lastblossom reviewed Robotics;Notes Volume 1 by 5pb (Robotics;Notes, #1)
A lot of information is packed into the beginning, but the piece shines, largely due to a very likable female protagonist.
Robotics;Notes is based on a visual novel, and that means there's going to be a LOT of stuff packed in, in an attempt to merge enough information from all the different playthroughs of the game. The manga manages this pretty well, although the front end is fairly information-dense, largely by necessity. There's the robotics club. There's the Anemome Incident. There's the online game Kill Ballad. There's Aki's absent sister. There's the mysterious "popular anime" that aired ten years ago (random coincidence: the Robotics;Notes anime aired about ten years ago). There's a strange girl who stands on rooftops. There's a lot to cover. Thankfully Aki's enthusiasm is catching, and it's easy to keep turning pages to cheer for her success. She's the core of this manga, moving the story forward by sheer force of will. Kaito acts as a decent snarky foil, content to spend most of his days playing online …
Robotics;Notes is based on a visual novel, and that means there's going to be a LOT of stuff packed in, in an attempt to merge enough information from all the different playthroughs of the game. The manga manages this pretty well, although the front end is fairly information-dense, largely by necessity. There's the robotics club. There's the Anemome Incident. There's the online game Kill Ballad. There's Aki's absent sister. There's the mysterious "popular anime" that aired ten years ago (random coincidence: the Robotics;Notes anime aired about ten years ago). There's a strange girl who stands on rooftops. There's a lot to cover. Thankfully Aki's enthusiasm is catching, and it's easy to keep turning pages to cheer for her success. She's the core of this manga, moving the story forward by sheer force of will. Kaito acts as a decent snarky foil, content to spend most of his days playing online games, but willing to rise to an ambitious challenge, given the right motivation. Other characters all look fun, given their brief introductions, and I look forward to getting to know them better in future installments. Art is nice, very closely matching the style of the games, with a couple fun panels and some cool looking robots.
Robotics;Notes is part of the science adventure series alongside Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head, but I'd classify this one as probably less dramatic than the other two. Then again, with an opening scene like that, who knows where we might go?
Thanks to NetGalley and Udon Entertainment for a review copy. All thoughts in this review are my own!