Clover [Omnibus Edition]

In honor of this review, and the news that Dark Horse is freaking boss and is publishing so many other CLAMP manga in omnibus versions, I have a new Clover header up (that I made in the wrong size originally and had to remake, doh).

Clover [Omnibus Edition]
by: CLAMP
published by: Dark Horse
Summary: Kazuhiko is a young, but already deeply wounded black-ops agent of a baroque, retro-tech world–pulled out of retirement to escort Sue, a mysterious waif, to a destination she alone knows. Sue and Kazuhiko have never met . . . yet she knows him, having grown up since the age of four with her only human contact being two distant voices: that of her elderly “grandma,” — Kazuhiko’s Commander, General Ko; and that of Kazuhiko’s dead girlfriend, the beautiful singer Ora.

And Sue has been kept in that cage all these years because of what she is, and what the Clover Leaf Project found her to be: a military top secret…and the most dangerous person in the world. (from Dark Horse)

Seriously,  the only bad thing about this volume is that the spine isn’t very sturdy. Other than that, everyone should own a copy of this!! But more serious (and slightly less biased) ramblings behind the cut, if you’re in to that kind of thing. :]

Ramblings: I’m gonna go ahead and talk about this in 2 parts, the first will be about Dark Horse’s job on the volume (like paper, binding, translation, etc), and the second about the story itself.

Overall Volume
Ok, so like I said the binding on this volume is less than sturdy, which for a 530+ page book, is not good…I had to like clamp (oh so punny xD ) my hand around the edge of the book to make sure not to break the binding.  On the other hand, the whole volume is on ridiculously nice paper, and the color pages are all on lovely glossy paper, which makes them look even more gorgeous. Granted some of the  56-ish (I think I might have messed up while counting, but not by more than like +/-4) color pages are just text on a green background, but it’s still the most color pages I’ve ever seen in a manga volume. It seriously is like having a mini-artbook at the end of the volume. : D And there are even color pages at the beginning of each of the original volumes. One small thing is that some of the flowery fonts they use for the song lyrics can be a little hard to read at first; once you’re used to the font, there’s no problems, but it does take a little getting used to.
The price is nothing to laugh at either; I was going to buy this on Amazon, where I would have paid only $13.57 (since I get free shipping), but I got in in Barnes and Noble since I was there and paid full list price with sales tax, but it is still more than worth it, since list price is only $19.95 and for 4 volumes of manga, that’s plenty great. :]
Dark Horse really went all out for this omnibus, and if the CCS, MKR, and Chobits omnibus(es? i? seriously what is the plural of omnibus??) are as good as this, I will be one exceedingly happy CLAMP fan.

Story
ok. Just a heads up, you’re gonna want to take your time to read this. It’s the most minimalistic manga I’ve ever read and at times it’s a bit confusing, but if you take your time and read it at a slower pace (unlike what I normally do xD ), you’ll be able to understand and fully appreciate it for what it is; fucking fantastic.
This is one of the better stories I’ve read in a while, and without giving much plot away, let’s just say that it’s totally depressing, but in a perfect way. I really don’t want to go into the story too much, since I loved it and don’t want to spoil anything for those who want to read it too. I accidentally (well, sort of accidentally) spoiled myself and really wish I hadn’t, cuz I think it would have been more…impactful? if I hadn’t known what was going to happen.
Though Clover is supposedly “incomplete”, all four volumes in this one could definitely be considered a full story. I would love more to the story, but I wasn’t left thinking,” omg, what happens next??”, mostly because the first 2 volumes happen after the last 2). If CLAMP never goes back to this series, it would certainly be sad, but with what there is, there is a pretty solid ending to the story already.

Movie adaptation?
Now that I’ve read the series (or what there is of it so far, at least), I can say that the news about the possible movie adaptation is much more exciting!! I could definitely see this as a movie. It would take a good director, but I think it has some serious potential to be a great movie! Clover reads kind of like you’re watching a movie anyway, so it really would be perfect. I’m curious why it doesn’t have some sort of adaptation already. I mean, even X has an anime movie and tv series and it isn’t complete yet either. And I could seriously see SHAFT doing an anime version (like the whole time I was reading this, I kept thinking, woah, this is like a SHAFT anime in manga form xD ). I did look up the short music video anime version, which is pretty good for only being 6 minutes, but I think this deserves a more full adaptation.

The Bottom Line
Get. This. Book. Now.
Seriously, this is one of the best things to come out in ages, don’t let yourself miss out. Plus, if we all buy a copy of this nice pretty volume, maybe we’ll get more nice, pretty volumes! ;]