Clover

Story: nothing remarkable. It’s just short stories about various couples. Very cute though. Each couple had their own dynamic and weren’t necessarily in love which is an interesting reversal on how these short story romances usually tend to to. They weren’t all sappy and head over heels, they had genuine struggles! 7/10
Art: nothing amazing or incredibly detailed. I found it quite charming though. 5/10
Character: the characters are barley developed as they get little screen time, but what we do see was very nice! They’re realistic and I believe these could be real people. 6/10
Enjoyment: fun to read! Something to relax to. If you’re a fan of cute romance and angst (In small dosages) I recommend this. 8/10
Overall: 7/10

Clover is a dark, poignant little fairytale.

It holds a special place in my heart, being a big vinatge CLAMP fan. Though technically an unfinished work (CLAMP claims that two further volumes were planned to complete the story) I personally hope they never complete the story. There's something about the jumps in time and the incomplete nature of the 4 volumes available that I prefer to think of it as a completed whole. It just works; and this is why Clover has recently been re-released in Omnibus form by Dark Horse.

Concerning art and pacing, Clover is one of the most beautiful manga I have ever seen. The artwork is minimalist, relying on stark blacks and whites and expressive lines. The style is leaning towards a mechanical, futuristic feel rather than a lush fantasy setting, but sometimes combining both. In this world, the mechanics are as beautiful as Suu's garden prison. CLAMP has managed to merge storytelling, art, paneling and characters into one seamless whole. Every panel is placed with care, negative space is a part of the telling and the dialogue is there seemingly because it must be. Clover is a manga where the telling ofl the story is every bit as beautiful and important as the story itself. I think of it as something of a poem.

Style over substance?
Well...yes. Clover does suffer in that aspect. It's not the most original, life-changing story ever and the characters, while touchingly sweet and poignant, are not that deep. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. In this case, the characters add to the overall melancholy, fairy-tale like feel of the manga. Now, this is not to say the characters are shallow or stereotypes; rather that being a short manga with a longer story planned to tell, they don't really have a chance to be fully expressed and developed. But what you do see in this short glimpse into the world of Clover, is striking in it's honest simplicity.

Suu has some elements reminiscent of other CLAMP heroines; she is selfless, good and pure. But instead of being upbeat and cheerful, instead she is sad and lonely, resigned to her fate. I love the idea of her character; she is so powerful to the point of rendering her powerless. The government has locked her up because her mere existence is a threat - and she accepts this. Locked up in a gilded cage, she lives a sort of fairytale existence, in a beautiful garden protected by killer robots that look like stuffed animals. She listens to the outside world and in this way hears and then befriends a beautiful singer named Oruha - over the phone. They never actually meet.

Oruha and Kazuhiko are the other two protagonists of the story. I love them because they're some of the few CLAMP couples to have an actual fully fledged, mature love story. No fluff, hints or subtext. They're lovers.

Kazuhiko does not fit into the 'tough guy' or 'young teen' stereotype. He's an ex-military, kind of average guy, brave and level-headed with a heart of gold. Oruha is a mature, intelligent woman, and I consider her one of the most beautiful manga women. She is instantly recognizable, with her mass of black curls, full lips and voluptuous figure. Oruha is kind, brave and proud. In a bit of dramatic irony I appreciate, Suu forms relationships with both Oruha and Kazuhiko, who are lovers, but neither ever know about the other's relationship with our little waif.

All three characters are expressive and you get the feeling there's always something going on beneath the surface. They have pasts, secrets and desires. Not all are fully expressed or explored in the length of the series, but the existence is there.

Where story is concerned, Clover is quite interesting. It starts in the middle, ends, then goes back to the beginning, then the manga ends in a middle before the start of volume one. It's really not as confusing as it sounds and I recommend reading the series the way it was published. It gives it a circular feeling, the story never really ends in my mind, there is no real finality to the events.

