Bokura no Kiseki
Mangaka: Natsuo Kumeta
Genre: Fantasy/School/Shoujo
Review Status: Incomplete (2 Volumes/? Volumes)
Licensed: No, this manga is not licensed in the US.
Art: A shoujo that has surprising detail to it. Beautiful clothing, cute characters, solid detail in the backgrounds and props. I can’t complain too much. It is fairly standard art, though, with big eyes and lots and LOTS of bishounen. At least the girls are equally gorgeous?
Summary: From a young age, Minami Harusumi has had recurring dreams of Veronica, a princess whose kingdom is on the verge of destruction. He believes them to be recollections of his past life, and that he is her reincarnation. Because of this, he is ridiculed by his classmates. One day, when the mockery escalates into bullying, he rediscovers magic—something Veronica had studied and used. Reassured his past life is not merely a fantasy, Minami tries to learn more about his past memories and the reason behind them… (MangaUpdates)
Review: I’ve been toying around with reading Bokura No Kiseki for a while before Justin gave me a nice list of assignments. It’s a premise that seems fascinating and has all sort of good things I like, from reincarnation to fantasy realms to everyone being a total badass fighter. Premise and execution tend to differ a bit, however, and this manages to have a few issues that keep it from being on my list of favorites.
First, the good: The storyline doesn’t drag. For a story like this it seems like it would be easy to get bogged down in the main character’s despondence that others couldn’t remember their past. These first two volumes don’t hesitate for a moment about having one person after another remember their past and relationships to one another. Minami keeps or encounters things that trigger memories in others, and then they trigger memories in still more people, and so on and so forth. And the overall story isn’t anything to sniff at either. All these characters are striving for is to understand how and why they died before, and how to come to terms remembering their past lives while living in modern-day Tokyo. Combining these two things isn’t easy at all. Minami is constantly at odds with Takao, their previous relationship as princess and bodyguard blocking her from living in the present and being able to accept his feelings for her.
Other students are so overpowered by their memories that they go on minor rampages against enemies that have long disappeared, much like sufferers of PTSD. It even manages to hinder them at times, such as early on when Takao regains her memories and attempts to stop an attacker; She remembers how to fight perfectly, but her new body simply can’t do what she needs it to do! It was an incredibly pleasant and realistic change from the stories where remembering means instantaneous skills and abilities.
This also goes through the trouble of explaining why they don’t have issues with the idea of being reincarnated in the first place, and how and why magic factors in. Magic plays a huge role in the story, and I’m still a little taken aback by the world-building that has gone into showing the religious and spiritual roots that these people come from.
So what’s the bad part about this? These first two volumes don’t hesitate for a moment about having one person after another remember their past and relationships to one another. This has an absolutely astounding number of characters that means you have to be used to reading and keeping track of Game of Thrones bloodlines in order to handle. There were 67 people living at Veronica’s castle plus a number of other key officials that were reborn, and on top of that you need to know their reincarnations plus all the extra characters that might not be reincarnations of anyone at all (or are they?!?! You have to approach every person as though they could be a reincarnation and that means that the list of possible connections just keeps growing). No one really gets a solid introduction – names and people are thrown a bit willy-nilly into the story, which means a pad of paper and pen and a screenshot are almost required to keep track of who’s who.
In a lot of ways, reading these first two volumes is a lot like reading FMA if all the characters and how their powers worked was thrown in the first two volumes. It’s horribly confusing and if I weren’t so in love with the premise I would probably throw in the towel. But that premise. It shows a heck of a lot of promise so far. It’s a darn shame I can’t really follow up that statement with favorite characters or events so far, because while a lot has happened, it tends to involve insanely large groups of people and characters that you can’t really identify because of a lack of names and background/past life info. Things like ‘character relations’ are sprinkled lightly throughout the story, and when the whole premise revolves around that there are issues.
I really want this story to be something special, so I’m crossing my fingers and following up with a few move volumes of it next week. I like it when I can say a story has potential. I’m just hoping that this doesn’t fizzle out.
Recommended: 7/10. I really, really, really like this premise. I really, really, really don’t think such a huge cast works well when names and faces are thrown around with little to no introduction.
Overall rating: 16+. People are getting hurt already, and while so far the injuries have been fairly minor, I have a feeling things are going to get more vicious as the story goes on. It’s not a happy story.
