Manga: Clockwork Planet Volume 4

Clockwork Planet Vol 4
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

Naoto's a high school dropout and brilliant amateur tinkerer. He lives in a world that has been so over-exploited that the entire surface has become one vast machine. When a box crashes into his home containing a female automaton, it's a harbinger of change that will rock the entire globe, and give Naoto his chance to be a hero.

Sooo the last volume of Clockwork Planet left us on a cliffhanger, which was cruel...but I'm not going to lie to you guys...this volume does it again. I feel like it's kinda less cruel if you've watched the anime but still! 

There's plenty of action to kick this volume off, and Marie's dealing with the consequences of her face-off with AnchoR. She goes after grid Mei after hearing some intelligence reports that the armed forces might be planning to purge Tokyo next. Meanwhile Naoto meets with an old engineer who says something rather interesting. I mean...I've been suspecting things and it's nice to have a character be doing it too! 

Marie goes a liiiittle bit dark in this volume, but very badass. She has some struggles to overcome with, as well as losing hope. But she pulls it back, and she really is one of my favourite characters, if not my ultimate favourite character, of this series. Naoto in the manga is less irritating than he was in the anime, once we reached this point in the anime he was really beginning to set my teeth on edge. I mean....there's still time for him to start being irritating but the manga is way better than the anime so I'm holding out hope!

There's some great story progression and we get a nice little plot thread to keep us going. We go deeper in to the plot too as we see the repercussions from the Kyoto plot twine with this new plot thread. I mean, we basically see the bigger picture a little bit rather than the little section the story's in. This volume has a really nice pace to it as well. 

There's plenty of entertainment not just with the plot and the action, but with the banter between our little group. It cracks me up and it's nice to see them getting closer and bonding, as they decided to make themselves in to terrorists to save the planet. As you do. There's a war brewing but Naoto and Marie have a plan...the big show down's about to happen...and then cliffhanger. So next volume we have a fair bit to look forward to, and I'm intrigued to see how the plot's going to branch out. And if Naoto is going to start bugging me.