All in all, Clover is a story where the telling and the artwork is half the journey. It is a slow-paced glimpse into a strange world and stands out in my mind as an enormously enjoyable work. It is one of my favorite manga. Some call it pretentious; I disagree. CLAMP is a lot of things, but not pretentious. It is CLAMP's venture into something different, a world where characters do not turn into chibis because there is no slapstick (the humour comes from some clever banter between the characters) there are no cutesy animal sidekicks and it's thoughtful, contemplative rather than complex and gimmicky. It is complete in it's incompleteness and I highly recommend it, to any fan of manga, if only to observe the masterful storytelling.

Don't overlook Clover; it's breathtaking.

Hm, where should I start with this review? I remember back in my early days on the Internet, I remember seeing pictures of Sue everywhere. I recognized the art as CLAMP but I wasn’t aware she was from a manga series until I actually started to read about CLAMP. I longed for the day to read it because I really loved their ideas for stories and I wanted to explore what other worlds they have created.

And, honestly, I’m not quite sure what I read. The setting takes place in a retro like world that has steampunk. I suppose that’s interesting in itself – I’m not that interested in steampunk but hey, it’s different so why not? What’s the worst thing that could happen?

Well… I got the basic plot down – Kazuhiko, an agent, was pulled from retirement to escort Sue to somewhere that she wanted to go. Alright, I get that. The two start getting to know each other over the course of the story and, at the end, Kazuhiko realized the connection between Sue and Ora, his dead girlfriend…. except not really?

There’s also something about a guy trying to kill him (and gets off on the sadism) and chasing the two down only to give up after the first fight between them. Er.

There are other characters in the story as well – a comrade named Gingetsu who’s all mysterious and cool (and always has a visor on for whatever reason that’s not entirely clear), and a guy named Ran who’s experienced in computers and has a special sort of power. As you can see, the cast is kinda small if you don’t really consider the elder Wizards, or Generals, or any of the random characters that pop up here and there.

To be honest, I’m not sure if this particular story would work as a manga simply because there’s a song that keeps showing up during the course of the manga – the song Sue and Ora wrote together. It’s assumed that Ora has, or had, a really pretty voice that we’re supposed to imagine. I feel something like that, if you’re going to include a singer, visuals and sound would help carry the story more. I suppose the simple message of CLOVER is that you have to make certain sacrifices to be happy or you have to take the first step towards that happiness.

The message is fine, but it felt that it got lost in its own imagery. After a while, I was wondering what we’re supposed to be doing. The art, as usual, is gorgeous in its CLAMP glory but the writing… It may have gotten lost for the sake of trying to be deep. It was hard to follow the story simply because a character could be talking about how hard it would be to get happiness again or if we ever attained it in the first place on minute and the next minute, we’re in the middle of a battle. Okay, but what just happened with the battle???

And that’s just the main story. It felt really rushed simply because, again, it wasn’t really clear what’s going on. Words are pretty but manga is also a visual medium – show, don’t just tell. Though, if we took out maybe a good chunk of the monologues, maybe it’d be easier to understand what’s going on. Oh yeah, and Kazuhiko apparently has an arm gun as a super weapon because, why the hell not?

Included are side stories about how Ora and Sue met as well as a backstory to Ran and Gingetsu’s relationship. These side stories go deeper into the Clover Leaf Project.

From what I can understand, the Clover Leaf Project started because people, particularly children, are developing psychic or magical abilities. Depending how high their level is, that’s how they rate them. For example, Ora was a one-leaf because her only power is predicting her own death (which was never explained who killed her or why). One-leaf is considered the weakest and the least threatening to the government. However, as the leaves go up, it becomes evident that the person is more powerful.

In Ran’s short story, it’s revealed that Gingetsu is a two-leaf and Ran was imprisoned (along with his twin) because he’s a three-leaf. Sue is considered a four-leaf which is why she was completely sealed off from the world. Ran and his twin are considered too powerful even against the five most powerful generals, or again, wizards. Forget Sue. She could destroy them all with little effort.

