Aya Takeo Volume 1

By Tao Mori
January 9, 2011 - 12:35

Aya Takeo is about a world under attack by spider robots. Aya’s love Ji-Gumo was captured by the spider robots in the last attack, but he has survived by fighting off his captors.

Aya Takeo is set in a strange world, I don’t think this is earth as we know it, but another planet, which is plagued by constant robot spider attacks. Yes robot spiders, sadly not as awesome as you would think, how one ruins spider robots will be explained further. The spiders constantly attack this planet, I suspect to eat the humans, as they like to call the humans crunchy. This is strange when you think about it, sure humans are crunchy on the inside with those bones and such, but I would think that the robots would be the crunchy ones since they’re made of metal. The humans should be squishy meat bags, a reference that other robots have made when referring to humans. How can you stand all that sloshing? One of my favourite robot-human relations moments from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. Anyway the robots should be the crunchy ones not the humans, that doesn’t make sense when you think about. I clearly have thought about it too much already.

    So in this futuristic like world with fancy computers and net laser shields, the soldiers are using swords, spears and crossbows to fight their spider robot opponents, and why is this? Is there more honour in fighting with melee weapons against metal spiders? I think the assumption is yes, but then how is it that these robots spider robots have not completely obliterated this society? Shouldn’t they have more high tech equipment in the future? This society is also a strange amalgamation of futuristic technology and traditional Japanese culture as the clothes and architecture look like old traditional Japan. Like Samurai era Japan. The soldiers even wear Samurai garb, but these Japanese elements are all cosmetic. If they wore different clothing and had different buildings no one would notice as there’s no real mention as to why society looks like this. I realize I’m criticizing a technical detail, but I feel like they’re forcing the idea of traditional Japanese society on a futuristic world without any explanation and that makes it feel confusing and contrived.
   The storyline itself with Aya pining for her lost lover Ji-Gumo is rather typical, something that has been done many times before. I wish there was a twist here, like Ji-Gumo is actually dead, but no he’s alive and in the clutches of the spider robots, fighting them off one by one with his sword. Yes with his sword. The spider robots are first portrayed as alien and evil, but Ji-Gum somehow gets through to one of the spider robots and begins to show him empathy, but this spider robots ends up dying so all that effort is essentially wasted. So to does the chance of spider robot social society going through some kind of change where they no longer eat the crunchy humans. The spider robot feeling empathy for Ji-Gumo felt rushed, there was an early sense that the spider robot felt admiration for Ji-Gumo, but the robot sacrifices himself to save Ji-Gumo and that’s pushing it. If the spider robots could be easily influenced then why are they still hunting humans?

   The artwork in this book is typical of most Anime, though I’m no manga expert. Among the seriousness of the book there are these occasional funny scenes where faces over exaggerate their emotions. I don’t take this story as too serious to feel that these silly scenes detriment the atmosphere of the story. The art is cute and charming, but I get the feeling that this work is meant for a younger audience as it lacks levels of darkness that it hints at. Eating humans should be scary, but it’s not in this book.

   This isn’t a bad manga, but its not great either. It’s very simplistic in terms of the story and some aspects such as the sword versus robot spider thing isn’t explained very well. The characters goals are also stereotypical and common. Also this story is available as a web comic, but the whole story isn’t up, but most of it is. I think we’re just getting to the beginning of this story, and whether it will get better or not is yet to be seen.

Rating: 5 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12

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