Hi-Fi Cluster

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Hi-Fi Cluster is a a typical Shonen Manga with an interesting power system. That being that no one really learns skills they just stick these "Labels" to themselves so that they will be able to do things like Drive, Box, Whatever.
Peta, A High School student who cant use these labels, Gets in trouble when he is acted to deliver an illegal golden label with the words "Hi-Fi" on them. The Label sticks to Peta setting the story into motion.
The Story itself has an amazing concept and i felt myself really enjoying it and even looking up if it had an anime, unfortunately ... it does not. Because the Story was canceled. This Cancelation can be felt in the later bit of the story. The concept itself felt huge with lots of possibilities, so as it came to a quick close you could TELL it was trying to finish quickly.
This Quick ending unfortunately spoiled my enjoyment of a series I could see myself really getting into, I loved the characters and the world the creator had built and wanted to see more of it. But the ending just leaves me confused and put off, not only was things wrapped up way to quickly especially in the final battle the ending is not wrapped up at all. The story had no consequences for any of the characters actions it leaves you sitting there wondering what the big deal was and what the point of everything was.

This series isn't the worst thing I've read but it has a lot of problems that make everyone just feel like complete idiots in the story. The fact that all of society adopts the Mole's technology blindly felt weird to me from the beginning, and with the possibility of hacking and things going haywire it all seems very ridiculous. The Mole is shown to later have the ability to control all label-related technology that apparently he created, so maybe if the series wasn't canceled it would go somewhere with the government betraying him and his brother, or maybe his whole family since he clearly was ... too young to be the Mole as directly stated. Then there's the matter of the police force showing up to suppress the 6/11 attack but somehow the culprit was en route in that police vehicle. It makes it out that the protagonist with the Socrates ability is able to suss out this impossible detail with his sheer genius but the fact that the Kojiro Sasaki dude with the culprit can't take two seconds to realize this obvious problem feels really stupid, for lack of a better word. To top it off, the blunder of the Mole kid approaching the gun-wielding security that he very well planned in the courtroom to use the Nobel girl's reaction to blow them up is just silly. And on top of that the Musashi culprit guy being portrayed as such an immense badass only to immediately crumple as soon as teamwork became a factor felt almost comedic. Once again, I'm aware the series was in the middle of getting axed but it felt like a really messy and unintended finale.

Now that I've gotten the sore thumb of the plot out of the way, the characters are just okay. The Socrates-using protagonist (I can't remember their names, they didn't leave too much of an impression on me) has to develop really fast with the short run time and I think that was handled decently, all things considered. Everyone else is one-note aside from the Sasaki guy who is two-note between aloof weirdo and brooding PTSD mode. It's clear they were meant to develop more as the story progressed what with the Isaac Newton guy's history battling the Sasaki guy and the hands dude coming from a rough background, but I can't say with confidence that this would have been handled well. Largely because of how the Mole was treated as a villain, someone with what boils down to a god complex who wants to change the human condition because he thinks it could be better and throwing morality out the window because it's just easier that way. Him showing up as an undercover student only to be heavy-handedly revealed to be the Mole in the same scene and then at the end of the very same chapter to make it blatantly obvious felt so unnecessary. Touching on the cancellation again in regards to this, even if this was to just fast-forward through a plot point it ultimately had zero weight or meaning.

Something I really wanna discuss is the power system. It's refreshing that this series goes with using powers that aren't your own for the entire cast, even if using popular historical figures has gotten cliche over the years what with Fate, Bungou Stray Dogs, Record of Ragnarok, the list goes on. But the tech in the universe bends over backwards to make characters do cool anime stuff. And lemme tell you, I love absurd, dumbass, cool-because-of-cool anime garbage. But the hi-fi labels quickly started feeling like an unnecessary extra detail when the technology was what really stole the show. The chief's high-speed extending and retracting police baton fashioned like a washing pole was creative and fun, but his barrier ability makes zero sense to me. At first I thought he was supposed to be swinging so fast he deflect the bullets as they were comparatively predictable to a swallow's mid-air maneuvers, at least according to the guy himself, but later moments it just seems to be a magical/sci-fi force field. And Newton guy's boots controlling gravity is WAY more impressive and useful that Newton's calculating ability. The hand guy's ability to multi-task and apply different martial arts labels was neat, and honestly was the one time the premise of the manga was convincing to me: that the abilities of an individual is what gives their tools life. But when we look at the protagonist himself, Socrates gives him magical aura vision that is drastically improved by some fancy goggles. And the Newton girl's explosions just make zero sense. Maybe it'd be explained later that she was hooked up with microscopic bombs that could be dispersed or something, but that's just pure speculation. The ranking system of hi-fi labels feel unnecessary as well. From the beginning I was led to believe hi-fi labels are ridiculously rare and are the pinnacle of label technology. But the fact there's enough to give them such rankings feels cheap, especially when the literal only time it's brought up a B-tier label outclasses an S-tier label, which makes sense as each label user should leverage their own strengths in situations to come out on top instead of some arbitrary measurement that's just a shonen cliche.

Not too much else to say, I've already gone off way too long about this series. Just the art was pretty bleh aside from like two spreads, the one where the Newton guy is surveying the city before he's properly introduced and the one where the Mole guy says something unhinged. The not-girlfriend of the protagonist and the woman in the special police team are just there to be cute and supportive, to raise the stakes when they're in danger. I don't even think that woman had a label, from what I remember. And I thought the Sasaki-guy was a bit cool and I was looking forward to a real fight with him but both moments he had with the Musashi guy were incredibly brief clashes that immediately got interrupted.

All in all a really weak manga that I don't think would have gotten much better even if it ran longer. My heart goes out to the taxi driver who was clearly supposed to be a major character with the early colored spread but he ends up just being the dude who drives them to the final boss fight. I had to get this off my chest.