Apparently, the lower level leaves aren’t aware of the more powerful Clovers (in terms of who they are) but the higher powers can sense the lower levels. Interesting but there wasn’t much to it. In Ora’s short story, Ora and Sue interact over the phone. Sue didn’t realize she was actually an one-leaf until Ora told her and yet Sue was able to pick up her voice.

But in Ran’s short story, Sue keeps interjecting with advice to Ran and the twin even though she knows they can’t hear her.

I feel a little torn about the short stories. On one hand, it’s really interesting to see how Ora actually was and what happened to her when she died. Not only that, it explained the connection between Sue and Ora – and why Sue chose Kazuhiko to escort her to Fairy Park. Ran’s story was interesting and it showed what happened to him and how he met Gingetsu.

On the other hand, were they really necessary? It shed some light but in the end, it doesn’t make the story any less confusing and still not clear what exactly its intentions are.

Don’t get me wrong – I really wanted to like CLOVER a lot, especially the connections between Sue, Ora, and Kazuhiko but it fell apart and it left me more confused than when I first started to read it. I suppose I can’t really recommend it to anyone if you’re looking for a concise story but it also feels lost in its own meaning to where it’s hard to really analyze where they really wanted to go with this.

I’m probably making it sound that it wants to be deeper than it actually is but the thing about it is – I’m sure it is! It’s hard to analyze it when they throw words at me and expect me to go along with it or to try to understand what they’re going for it. It seems the original meaning is somewhere in there (happiness, the costs, what it means) but it tripped and it refuses to get up.

There’s a lot of talk but there’s really not enough meaning for the message to get through. Perhaps another reader can gather its meaning than I can – my problem mostly stems from the fact that I want to analyze everything and not just one thing. And the problem with CLOVER is simply – for a simple escorting story, it talks a lot but it doesn’t really mean anything.

Clover is one of the worst manga i've read (i've read more manga than my lists say, cause i don't remember what they're called), its practically got no story cause theres a guy trying to get a girl to this one place only she knows of, but in the end both of them get sent back to their starting points and the girl starts thinking about other people like her and how they survived. to add on, there would be pages covered in black with some cursive on it (presumably the lyrics of a song) that just distracted from the story and made the manga even harder to read. and the pages that do have stuff on them are about 95% empy space that has nothing on it and makes it even harder to read. all in all, i wouldn't recommend it.

I’m not going to lie, this is one of the most confusing manga’s that Clamp produced and I have heard that isn’t even done yet. I’m somewhat glad its not because as it is, there really isn’t any definitive ending to the plot or answers as to what it was supposed to be about. Nanase Ohkawa has actually explained that there are two books left that are needed to complete the story but unfortunately, there is no date to when those would be released.

We follow a girl named Sue and her protector Kazuhiko as they travel the land in search of something. A running fraise that seems to always come up is ‘I only want your Happiness but I cannot be yours,’ and saying about 4-leaf clovers. To tell the truth, I couldn’t figure out very much of the story because much of it was cryptic. There was also a strange male who seemed to be rather interested in Kazuhiko. I can understand many of the stories and philosophies that clamp normally uses, but in this case, I can’t understand. It’s sad that this isn’t even done because it probably would have the answers we were searching for. Sadly, at the time of this review, it has been about 13-14 years since it came out and they still have it considered on hold.

The artwork is so beautiful even if the characters look like their from xxxHolic in how long armed and small headed they are. It has an interesting fantasy aspect to this as well where we have talking rabbit’s dolls walking around and they seem more from the world of wonderland how they are drawn. There is a lot of steam punk cyber style images, especially how the wings are drawn. I love this style in how charming and fine detailed it all is down to some of the strains of hair.

