Clockwork Planet

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tl;dr: A mixed bag of a manga with a unique world but equally strong and weak aspects in terms of plot and characters.

Clockwork Planet is a manga that has a really interesting setting. It’s essentially a futuristic steampunk world. Steampunk is something that often has somewhat of a renaissance flare to it. It extends past that well enough I suppose, but even then, I would say only really as far as victorian. Clockwork Planet is one that basically has modern society with all its amenities, cars, cell phones, televisions, etc. but it’s functioning solely on the basis of gears. In terms of the science, it ... actually doesn’t make that much sense. It tries to explain how some things that shouldn’t be possible in such a world manage to function using only gears at times, but to be honest these explanations of some concepts just made the lack of explanation for other things stand out more. It isn’t a world that’s fleshed out all that well from a sci-fi point of view. Still, just in terms of atmosphere and visuals, it’s really cool and feels incredibly unique and a world that felt really easy to get pulled into and interested in.

The overarching plot of this manga revolves around the nature of this world and Y who created it, but the smaller plotlines involved are more centered around various conflicts between factions that have a pretty heavy political bend. The overarching plot felt like it didn’t really move at all, or rather for most of the manga there doesn’t seem to be any sort of overarching goal. The cast learns things as they go on, with even a big overarching villain showing themselves at times that they’re slowly obtaining information on the identity of, and they also end up adding new Y-series automatons to the group, but that never really feels like the full goal. Rather, it just feels like the cast is going with the flow in regards to the smaller plots and occasionally some development occurs with the overarching plot. The manga ends before anything much is revealed about anything, and thus in the end, it didn’t really feel like it had much of an overarching plot at all. Furthermore, the manga actually does manage to adapt all the light novels, wherein the light novel series seems to have gone on an indefinite hiatus, and thus it’s pretty likely that the rest of the story will never be properly resolved in any medium, which is pretty disappointing.

In terms of the smaller plotlines, these were pretty interesting and generally focused around various conspiracies that the cast end up getting involved in. These felt fleshed out well enough and were interesting in and of themselves, though the middle one felt like it dragged on for a bit too long. These smaller plotlines also often also have a lot of room to breath, as there are usually slice of life portions and comedic portions intermixed, arguably too finely intermixed as they suddenly appear in the middle of serious portions. Still they are good and even with them feeling pretty abrupt at times I do feel overall they help with the pacing.

The cast of characters was a mixed bag. The Y-series automatons, RyuZU and AnchoR were really simple characters that felt like they were mostly just designed to be likable characters, but since they very much were really likable characters, I would consider them a wholehearted success. The first protagonist, Naoto, also felt like a simple character in that he just continued forward in a positive manner regardless of what was happening and it didn’t really feel like he had any character development, but was likable for what he was. The end seemed to try to reframe things in such a way as to make it feel like he was getting character development, but it didn’t really work.

The second protagonist, Marie wasn’t all that likable at all, which mainly comes down to how she definitely needs character growth but doesn’t get any at all over the course of the series. Firstly, she’s a complete tsun without any dere. It felt like there may be some romantic development with her and Naoto at some point, but that never materialized. Her chemistry with her bodyguard Halter is also really weird. So her personality just felt kind of prickly to the point of not being that likable. Secondly, while the manga seems to try to show growth it really doesn’t at all and that gets kind of annoying. The basic way things flow for her is that she’s arrogant and thinks she can do anything, she hits some sort of wall where she completely loses confidence and begins sulking, she gets snapped out of it by Naoto and declares that she’ll never give up and will pull off the impossible, which she does, only for this whole cycle to repeat again in the future. The first time this happened it felt like a pretty solid part to a character arc and definitely had some impact. The second time it was okay with a lot less impact. After that it completely lost impact and actually got a little annoying as it felt like it made clear that she wasn’t growing as a character and never would.

There are two other characters in the main group, Halter and eventually Vermouth. Their whole stick seems to be being the adults of the group to contrast with how Naoto and Miere are still essentially children, but it felt like this was overtly forced at times, especially in the final arc where things felt like they got overtly edgy suddenly, and it really didn’t feel like they meshed with the group all that well.

