Customer Reviews

Aquarian Age - Juvenile Orion Volume 1

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I do not often feel compelled to write reviews, but I thought I would do so for those who may have gotten a false impression of the book based on the vague claims that "this is a rip of of CLAMP's X". I will not deny that there are some similar elements, and I won't try to pretend that that isn't part of the reason I like it.

Animes and mangas often become formulaic by their very nature. This story is about a young girl destined to lead a group of bishounen against an opposing force. In this sense it is more like Fushigi Yuugi than it is X, not only in the disproportionate male to female ratio, but in the tendency of several characters to fall for the blushing, naive heroine like she's the best thing since sliced bread.

Now let's get some of the similarities between X and Juvenile Orion out of the way. Mana and Kaname's relationship is very much like Kotori and Kamui's, a girl who ernestly tries to recapture what she had with her childhood friend. Although it is Mana that returns after years away, as opposed to Kamui, is is still the guy who, for one reason or another, thinks it best that they keep their distance. Kaname *looks* like Kamui as much as he acts like him, from his messy, dark hair to the wings, but if wings, black hair and a tendency to be antisocial makes Juvenile Orion a rip off of X...well then I can think of several other series that should be considered rip offs as well.

As well, the father/son (or slightly more, depending how you want to read into it) relationship between Tomonori and Amou is a vague reminder of Seishirou and Subaru in Tokyo Babylon (another of CLAMP's works), with their roles somewhat reversed--but I won't go into detail for fear of ruining any plot twists.

That said, let me tell you why I enjoy Juvenile Orion. The art of the manga is absolutely *beautiful* and is what first attracted me to the series, you can call it a rip off of CLAMP's work if you want, but only when the artist starts to distort body proportions as heavily as they are in X can you truly call it a rip off. There is a mastery of screentones in Juvenile Orion that CLAMP, in X at least, could only dream of. The panels are detailed but not too cluttered, and very rarely did I get confused just because there was too much going on on one page.

I've only read the first three books, so I cannot say whether or not the plot closely parallels the storyline of X. I do not, however, know what will happen ultimately, nor do I know how anyone who hasn't even read the manga could claim they do.

The point of this review is that you cannot look at the elements of a story and scream "plagarism!" Often works get inspired by similar things, or inspired by each other. It is not a crime to read a manga and say "I want to write a story that has that kind of effect on people". As a writer I know you pull your inspiration from many sources, you assemble it, and you personalize it. If Juvenile Orion was as predictable as people have made it out to be, I would not be eagerly awaiting the next book.

Tokyo Babylon is my favorite manga of all time, and I love CLAMP, but X is only decent in my mind. Why is that? The characters...it takes fully developed characters to get into a story, and CLAMP simply waited too long before getting into the hearts, souls, and minds of the people they were killing off. I like the characters of Juvenile Orion, they are what keeps me coming back to the story ^^

I bought volume 1 of Juvenile Orion on a whim from a local Barnes and Noble. I expected an average manga with slightly above average artwork, like so many other series, but I was pleasently surprised. The story is captivating, the artwork is phenominal, and the characters have depth to them, which I find increasingly hard to find in manga. Honestly, I hadn't even thought of the similarities to X until I read the reviews, and I believe that, while slightly reminiscent, the differences are great enough to create a unique and absorbing plot that will keep you reading. I immediately went out and bought the next three volumes after reading the first, and they were even better than the first. I highly suggest this wonderful series to anyone who likes almost any type of manga!

This book starts out kind of slow in the sense that you don't know who is who and it's rather confusing unless you stick with it. But if you do (which i highly recomend) you'll be rewarded with the story and action of the manga. It took me a while to figure out who were the characters but i read it and i wanted more!!!!If you like manga then you'll like this!!!!I recomend this to perple over the age of 12.

