CLAMP’s Kobato.: A Baumkuchen of Layered Love

CLAMP is a creative collective with immense popularity in Japan and abroad. After more than 30 years, one of its representative works, Mahou Kishi Rayearth, is getting a new anime. The main cast includes Sakura Ayane, Ookubo Rumi, and Takahashi Rie, and the series begins broadcasting on October 7. With Mahou Kishi Rayearth revived in the Reiwa era, it is a good time to revisit CLAMP’s catalog. This feature highlights one anime writer’s favorite: Kobato.

Note: This article contains some story spoilers.

Tangled relationships and each character’s idea of like

One of CLAMP’s strengths is its many forms of love. The group’s works cross boundaries of age, gender, species, and more to weave countless kinds of affection. Kobato is one title where those feelings pile up in layers.

Kobato. was serialized in Monthly Sunday GX and Newtype from 2005 to 2011. A 24-episode TV anime aired from autumn 2009. Beyond its warm artwork and comedic gags, the story’s approach to love is a major draw.

The manga opens with Hanato Kobato and Ioryogi, a plush-like life form, arriving in a certain town. To fulfill her wish to go where she wants, Kobato must fill a bottle with fragments of wounded hearts. She works to heal people, and along the way she meets Fujimoto Kiyokazu and Okinoura Kiyoka, the director of Yomogi Nursery School, where Fujimoto helps out. The nursery is burdened by debt and close to closing, and Kobato collects fragments while helping there.

As the story progresses, complex human relationships and each person’s love come into focus. Fujimoto has feelings for Kiyoka, whom he has known since childhood. Kiyoka, in turn, has feelings for her ex-husband, Okinoura Kazuto. But Kazuto is a debt collector trying to force the nursery to close. For Fujimoto, who works part-time to repay the debt, Kazuto is unforgivable.

Kobato is not unrelated to this three-way tangle. She first tries to heal Kiyoka’s wounded heart, but her clumsiness often leaves Fujimoto exasperated. Kobato is annoyed by his mean way of speaking. As she comes to know his awkward kindness, however, she begins to develop feelings for him.

The situation of liking someone who already has someone they like does not end there. Ioryogi also has someone in his heart. To meet that person again, he must fulfill Kobato’s wish.

Other characters also cherish their own forms of like. The story, woven from overlapping feelings, is multi-layered like a baumkuchen and full of flavor.

CLAMP’s shape of love

Even when relationships become complicated, Kobato does not conclude that one should forcibly take the person they love. Instead, it depicts a love that can accept the beloved liking someone else, and a desire to help that person be happy. Fujimoto acts for Kiyoka, Kobato acts for Fujimoto, and Kiyoka and Ioryogi each choose what they can do for the people important to them.

Some characters even sacrifice themselves for another’s happiness. CLAMP does not treat this simply as a beautiful tale. The work properly touches on the fact that someone will grieve if you sacrifice yourself. The misunderstandings and sadness that arise from caring for someone, and the gentle future the characters reach, are part of what makes the manga and anime worth experiencing.

The anime differs from the manga in some settings, but CLAMP’s Ookawa Nanase participated in series composition, so the differences are not jarring. Viewers can enjoy it as another Kobato.

Bonus: a baumkuchen with deeper flavor

Another point that gives Kobato. its depth is its connection to past CLAMP works. Following the CLAMP rule that the same face and soul can exist in different worlds, many familiar characters appear in this title.

Examples include characters from Chobits, xxxHOLiC, and Wish. Wish in particular shares its worldview with Kobato., so reading the two together can make both works even more enjoyable.

With diverse love and CLAMP history layered into it, Kobato. is a rewarding story. It is also compact at six volumes total, making it a good choice for a binge read.

Release details

Kobato. (1) (Kadokawa Comics Ace) is priced at ￥495. Price and availability are as of the article’s publication.

Kobato. Blu-ray BOX is priced at ￥30,828. Price and availability are as of the article’s publication.