The art style isn’t particularly unique but it’s pretty high quality which I would say is the more important aspect here as it portrays a lot of elements that need systematic precision in order to look good like gears. For the same reason, the world design stands out as really good, which is really important for works with unique worlds. The character design of the main automata was good too, though outside of that they felt somewhat dull.

I must preface this review with the fact that I have not read the original light novel which this manga is based off of. As such, I suspect many things I say here about the pacing and plot may not be the case for the light novel. I highly suggest reading it as I believe that this story is an interesting read (though I have not read it myself, but I do intend to!). Anyways, here's my review for this manga (see the tl;dr at the bottom if you don't want to read everything). Minor spoilers by the way.

Clockwork Planet takes place ... in an alternative reality where planet Earth was effectively replace by a mechanical world created by an enigmatic person known as Y. Our main character, Naoto finds himself entangled in the mysteries of his world and effectively goes on a journey to save his malfunctioning planet.

While this is by no means a unique premise, the author was quick to establish intrigue for the world. This is then layered by the introduction of our main character and the main heroine, Ryuzu. The initial stages of the manga introduces our MCs and the fantastical pseudoscience that governs the laws of physics, which hooked me immediately. As the story goes on the plot gets greater in scale and covers the politics of mechanical Japan as well as the organizations and people that govern the cities that are actually built on top of giant gears. Unfortunately, I must admit that towards the end of the manga, things get a bit nonsensical, but this is mostly the fault of the main villain who is effectively the big bad final boss for this manga.

Out of all the characters, the main villain is the one I have the most problems with. He's shown to be an insane character, but his backstory and motivations feel shallow because of how little we get to see him. This character tends to ramble about things we the audience never actually get to understand as the manga is cut after the final battle. This is a problem I see with many villains for this series, but the main one is by far the worst in my opinion. On the other hand, our main cast and supportive cast is very well put together. Despite being the generic protagonist Naoto manages to express his own opinions and motivations while being an effective, self-insertable character. He's not overpowered in the traditional sense, giving him some sense of vulnerability. His "wife" Ryuzu, is visually my favorite character, but after grabbing the attention of the audience plays more of an comedic, yet overpowered plot device that drives the initial and later battle scenes. While her motivations are generic, she makes up for it in story driven beats. Marie is your classic tsundere. Many find her annoying, but I think she's pretty likable. Her bitchy attitude makes sense given her background and she rounds off later in the plot. Her partner robot, Halter is first introduced as your classic bodyguard. He doesn't stand out for the most part, but shines toward the really end of the manga. There's also the supportive cast (which is really just three characters) and they are enjoyable in their own right.

The artwork is clean and dynamic. Character designs are directly inherited by the light novel and they all look really cool and intricate. If you ever get to see the coloring for the characters, they all stand out yet complement each other. It's like watching a rainbow in front of grey clouds.

TL;DR
I personally enjoyed this series for the character dynamics, world building, and the cute characters. There were many comedic gags that I thought were cute despite the main story being somewhat dark. While I gave this a 7 overall, this should not dissuade you from giving this manga a try. If you came here after watching the anime, just go read the light novel!! I will soon do so as well and I am pretty excited to see where this series may go. Thanks for reading and have a good day!

The story is novel and very entertaining. There are fun characters, a very well defined world, action, antics, clockwork androids, and waifus. The art is often very detailed and has all kinds of cool things to find.

But there is a GIANT asterisk in the room; the story is unfinished. The big bad behind some events is not unmasked, the heroes have not met their goals, and the last chapter ends on a cliffhanger of "Okay let's go!" toward their next objective. The manga has been canceled/on hiatus since 2018, the light novels are not much farther out since they have been on hiatus since ... 2015 (it'll be 10 years in December as of writing this). The likelihood is , GRRM will finish Winds of Winter before this series ever comes back so you just have to be happy with what we have, for better or worse.