Q-Ko-Chan, vol. 1

Q-Ko-Chan volume 1
Ueda Hajime
Del Rey, 202 pages.

In the near-future on planet Earth, a world gone mad where never-ending war is a fact of life, Kirio is the coolest kid at school. Up in the sky, a giant robot is fighting a fleet of gunships, but the brilliant and distant Kirio is far from fazed—until the battling 'bot makes an unexpected landing in Kirio's front yard and rings the bell. But the worst threat for Kirio could be what stands on the other side of the door: an alien invader robot with the face of an adorable girl! From Del Rey.

Q-Ko-Chan is an interesting title to say the least. It's by Ueda Hajime, the creator of the successful FLCL. Q-Ko-Chan shares the similar art style of the FLCL manga, which is minimal. Not minimal as in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, just...well, have a look for yourself. It's very...just black lines on white paper. There's some shading, but not usually. It's unique. If you ever see it in a bookstore, I'd recommend flipping through it just to see the art.

Kirio, the main character ends up finding Q-Ko-Chan, a robot girl, in his yard. He quickly takes her in and hides her. But when the time comes, he's quick to take up the offer when she offers for him to "board her", as in piloting her and fighting off aliens that are attacking Japan. There's also some fragments of plot involving Kirio's mother as she works in the Special Operations force and the affect of her absence in Kirio's life, but that isn't really touched upon that much in this volume. We see Kirio's classmates end up entering their own chans in the end of the volume, but that is in the very few pages. Oh well, we'll find out next volume why that happened.

The story isn't really that upfront in this volume, it's much more about how Q-Ko-Chan is found and how she bonds with Kirio, and then boarding her to fight off the opposing forces of Japan. I guess you could call this somewhat of a war drama, but I'm not exactly sure because the story was confusing at the points where it showed up. Tying the invasion of Earth, family relationships, and bonding with the chan-dolls didn't really work well together.

The characters are okay, they aren't really expressive or easy to relate to. Kirio Muji is a standard stubborn boy who isn't really used to dealing with robots and is somewhat of a loner. The rest of the the characters are Mei and her clingy friend Shiino, the class good-boy Noru, the intellectual Tatsuta, and the non fitting-in Katsuki. But you know what? Those last 5 I described to you were so side characters, I really had to look up their names and descriptions in the book. That shows how much of a role they actually have in the series.

But the one character that stands out is Q-Ko-Chan. Not just because of her design (and coming from outer space) but because she actually has somewhat of a personality. She's not very confident of herself, and is portrayed as quite klutzy. She only really trusts Kirio to "board her", but he's so heartless he's quick to offer her over to one of his classmates. She's somewhat shy, but wouldn't you be to if you just landed on a planet with no knowledge of it whatsoever?

Aside from those issues, this book is very, very good quality. It's got the smoothest, non-flimsy cover I've ever felt. The paper is sturdy, and only one or two text boxes were cut off but the binding. This book is nice and thick, coming in at a nice 202 pages. There were 4 nice, detailed pages of translation notes, explaining everything from why they translated Ittekimasu they way they did, the suffix ko-chan, and how the Japanese address system works. One of the best translations yet.

Story: 2 (It's there in fragments, and is a bit confusing.)
Charters: 2 (Not much other than Q-Ko-Chan and Kirio, and there isn't much development.)
Quality: 5
Art: 2.5 (It really maters on your opinion. It may be higher/lower for you.)

Overall, I'd give this a 2.75, or a D+/C- depending on your taste in art. It's not easy to find, so don't go into your local bookstore expecting to find copies. I found mine at B. Dalton Books, a branch of Barnes and Nobles. I couldn't recommend this, but if you like stories about robots and befriending them, this is the story for you. If you're looking for some nice, sweet romance or heavy action look somewhere else.