the city. Zearth has gone far from unnoticed, with the government stepping in to learn more about exactly what it is they’re up against. Eventually the kids do find out what they’re up against, and while it’s nothing original, I breathed a huge sigh of relief that the explanation wasn’t overly-technical or confusing just for the sake of it. Still, revelations that there is far more at risk than just their own lives — the fighting as already killed thousands — ups the stakes plenty for the latter half of this series.
At 11 volumes total, it looks like I’m just about halfway through the series. While it’s nothing original, the kids’ various stories are interesting, and the introduction of a larger plotline is timed so as to keep you intrigued right before things get too repetitive. Art-wise I’d argue the series is a little lacking — not a lot of backgrounds and proportions are a little off — though the mecha are decent-looking. Still, give the series a try if you’re look for your solid mecha with some interesting back-stories.
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manjiorin
Manjiorin is 26 years old and not nearly as cool as the characters she reads about in manga, unless they hold desk jobs and try to discreetly read manga at work. She prefers seinen manga of the bloody variety (yay Berserk and Blade of the Immortal) but d'aww's and baww's at Kimi ni Todoke. Her boringly sporadic thoughts are on Twitter.
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