Bokurano: Ours, Volume 1 Book

R to L (Japanese Style). Saving the world is hard. Saving yourself is even harder. One summer, 15 kids innocently wander into a nearby seaside cave. There they meet a strange man who invites them to play an exciting new video game. Sounds like fun, right? This game, he explains, pits a lone giant robot against a horde of alien invaders. All they have to do is sign a simple little contract. The game stops being fun when the kids find out the true purpose of their deadly pact.

Publishers Weekly

This new series from Mohiro Kitoh (Shadow Star) offers a fresh and unsettling take on the giant robot genre with not one but 15 young protagonists collectively piloting a giant robot. One day on a beach hike at summer science class, a group of junior high kids stumble upon a strange man in a cave filled with computers. The man effortlessly coerces the teens into playing an ominous “game” defending the Earth from gigantic aliens in an equally enormous robot. Although most of the children in the story feel safe, Kitoh effectively establishes a mood of terrifying dread in the reader. Kitoh's teens are in mortal danger and eerily unaware of the scope of their predicament—at least until one them accidentally dies. Kitoh's stark artwork is appealing. The teens pilot the robot from a voidlike cockpit populated with 15 floating chairs, each one drawn to reflect one protagonist's personality. The bare cockpit complements the empty space around the alien-looking robot “Zearth” as he stands between the sea and the sky. The teens are instructed by an untrustworthy floating robot teddy bear with sharp, pointy teeth. The series originally ran in the alternative manga magazine IKKI, and as such, it has a definite alternative comics appeal. (Feb.)