If there's one thing that Japan has given to the world, it has made stories about teens getting behind the controls of giant, battlin' bipedal robots into practically its own genre. The list of epic giant robot series is mind-boggling -- from Tetsujin 28-Go (a.k.a. Gigantor), Mazinger and Raideen to Gundam, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann, mecha-mania is here to stay.
Mecha manga and anime have been hugely popular for so long, it's a genre that's ripe for re-invention. Into the fray comes Bokurano: Ours by Mohiro Kitoh, one of the many mind-blowing manga series for mature readers featured online at VIZ Media's SigIkki.com website.
Essentially, Bokurano: Ours introduces us to 15 kids who get invited by a strange man to play a game -- they each get to pilot a giant robot to battle space aliens. But what they realize way too late is that this game has very high stakes.
I invited guest reviewer Christopher Butcher to take a look at the first volume of this new sci-fi / action series and he had lots to say about how Kitoh's story pays homage to the giant robot genre, but falls short of greatness. See Christopher's review of Bokurano: Ours Volume 1 and find out why he calls it "calculated" and "clumsy" (among other things!)
You can read Bokurano: Ours for yourself online, free! You can read chapter 1 for on SigIkki.com, plus they've got chapters 7 and 8 from Volume 2 up now too, so you can see what happens next after the events in Volume 1.
For even more Bokurano fun, can also check out an interview with IKKI magazine's Editor in Chief, Hideki Egami and Yuji Sato, the editor of Bokurano: Ours from when they came out to San Diego Comic-Con last year.
Image credit: BOKURANO © 2004 Mohiro KITOH / Shogakukan
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