Kobato., Vol. 1 (Kobato, 1) Paperback – 11 May 2010

Kobato volume 1 contains the first 10 chapters.It is rated T for Teen.At first, Kobato Hanato seems like a normal clumsy girl who walks around with a talking stuffed dog... okay, she's not so normal then.Kobato has a wish, she wants to go to a certain place. But to do this, she needs to fill up a bottle by healing people's hearts.In the first chapter, her dog, Ioryogi, tells her she has to earn the bottle. To do this, Kobato must take an aptitude test to see if she is capable of living in the human world. As I said before, she is a clumsy girl so this test isn't easy for her. Ioryogi, annoyed at her incompetence, starts called her "Dobato" (adding "do" to a word in Japanese is like adding a curse word in English, also "Kobato" means little dove, whilst "Dobato" is sort of like a pigeon) Obvious to say, she fails the first test.In the second chapter, we see the first glimpse of the other main character, Kiyokazu Fujimoto. He has to leave his part time job early to help at a kindergarten. Kobato sees that the food stand where Fujimoto was working is really busy and needs help so of course she offers to help.The rest of the book is made up of cute little tests for Kobato including working at a cake shop, helping an elderly lady and finding a place to live. Ioryogi marks her score at the end of each test.In chapter 8, we meet another strange creature, this time in a form of a talking silver hare with an eye patch who seems to be an enemy of Ioryogi and Kobato.Chapter 10 is the beginning of the main story, Fujimoto and Kobato finally meet and she starts working at the kindergarten!At the end of the book, there are a lot of translation notes so if you don't understand something in the manga, it is probably explained there.As an avid CLAMP fan, I had to buy this. The art is beautiful, the way the story is told is amazing and the characters are adorable.If you too are a CLAMP fan then you will recognise a few of the characters in this volume. Chitose the landlady is from Chobits, the elderly woman is from xxxHolic, the main characters from Suki Dakara Suki also make an appearance as do a couple of characters from Angelic Layer and Magic Knight Rayearth. Plus the bakery Tirol has appeared in several CLAMP works, including Chobits and Card Captor Sakura.This is a must buy for any CLAMP fan. There are 6 volumes in total (at the time of writing this, 4 are released in English) I've read every chapter in Japanese and I'll just say that it is definitely a CLAMP ending. (anyone who has read a few CLAMP stories will know what I mean.)Yen Press has done a good job with translating. They keep the Japanese honorifics.Overall this is an amazing manga enjoyable to both CLAMP fans and those who are new to CLAMP.

This reflects CLAMPS eariler works, particulary CHOBITS. The story is nice for anyone who is into Japanese festivals. I'm also glad they decided to have a little romance with older protagnists. The story is sweet, charming and funny and while it doesn't get too carried away with plot, there are still things lurking on the surface. This is the type of manga CLAMP writes well.

I am really, really glad that for some reason, I didn't start with volume 1 of this series.But this is a review about volume one, so here goes. This introduces us to Kobato Hanato, a mysterious young girl who seems to have no home, no money, and who takes refuge wherever she can with her suitcase and talking toy dog, Ioryogi. But Ioryogi is her supernatural taskmaster, who is judging her common sense in order to determine when she will be ready to receive a special bottle from him.Sadly, Kobato has little common sense. Most of her knowledge seems to have come from watching television or reading manga from magazines set out on news-stands. As she rushes from here to there, trying to do various good deeds, two people occasionally appear: a young man called Fujimoto, and a young woman called Sayaka, both of whom work at the Yomogi Kindergarten.Ioryogi constantly loses his temper with Kobato, blasting her with fiery breath and calling her names (some rather awful ones, apparently) due to her clueless nature, and Kobato unknowingly sets herself up more than once for people to think she's trying to sexually proposition them. That's the annoying stuff, and weighs against the manga.On the plus side, the art is very pretty (this is CLAMP, after all), and a few characters from previous CLAMP series (notably xxxHOLIC and CHOBITS) appear in the story. Kobato is a sweet character in a lot of ways, but Fujimoto comes across as a bully to her. We do get a cue that he may be nicer than he seems with the heroine, but she has little reason to suspect that.All in all, it's okay, and I can say it gets a lot better from volume 2 on as the story really starts to find its feet. But it'll be a long time before Kobato's wish and her task of "healing hearts" is explained.