Reviews

I've greatly enjoyed this manga because of two things: its portrayal of machine intelligence as not disimilar, but profoundly different to human intelligence, and Mina, the personification of this idea. I find that it's hard to find a balance when reading robot stories of *any* variety, even stretching far back into the works of Asimov. What I mean by this is that when robots in a story are meant to fit a 'human' role, they're generally depicted as, well, a human. With some bits and bobs, perhaps, but not with any different a mental construction. Whereas when the 'humanness' of robots in a story is not a main topic, even androids meant for human contact are treated as completely alien. I find this manga, despite the name, does a wonderful job of this balancing act and that singlehandedly raises the Character score to a 9. (Even though I can hardly stand the human lead)

With that out of the way, we return to the natural order of ratings with Story, which I have also rated a 9. Never in this manga have I been bored or wanting excitement which wasn't there. While this is a slice of life manga, great care is put into finding diverse conflict, both in plain and subtext.

The art is basic, but not inappropriately so. At times, it feels lacking for the gravity and impact of certain scenes, but at the end of the day it's nothing to complain about. It works, and I can't in good conscience give it a score lower than the chosen 7.

Enjoyment is a 10. I feel that this score is far more based on personal preference, so I'll keep it brief as to not try to convince you of something unique to my psyche. Suffice to say, I read all 29 chapters available at the time in 3 hours, stopping not for water nor exhaustion.

With all this said, my final score is a stellar 9. It feels far less 'manga' and much more 'science fiction', and I definitely see myself following this to it's, hopefully distant, end.