Clover

Synopsis

Setting

Clover is set in a futuristic world where 10 years ago, the government launched the Clover Leaf Project, a nationwide search for children with magical abilities. These children are dubbed "Clovers" and ranked according to the strength of their powers, with four-leaf being the strongest. Higher leafs have more advanced abilities, such as being able to determine the locations and powers of lower leafs. The only four-leaf Clover, Su, has abilities so immense that she is confined to a military research facility, and her rank is kept secret. She is monitored by a parliamentary military council known as the Wizards, and sought after by the army of Azaiea, a country located beyond a mountain border.

Plot

During a meeting with General Ko, one of the five Wizards, Kazuhiko Fay Ryu resigns from his position as deputy commander of the parliamentary military. Kazuhiko is indebted to Ko after she saved him from court-martial on several occasions, and to pay her back, she orders him to meet Su and fulfill her final wish. Ko also imprints Kazuhiko with a tattoo that grants him temporary magic powers. With help from Gingetsu and his partner Ran, Kazuhiko and Su use a teleportation device to reach Fairy Park, Su's chosen destination. However, the device is hijacked and the two emerge in Azaiea, where they are subdued by the Xiao Mao. The Xiao Mao's leader lets them go after learning of Kazuhiko's reputation in the underground, and offers to hold off the Azaiean Army led by Bols.

Using technology that tracks the radiation of their weapons, Bols approaches the two and challenges Kazuhiko to a duel. He pins Kazuhiko with a blade while Azaiean soldiers go after Su, but Gingetsu comes to their rescue and brings them to safety. While being escorted in a car, Su sings a song composed by Ora, Kazuhiko's deceased lover. They stay at a government hotel, which gets invaded by soldiers working for the Wizards, and Su conjures mechanical wings to carry them both out of the building. Afterwards, Su reveals to Kazuhiko that she is a four-leaf Clover. She explains the purpose of the Clover Leaf Project, and mentions the existence of three Clovers of the three-leaf rank, though only two are still alive.

After another encounter with Bols, Ran teleports the duo to Fairy Park, which has a statue of a fairy that Su associates with Ora. Su confesses that she used to talk with Ora over radio waves, and despite never meeting in person, she was her first real friend. Ora told Su about the outside world, her relationship with Kazuhiko, and her ability to know when she would die. They had also written a song titled "CLOVER" together, which the statue recites in honor of Ora. While exploring the park, Su shares that as a child, her parents sold her to the military to experiment on her powers, then professes her love for Kazuhiko. Suddenly, the Wizards take control of Ora's statue and manipulate the park's structures to attack them. Kazuhiko is injured in the attack, but with Su's help, he summons a laser cannon to destroy the statue. Gingetsu arrives to retrieve Kazuhiko and arrest Bols, who was spectating the duo, while Su stays at the ruined park. Having found her happiness, Su thanks Kazuhiko and self-destructs, setting the park ablaze.

General Ko tells the Wizards how Su promised to destroy herself upon reaching Fairy Park, and that Kazuhiko also needed to die out of fear that anyone Su became emotionally attached to would use her as a weapon to control the world.

Characters

Kazuhiko Fay Ryu (琉・F（フェイ）・和彦, Ryū Fei Kazuhiko)

A former soldier and deputy commander. He left the military after the death of his lover, Ora, and is indebted to General Ko for saving him from several court-martials. He lost his right hand in a fight with Bols and currently wears a prosthetic, which is fitted with technology that allows him to conjure magical armaments. At Ko's behest, Kazuhiko is ordered to fulfill Su's wish of being escorted to Fairy Park. Along the way, he discovers that Su frequently communicated with Ora before her death, hence his selection to be her escort.

Su (スウ, Sū)

The only known four-leaf Clover who desires happiness in a "true Elsewhere." Her name is stated to be derived from Sì, meaning "four" in Chinese. When Su was four years old, her parents gave her to the military research facility in exchange for money, and since then she has lived alone in a birdcage-like greenhouse. She is monitored by the Wizards, who fear that if she becomes emotionally attached to another person, she could be used as a weapon to conquer the world. Before meeting Kazuhiko, she used her powers to communicate with Ora, whom she grew very attached do despite never meeting face-to-face. Su keeps her four-leaf ranking a secret until Kazuhiko brings her to Fairy Park, where she divulges the truth to him before committing suicide.

