12 Days of Xmas Day 2: Asking Around For Beer

December 15, 2008 in Specials by Tom Langston (calaggie) | 2 comments

When the anime adaptation of Kobato. was announced earlier this month, I thought I would go back to some of the later volumes of Newtype USA, where the manga was serialized in English before the magazine shut down. The first chapter I found, chapter 9, began with Kobato looking around the city for cold beer on a hot summer day as suggested by her stuffed animal guide, Ioryogi-san, who told her that the proliferation of beer gardens would trump “Cool Biz” in its ability to combat global warming. After enjoying that chapter, which marked the end of a prologue of sorts, I found a previous one (ch. 4) where Kobato kept an elderly woman company on New Year’s Day. I liked that one as well so I now find myself catching up on the manga.

The basic plot is that Kobato Hanato, a naive girl, tries to ease the wounded hearts of troubled people in order to fill a bottle with their bad feelings. When she finishes filling the bottle, she will be able to go to someplace where she deeply wants to travel. Where exactly is not revealed at first but one might put two and two together and make an informed guess when they notice she always covers the top of her head with various hats. She begins to helps out at a nursery school and meets two people who have been seen previously in the comic but never directly crossed paths with her.

Thinking about why I am attracted to the manga, I think it is the combination of Kobato’s determination and Ioryogi’s fits of frustration when Kobato screws up. I would like for it to be properly published in the US and I am sure it will garner a certain level of sales as a CLAMP property. It wouldn’t be a 21st-century title from them without some small nods to other franchises and the ones in this manga include a bakery sharing its name with one from Chobits, the daughters of Kobato’s landlady are named Chiho and Chise, and Misaki from Angelic Layer can be seen during Kobato’s search for free beer samples. (I am discovering such references through online research, just like I did when watching Tsubasa Chronicle, since I possess a insufficient familiarity with their catalog of works.)