Bokurano: Ours, Vol. 4

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY FEB 22, 2010

This new series from Mohiro Kitoh (Shadow Star) offers a fresh and unsettling take on the giant robot genre with not one but 15 young protagonists collectively piloting a giant robot. One day on a beach hike at summer science class, a group of junior high kids stumble upon a strange man in a cave filled with computers. The man effortlessly coerces the teens into playing an ominous game defending the Earth from gigantic aliens in an equally enormous robot. Although most of the children in the story feel safe, Kitoh effectively establishes a mood of terrifying dread in the reader. Kitoh's teens are in mortal danger and eerily unaware of the scope of their predicament at least until one them accidentally dies. Kitoh's stark artwork is appealing. The teens pilot the robot from a voidlike cockpit populated with 15 floating chairs, each one drawn to reflect one protagonist's personality. The bare cockpit complements the empty space around the alien-looking robot Zearth as he stands between the sea and the sky. The teens are instructed by an untrustworthy floating robot teddy bear with sharp, pointy teeth. The series originally ran in the alternative manga magazine IKKI, and as such, it has a definite alternative comics appeal.