If you've been an anime fan for a long time, there's a good chance that you've probably at least heard of CLAMP at some point. Many of their manga are beloved and famous throughout the world, from the kid-friendly magical girl manga CardCaptor Sakura, to the epic old-school isekai Magic Knight Rayearth. Nowadays, they're mostly known for Tsubasa Chronicle and XxxHolic, but they recently started writing a sequel to CardCaptor Sakura called Clear Card, so they're still around. But another thing diehard fans know about CLAMP is their...unfortunate history of starting new manga and then putting them on indefinite hiatus, the most egregious of them being the X manga, which ended on a massive cliffhanger and never went beyond that. Putting manga on hiatus seems to be a trend for them, whether it's because the original magazines they ran in shut down, or due to lack of ideas, or other factors, CLAMP have a bunch of manga that are in dire need of continuations or conclusions. Clover is one of those manga, and many say it's their most experimental work. Having bought and read it long ago, and re-reading it now, I'm inclined to agree, and this manga really deserves to have its story finished.

In a dystopian, cyberpunk world, Kazuhiko is a young but wounded and retired black ops agent. But he suddenly gets called back in by his company for a new job that supposedly only he can do: A young woman, Sue, is requesting to be taken to an old, abandoned amusement park for some reason. The thing is, Sue is a Four-Leaf Clover, the strongest and most dangerous psychic human in the world, whose technology-manipulating powers are apparently so devastating, the powers that be have kept her in confinement, knowing that they wouldn't be able to stand a chance against someone like her. Thus, she's a top military secret. Kazuhiko has to take her there, but people from his past and other countries' armies have no intention of letting him complete his duty.

There's no denying that CLAMP's artwork has always been gorgeous and lushly detailed, but here its on an entirely different level. You'll notice that the pages don't have a lot of panels, instead using a lot of white and black space, completely empty. Many of these artistic choices are used to convey a character's mental state or to experiment with panel layouts, and I think it works here. Very few panels take up the pages, and are instead arranged like collages or puzzles. Of course, CLAMP's trademark detailed art combined with the intense cyberpunk world, heavy machinery and intricate technological marvels, makes the dystopian setting really stand out in its harshness and wonder. In a way, the setting combined with CLAMP's artwork and the way the pages and panels are arranged make it almost haunting, and I wonder if that was intentional on CLAMP's part. I hope it is, because this manga has a great sense of atmosphere.

But you can't have a setting and a story without characters, right? I liked the whole ensemble, even if they don't necessarily receive a whole lot of development, and none of them fall into any particular tropey archetypes, like the moe girl or the badass soldier. Sue and Kazuhiko are those two things, but CLAMP is careful to give them more subtle nuances to their characterization, along with everyone else, oftentimes letting the art and story speak to what they're like, through gestures and conversations, without the need to drop a bunch of exposition. All of them have a variety of engaging personalities, and it's clear that CLAMP wanted to do more with them but didn't get the chance to. Why? We'll get to that further down.

The story itself isn't much to write home about. The manga consists of four volumes, with the first two showing Kazuhiko and Sue on their journey, and the other two being flashbacks that take place before then. The manga doesn't like to go into much detail about what it's world is like or why certain things are happening, letting the readers interpret things for themselves, but it also tackles themes of loneliness, love, what it means to be alone, and whether it's right to consider people to be dangerous because of their powers. But it's not without its bumps in the road. For one, the story doesn't have a conclusion, so there's a lot of plot threads left unresolved, such as what the deal is with that Bols guy who dismembered Kazuhiko's arm, or who killed Kazuhiko's girlfriend. Plus, there's a significant continuity error: Kazuhiko's girlfriend, Ora, is revealed to be a One-Leaf Clover, but she has a tattoo of a four leaf clover, which goes against the series' established rules.

It's clear that the manga has much more story to tell. According to CLAMP, while Clover has four volumes out, they intended for it to be six volumes long. Unfortunately, Clover was put on indefinite hiatus, and the reason for that mainly has to do with bad timing. The original magazine it was serialized in, Amie, shut down in 1999. Most manga get moved to other magazines so they could continue, which is the current standard nowadays, but CLAMP never got around to finishing Clover, and they never gave a particular reason for why they never went back to it. For all we know, it might have been out of their control, or maybe there's some legal issues involved that's preventing CLAMP from finishing not only Clover, but a bunch of their other manga, probably to the point where they wouldn't be able to legally be free to move their manga to another magazine for completion. As of now, who knows? This is why Clover's story is unfinished and why the characters don't get explored more than what we get. It's a shame, because for what it is, I genuinely like Clover, and it deserves to have its story concluded in some manner. Hey, if Samurai Jack can get an ending, why not this? One can only hope, right?