I honestly never really made a connection to Clamp's X with this work until I read reviews. I have read through four of the five books and I must say that I saw several similiarities in these characters with other characters from almost every other manga I have ever read. Mana reminds me of Himeno from Pretear, for example. Their attitudes and mannerisms, even Kaname reminds me of the Leafe Knight Hayate...and those characters remind me so much of others from Blue Seed 9; so really, if you are any kind of manga fan at all, you'll realize that almost ALL manga have some kind of parallel to others out there, and why not? Shakespeare took all his ideas from a lot of mytholgical legends, do your homework on this and you'll see what I mean. And if you want to go talking about ripoffs, take a small glance at RahXephon, see if THAT doesn't make you go "HEY! I know this story! I watched it under the title Neon Genesis Evangelion."

As far as this particular story goes, I would have to say I gave this book a four because the next three are so much better, giving us more into the characters, helping us understand a little better who they are and what exactly they have to give in this tale. Development I think is what they call it. =)

Essentially I see that (as in so many other manga) this whole scenario was created by the life of society as a whole in the book world. Many things come about because of the choices people make, destined for consequence.

I enjoy a whole range of genre when it comes to manga, it really depends on my mood, and I can tell you that this is one that I could pick up at any time and truly enjoy with a smile on my face and an upbeat rhythme in my heart. I can't wait to read the fifth book.

I suppose I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys beautiful artwork, heroine romance, and the possibility of hidden abilities within everyone. And let's face it, is this stuff excellent eye candy or what?!

The title says it: this will leave you in awe. Although at first a little confusing, Juvinile Orion is an addictive manga with, might I add, beautyful art. Although at the beginning i tis rather confusing, things slowly begin to fall into place. Overall, i highly recomend this for those of you who are looking for something interesting and new to add to your manga collection.

This manga book was really good. The artwork by the author was superb and I can't believe a person could have that much talent in drawing in this world of art, and literature. This manga book, volume 1 of the series, is HIGHLY recommended. I think anyone would like it.

I think this series goes towards the "female" audience since it has revealing pictures of the characters, so I recommend this book to maybe teenage girls or women in their early 20s.

The story is okay, but the manga focuses more on the artwork than the actual writing and literature of the story. But this book was good overall.

Juvenile Orion is a very good series, even from the first volume, but there are alot of problems. Yes, the drawings are beautiful and such, but as you read things get a bit odd.

Fighting scenes are almost practically non existent. Which is not bad, but as the series goes on random characters will appear with no reason and random characters will be mentioned but never told about. Things seem to get jumbled up and questions unanswered. The series takes 2 books to explain everything that happened and 3 books to jumble up one big enemy boss. Its ends abruply making you wait for more until you realize theres only 5 volumes.

Its an entertaining series, but if your looking for something more in depth it may not be the best thing for you.

Well i read it before reviews, so i guess it was a good thing because I liked it even though others did not. I never got the oppurtunity to read this CLAMP X/1999 thing so, I enjoyed. It is a bit confusing, but the art is great and so are the characters so I would recommend it dispit it possibly being a ripoff.

To be honest, I thought that Aquarian Age could have been better. True, the art was beautiful (with plenty of bishonen to boot) but I felt that the story was a bit choppy. However, it was still interesting enough to keep the reader flipping the pages, even though its was a bit like X/1999 (which is better by the way)...my main issue was that the main character, Mana, seemed like all the other main shoujo characters. But that is just my personal opinion. Overall, I think that Aquarian Age is a good buy if you have some extra cash or something, but definately not a must-have.

i know people have given this series a bit of a hard time because of its "similarities" to clamps X/1999. now, im writing this review after only reading the first volume, but, if my opinion hadnt been tainted, or pre-ordained by others i wouldnt have made the connection. sure kusakabe kaname looks very kamui-like, and the certain "limbs" he develops resemble certain parts of X/1999 + X the film's main character kamui's, but i can also count numerous anime and manga where one character or another resembles another character or is sporting big black wings of destruction :P
as far as story line goes, yes there may be certain things that would remind you of clamps X but only in a very vague and unclear way. as well with clamps kamui and kotori, the relationship between kaname and mana differs greatly by so far appearing to be much more romantic then the latter.
after reading the first volume i've thouroughly enjoyed the characters and story and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys X as well as others who arent familiar with the series.
happy reading ^^