Manga Review: Karakuri Odette, Volume 6, by Julietta Suzuki

Rating (Out of 5): ~4-4.5

Publisher: Tokyopop

Release Date: 2011

Volumes: 6

Buy it here: (Out-of-Print.) Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Powells. RightStuf.

Goodreads Synopsis:

The touching robot romance comes to a thrilling conclusion as Travis insists that he wants to make Odette his bride. But Odette turns out to be surprisingly unwilling to take the plunge! And Grace, an android who is jealous of Odette, proceeds to wreak havoc as a way to get out her feelings. But what of Odette's own feelings for Asao? Now that he's preparing to graduate, will Odette finally understand what it means to "like" a special someone?

What Will I Miss?:

• I'm definitely going to miss the characters. Odette is awesome, and I fell in love with her and all of the boys.
• I particularly liked the progression of Odette's development. Her being a robot and going to normal school, meeting all these people without them knowing, caused her to learn a lot, and I really liked watching that.
• I loved the story and character progression, and the whole group of unique characters. That's something I'm really looking forward to in Kamisama Kiss when I get back to it.

Review:

I am extremely glad that I picked this series up, because it was fantastic, and I totally fell in love with Suzuki’s story and characters all over again.

I love Odette, she’s such a sweetheart, and I love her feelings and how she portrays her emotions and how strongly she feels about things and how straight-forward she is. She’s the best robot ever. Along with Chris, of course, who is so sweet and adorable, and loves Odette so much. I loved their ‘father’, Dr. Yoshizawa, who even though he’s their creator, is always there for them, saving them and fixing them, like a parent. He’s awesome.

There are a whole bunch of other characters we met, too, all of which are unique and fantastic and loveable. Which is to say that I love all of them. Asao and Yukimura, mainly, the other two love interests. Yukimura was sweet and his interest in Odette was so honest, but I would have liked to get to know him better to really feel strongly for him. Asao was my main vote, ‘cause he’s the best. (They’re all the best.) He deals with Odette so well, following her and complaining even though he really does care for her. I wanted to see him get closer with Odette.

There were a couple other characters near the end, but I didn’t feel as strongly for them, plus I don’t think they were going to stick around for too long.

I love the progression of the story, how Odette slowly learns how to be human, how she grows closer to everyone around her. How she learns and deals with her shortcomings. The art is really pretty, too, very nice to look at.

My main problem was how the story ended. It seems like maybe she was forced to come to a close, which is sad. It didn’t end badly, but there was so much more left to explore, so much more to see and develop, and the romance didn’t get to happen. I would have been happy if Odette ended up with any of the three boys, even if I had a leaning for one of them, so I’m disappointed that that was left open. I just wanted more, really. 

I am very glad that I finally got to pick this series up, as I’d been having a hard time finding the volumes, and it was so good! And now I’m really determined to catch up with Kamisama Kiss, as I’m so behind, and have fallen in love with her storytelling again.