While not one of CLAMP's best works, it's a criminally underrated manga that deserves more love than it gets, and it'll be perfect for sci-fi fans who love over-the-top cyberpunk settings.

Style over substance is the best way to describe this series.

Stylistically this manga was innovative and artistic - lots of song lyrics positioned to match the mood of the scene, lots of negative space and white backgrounds that created a bleak and somber atmosphere in your mind while reading, and lots of chapters that are 1 or 2 pages long.

All of that is fine and I do have an appreciation for serious/quirky series (I am an Utena fan after all). What turned me off was that the ENTIRE manga was like this - all 4 volumes - with heavy style but very little character, plot, setting, and art development. I don't like finishing a manga that was meant to be heavily emotional and not caring about anything or anybody.

CLAMP was probably more concerned with making a graphic poem instead of a graphic novel. Clover had an abstract, free-flowing feel to it - like a poem - instead of a start-to-finish story. Time-skips, 1 page chapters, and more song lyrics than actual dialogue.... this was definitely not a conventional story. Some would argue if the series is even finished because the ending was left very open....but you could say that about the whole series, so who knows.

The foundation and potential was there to make this an amazing series. The set up being in a futuristic, dystopian sci-fi world was cool, the Clover Leaf Project idea was cool, all the pretty people with super powers was cool - but all of this was underdeveloped. The art however - when there actually was some - was very pretty and CLAMP-like.

One example is Suu, the main character who is supposed to be very powerful and the most dangerous person in the world. Okay. That 'danger' was never shown or elaborated on and I guess as the reader you are supposed to take CLAMP's word for it. This is how it was for the whole story. How am I to get emotionally invested in a story when there's no initial construction for the characters, plot, and setting? You can't, and I didn't.

Fans of CLAMP will enjoy this series obvious. I would recommend that this NOT be your first CLAMP series because it's so different from their other work and it may turn you off from seeking their other titles.

This wasn't a terrible series.... it's different and I did like it stylistically, I just wish there was a lot more substance.

Story: 4/10
For what it had of a story, Clover was interesting.
The major problem: Most of the pages were lyrics and mostly blank pages.
I hate lyrics in literary works because I don't know the melody. I'll try to make a tune, then fail. Eventually, I'll just skip the songs. That's all right, but if the pages are mostly lyrics, that's not good.

Also, there is little plot development. The volumes are told out of order. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE stories that are out of order: Like Pulp Fiction and Sin City. The thing about those movies/comics is that they have plot development.
What I mean about out of order is that volumes 1 & 2 are the "main story", then volumes 3 & 4 are "flashbacks".

Art: 7/10
I've never been a fan of CLAMP's character artwork, but their backgrounds, splash pages, and details are beautiful! That's the case for Clover, but a lot of the pages are mostly blank and with lyrics.

Character: 3/10
There is little character development. Scratch that. There isn't character development. Sure, volumes 3 & 4 add to the characters, but it isn't really character development. So, why do I rate it as high as I did? That's simple: I like the characters. Yes, the characters are enjoyable. They had so much potential though. Gingetsu was a potential badass!

Enjoyment: 2/10
It wasn't bad, but it's not a good sign if the reader can't wait till the manga is finished so they can put it away and (possibly) never read it again.

Overall: 5/10
The story, for what there was of it, was interesting, the art was okay, and the characters were enjoyable.
But there was no plot or character development, and Gingetsu could have been a badass.

I didn't really know what to expect from the manga, and especially its main character.

The story itself is your typical shounen story with the villains that escalate in power with a modern delinquent aesthetic. Its the case where the characters make the story as an experience better than it actually is.

