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Urasawa is a masterful storyteller - known for his sweeping epics, characters, and thrilling stories capable of holding the reader captive with mystery and page-turning thrills. Fans will experience all of their favorite Urasawa-isms in Mujirushi - fitted nicely into a charming, compact one-shot. 

This was an odd one though. I took a leap of faith and dove into Mujirushi not knowing anything about the story and was immediately immersed into the familiar space I know and love about a Urasawa-story - mysterious atmosphere, several concurrent plot threads, and lovable minor characters. The atmosphere in particular should be noted; it always amazes me that a scene can carry ... an underlying sense of discomfort - or even horror - just from a character's facial expression or gesture.This was certainly the case when readers first encounter 'The Director'. 

As I am reading, I can't quite shake off that this is only 9 chapters. As the chapters go on, more story threads are added and mysteries unpacked yet a climax is yet to be reached. Astonishingly, it's not until chapter 9 - the last chapter - that everything comes together in both a brilliant and obviously rushed manner. This may remind you of yet another Urasawa-ism - one I am not crazy about - were the ending never quite satisfies you in the same way the epic journey did.

Should you dive into this one? Yes. This is a nice, light afternoon read. You will want to turn off your cynical brain knowing this is a collaborative advertisement piece for the Louvre in Paris and just enjoy the quirky, Francophile, charming story. You will also want to stay away from the temptation of recommending this to a friend new to Urasawa and just have them read 20th Century Boys or Monster. 

It's okay to suspend disbelief when reading shojo smut. Sometimes you're only in the mood for bishies and smexiness - not heavy philosophical mind-benders. But in the very least there has to be some structure, continuity, and some foundation for character development. This manga was missing all of that.

A cute girl has a reservation at what appears to be a fancy butler cafe. Her server, the super bishounen, touches her and shivers go up her spine - and from that moment she knows that they are destined to be together.

Problem #1: There is no flow with the manga panels. The jumping and scattered way ... of telling the story feels like an amateur manga-ka mistake.

Problem #2: No initial sign of character development. I get that there's only 2 chapters, but at 50 pages each there should be something. These guys are hot - but thats about it.

Problem #3: After close to 100 pages, the story doesnt go past the "he touched me and it makes me faint!" aspect. Even when you suspend your disbelief, that's still rather silly.

Can't recommend this one..... there's better shojo smut out there.

Style over substance is the best way to describe this series.

Stylistically this manga was innovative and artistic - lots of song lyrics positioned to match the mood of the scene, lots of negative space and white backgrounds that created a bleak and somber atmosphere in your mind while reading, and lots of chapters that are 1 or 2 pages long.

All of that is fine and I do have an appreciation for serious/quirky series (I am an Utena fan after all). What turned me off was that the ENTIRE manga was like this - all 4 volumes - with heavy style but very little character, plot, ... setting, and art development. I don't like finishing a manga that was meant to be heavily emotional and not caring about anything or anybody.

CLAMP was probably more concerned with making a graphic poem instead of a graphic novel. Clover had an abstract, free-flowing feel to it - like a poem - instead of a start-to-finish story. Time-skips, 1 page chapters, and more song lyrics than actual dialogue.... this was definitely not a conventional story. Some would argue if the series is even finished because the ending was left very open....but you could say that about the whole series, so who knows.

The foundation and potential was there to make this an amazing series. The set up being in a futuristic, dystopian sci-fi world was cool, the Clover Leaf Project idea was cool, all the pretty people with super powers was cool - but all of this was underdeveloped. The art however - when there actually was some - was very pretty and CLAMP-like.

One example is Suu, the main character who is supposed to be very powerful and the most dangerous person in the world. Okay. That 'danger' was never shown or elaborated on and I guess as the reader you are supposed to take CLAMP's word for it. This is how it was for the whole story. How am I to get emotionally invested in a story when there's no initial construction for the characters, plot, and setting? You can't, and I didn't.

Fans of CLAMP will enjoy this series obvious. I would recommend that this NOT be your first CLAMP series because it's so different from their other work and it may turn you off from seeking their other titles.

This wasn't a terrible series.... it's different and I did like it stylistically, I just wish there was a lot more substance.

It REALLY helps to have played the original FF7 game in order to appriciate and understand this movie. And, no, Kingdom Hearts does not count! The plot of FF7:AC assumes you've played and picks up 2 years after the game ends. Some guy friends of mine have said they liked the movie even without playing but they were completely lost. Honestly, if you're an action fan you'll like this movie...... about 80 of the movie is raw action and jaw-dropping fight scenes.

There's little plot in the movie because you get the game plot woven in. In the first 5 minutes you get an intro ... into the lifestream, Jenova, and who Sephiroth is. The fight scenes are amazing and if you're not careful [fanboys: take notice] you might find your mouth hanging wide open with drool coming out. The CG animation is so unbelievable; the characters look so real that you can see freckles on the skin and strands of hair. The animation is truly some of the best I've seen.

All the popular characters from the game were in this movie: Cloud, Aeris, Yuffie, Cid, Barret, Vincent, Tifa, and Sephiroth. It was really awsome to see all the characters again after playing the game, all with new looks. Reno and Rude of the Turks were the comic relief, as they were in the game. There's no romance in this movie, but you do get some insight into how Cloud feels about Aeris. I wonder why there were no chocobos?!

Voice acting was pretty good in the dubbed..... except for Yuffie and Caith Sith, they were hard to listen too. Vincent's voice was done by Steve Blum [has also done Spike in Cowboy Bebop] who was a PERFECT choice. Blum's voice made Vincent even more sexy. But nothing tops the Japanese voices in the subbed, and this was considered importance since this was the first time these characters were given voices.

I've played the original FF7 game, played kingdom Hearts, and even cosplayed as Aeris - Because of this, I have a strong understanding and appriciation for this movie and I honestly feel it serves as a good ending to one of the best Final Fantasy games in the series! The game really should be fresh in your mind in order to understand everything in the movie.