Gingetsu (銀月)

A lieutenant colonel and two-leaf Clover, formerly Kazuhiko's superior officer. Despite their formal differences, Gingetsu and Kazuhiko are very close friends outside of work. He lives with his partner, Ran, whom he took in two years ago with the Wizards' permission.

Ran (藍)

A three-leaf Clover and Gingetsu's partner. Originally named C (ツェー, Tsē), he lived in the military research facility with his identical brothers A (アー, Ā) and B (ベー, Bē). Since they were never told of Su's existence, the triplets believed themselves to be the strongest Clovers in the world. As three-leafs, C and his brothers have very short lifespans and age rapidly outside the research facility. At some point, A became mentally unstable and killed B out of a desire to keep C all to himself. As depicted in Volumes 3-4, C escaped captivity to separate himself from A and was taken in by Gingetsu, who gave him the name Ran. Living outside the facility causes Ran to age from a child to a young adult in just two years.

Development

The manga was conceived as a four-part story. The first two volumes comprise part I and trace the main story in the present. The following two volumes are parts II and III, and are flashbacks which explain the history behind certain incidents. According to series head writer Nanase Ohkawa, two further books are needed to complete the story.

Release

Clover was serialized in Kodansha's Amie from 1997 until the magazine's demise in 1999, and remains unfinished. Kodansha collected the chapters into four volumes. The first was published on June 6, 1997; the final was released on August 9, 1999. Kodansha re-released the series in two volumes on July 17, 2008.

Clover was licensed for an English-language release in North America by Tokyopop. It published the series from May 15, 2001, to March 20, 2002, but let the series go out of print on May 2, 2005. Dark Horse Manga picked up the license, combining the series into one volume (ISBN 1-59582-196-1) in its original right-to-left format and releasing it on May 13, 2009.

The series is also licensed in French by Pika Édition, and in German by Carlsen Comics.

After Dark Horse Comics' license expired, Kodansha Comics licensed it and began releasing the series, combining into one hardcover volume in 2020.

Media

A Clover animated music video based on the prologue chapters of the manga was produced by Bandai Visual and Madhouse Studios and shown in Japanese theaters before the Cardcaptor Sakura film in 1999. It is directed by Kitarō Kōsaka, with Nobuteru Yūki designing the characters and Ichiko Hashimoto composing the music. The short film was released to DVD as part of the Clamp in Wonderland collection on October 26, 2007.

Dark Horse Comics, who previously held the license for the distribution of the English North American edition of the manga, were in negotiations with Universal Studios for the rights to develop a film based upon the manga. However, as of 2022, nothing from this has materialized.

Reception

Rika Takahashi, from EX: The Online World of Manga, noted the work's stark contrast with other, more positive CLAMP works such as Cardcaptor Sakura and Wish. She stated that it was a fast-pace drama similar to works such X and Tokyo Babylon. She commented on CLAMP's choice of presenting the story in short sequences and in a style "where the frames break out of the typical 'grid'" and to produce an experience of watching a movie on paper. She also commented that the typesetting of the sound effects helped create the overall cold mood unlike other CLAMP works. Furthermore, she praised the work for retaining a high detail of the art without being too dense.

Kisei from Tokidoki Journal praised Clover for having a sense of beauty due to its empty space and simplicity, which help give the manga and characters a mood of "chilling isolation," a stark contrast from CLAMP's previous works which Kisei said feature highly detailed pages that make reading difficult and "cheerful bubbly" female protagonists. Kisei further praised the work for, instead of defining the characters, using art to express their personalities and traits. Further praising it as a work that would draw both female and male audiences with its romance and military aspects, Kisei stated that the only flaw with the work was its high price.

Casey Brienza of Anime News Network remarks that the series is "arguably the best artwork of CLAMP's career" and has "gorgeous production values" but that "pretentious poetry conceals a thin plot and even thinner characterization."

A Publishers Weekly review felt that reading the series is like, "looking into a dystopic future through one tiny, perfectly square frame." The same reviewer said that the character designs were "magnificent" and that, "the tiny details on the clockwork birds and imaginative effects are stunning." The reviewer felt that though it was obviously an experimental work for CLAMP, that the series would be widely liked.