Hayato is probably the most endearing loud mouths I've seen in a while. He's very much a thug, but you can tell he means well and will do anything to fix his errors and is very considerate about how others feel. His interactions with the various characters are dynamic and especially entertaining.

The art is very well done. I just have a love for the quasi-realistic style for this story. The designs are pretty damn diverse in terms of fashion like cornrows, mohawks, dread locks, dyed hair, afros and the like.
One of its downfalls is that the female characters aren't as detailed as the male characters and suffer the most from the dreaded "same face syndrome" which unfortunately affect some of the male characters near the last quarter of the manga's run. There was a weird point of the manga where the backgrounds are clearly black & white photos which is nothing shy of off putting to me.

The action is pretty disappointing. There wasn't any real choreography for most of the fights. Just a war of attrition of punches, kicks, an occasion back kick or headbutt. I know these are street fights but you can be a lot more creative where the environment is practically a weapon. And there's a weird trend where most of the thugs' main choice of weaponry is a police baton.

The story is rather simple and easy to follow, but it gets really repetitive near the end from the story beats to the dialogue. It probably knew it was losing steam and ended which has my respect because there wasn't much left to show off without turning into a broken record like some shounen tend to be.

This is a good shounen manga worth your time for the characters and how they bounce off each other.

I just want to preface something before the review starts. Everything I'm about to say pretty much aligns with the other two reviews on this page. It probably wont be anything new but I thought I'd share my thoughts anyways. If you found this review helpful please like their review and not mine.

Story (6): Just like RefinedTyro and Nervin said this is a Shounen manga. You essentially get a monthly villain who does something to a friend of Misaki. Misaki comes in to save the day, the end. Each new villain is slightly stronger than before but worry not the power of friendship will persevere. Its very formulaic and at some point becomes very predictable. This does not mean the manga is bad in any way because it does what it does well. It gives the typical shounen manga a little twist by adding delinquents. Its a nice twist and the character development helps with making it very enjoyable. Unfortunately the ending felt a bit abrupt with 2-3 questions left unanswered. No spoils: There's a 10 chapter fight arc right before the ending and right when the fight is over it cuts into the future and we get 3 chapters concluding the manga. Also quick note: The manga isn't always serious and when it isn't serious its pretty funny. It does a great job in switching tones.

Art (7): The art starts off like any old school manga (wacky as fuck) but give it some time and it evolves into a pseudo-realistic art style (RefinedTyro). I personally loved it and it gave the manga a bit of style. Only problem is that all the chicks look the same and technically all the dudes look the same to (RefinedTyro) but they're given differentiation via clothing and hairstyles. You could probably make them all bald and they would all look the same just like how you can make all the male characters in DBZ bald and they all look the same. Unfortunately, the female characters get no love they all look the same dress the same and got the same hairstyles (Nervin). I didn't really mind because none of the female characters were apart of the main cast and as a result them having less detail put into them didn't push me away from the series. Overall the art style is nice and the semi realistic art helps give off a delinquent manga style. When shits about to go down it does a good job in expressing it with sharp lines and great composition and when its getting light hearted its able to strip all detail away and make it look very goofy.

Characters (7): Everything RefinedTyro and Nervin say is correct. Misaki is a lovable loud mouth and of all the manga I've read he's probably the most endearing. He's just a really good guy and always sticks up for his friends. The main 4 characters get a good amount of development but obviously our boy Misaki gets the most. None of the side characters get as much development but their fleshed out enough to the point were you don't really complain to much. The interactions between the cast is natural and done pretty well. It never goes against how the character was developed.

Enjoyment (9): This manga is a very entertaining read. Never once did I feel like it was getting boring or stale even though the story writing formula was very predictable. The fights were great even if there wasn't much choreography and it just resulted in a slugfest and attrition with a spice of friendship. The comedy was nice and the development of the main cast made me feel attached to the characters. Even the small bits of development for the side characters got me attached to them. Great manga that makes you feel pretty hyped when Misaki beats dudes up