Q.kochan is a very odd manga. So much so that Im going to start with something at the end of it. Immediately after the conclusion of its story the English edition of Qko greets us with a segment written by the translator of the series titled so what happened? in which he states the confusion readers feel from the work is present across all versions and not a kink of the cultural barrier. He even ends the segment by stating you the reader should feel free to write us if you know the answers. 520https://i.ur.com/PDBwTZl.png Q.kochan: the Earth Invader Girl is a manga series written and illustrated by Hajime Ueda. Originally serialized in the nowdefunct Monthly Magazine Z anthology from 2003 to 2004 and later translated into English by the also nowdefunct Del Rey Manga in 2006 the series is two volumes in length and roughly spans 400 pages. As the title may suggest the series centers on an alien the titular Qkochan. Qko and several other Dolllike alien girls have come to earth in an alternative more wartorn future to our own. The Doll alien girls have the stated objective of being the welfare guardians of the planets children. This task consists of allowing the children to pilot them. Piloting in the series is basically what it sounds like. A kid gets in the Doll girls belly and can fly them around and shoot lasers and basically do big fun robot stuff. However as these kids live in the chaotic and violent world they do this more often than not results in conflict. Be it with 3rd party aliens that arent the dolls other dollflying kids or just random people on the street the kid with the robot doesnt like. While Qkochan is the title character the most central characters in the series are easily Kirio Muji a young boy who is almost certainly a psychopath and his older sister Furiko. 520https://i.ur.com/8dGehOA.png Furiko was born a frail girl. She requires a lot of lookingafter and this causes her a great deal of insecurity. Shes internalized the idea that her mother only decided to have her younger brother Kirio because she wasnt good enough for her. She envies him greatly. Kirio does not understand his sister. He doesnt understand most people in fact. At first glance he seems like a normal kid but he treats those he doesnt already favors physical wellbeing with a reckless abandon not seen in most people. He eggs his sister into passing out so he doesnt have to deal with her talking. He tries to kill some bullies that gave his friend a hard time with his giant robot. This side of him isnt appreciated by the people in his life and hes routinely called out for it. Kirio despite this wants to be understood. He doesnt understand empathy in the same way others do but this doesnt mean hes not a person. Hed like it if all his friends whose opinions he values were fine with everything about him but thats not how it is. So the next best thing for him to do is to try to understand others. He succeeds in some cases but his sister and what she sees wishes and hates is still a mystery to him. It is through this inability to understand his sister and his sisters envy towards him that the two are forced into conflict at the climax of the series. From what I can gather the series main theme is childhood purity. Or rather the lack thereof. The dolls are there to save the children from the harmful world around them but the children prove to be tainted as well. As a protagonist Kirio is the perfect encapsulation of this theme. Q.ko and Kirios friends want him to be better and he tries but hell never be perfect. 520https://i.ur.com/EWhMz8b.png The series artwork is very much that of a brand Hajime Ueda has all to himself. His use of negative space feels rich and unique his character designs are cute and sleek and it seems like he never uses more detail than he must in order to get anything across. Id wager most of the people checking out this series nowadays are doing so because of his work on various sequences in the Monogatari series. Although Id be lying if I said I didnt find the art in Q.ko confusing at times. Its hard to tell if this is a result of the confusing story its conveying or the art itself though. Q.koChan to date is the last manga series Ueda has worked on. From the limited pool of his stories that exist he looks like a passionate writer so Its always been odd to me that he seemingly abandoned the medium of manga and storytelling in general to do artwork for series that arent his. Id love to see him do another story of his own someday. 520https://i.ur.com/k7tGhJm.png In Q.kochan the subtext is the text. If youve ever seen or read FLCL this basically feels like that. And I say that completely divorced from the fact that Hajime Ueda is responsible for the manga adaptation of FLCL. It has the same vibe and confusing jargon thrown around everywhere without an attempt to make complete grounded sense with a thematic throughline focusing on kids feelings present. While I find the central plot with Kirio and Furiko compelling there was a lot I just couldnt bring myself to care for. I was interested in the kids mom but beyond her the focus on the characters in the military seemed kind of extraneous. I could tell there was something there but it just wasnt clicking for me. Im open to the idea of finding more of a purpose for those parts of the story on future readthroughs but for now it just weighs down the whole for me. There is a lot of filling in the blanks yourself needed in this manga and its definitely a series you need to think about for a bit before you can feel like you really finished it. I liked the story when I could tell what was happening and what its intent was. I feel like Ive mostly got a handle on the themes and how the series executes them but I dont think Im ever going to fully understand this thing. Thats part of the fun to be had with it though. 520https://i.ur.com/vW7O06e.png