A while aback, there was a big hullaballoo about this new manga series Clock Striker. It was because this series’ protagonist Cast is unambiguously a Black woman. They even use the world “Black” to indirectly describe her, via someone talking to a similar person about [Cast].
While the story, art and characters are all great, I could have sworn that this was a Shonen Jump manga, as in actually from Shonen Jump in Japan. However, a deeper dive revealed that Clock Striker came from a North American magazine called Saturday AM, and that the actual manga itself came from the UK. So I am not sure whether to qualify it as a proper “manga”, in the traditional sense of the term.
And I will admit-it does kind of hurt to not see a racially-diverse manga come out of Japan, but their country does tend to be pretty racist in general, so I am not totally surprised.
Anyway, in a world of technology so advanced that it’s indistinguishable from magic, a group of combat techomancers called Smiths seek to clean up all that remains of an ancient technology that nearly destroyed the world in years past. Many thing that these warriors were all men, but at least one woman (at this point has survived): Philomena Clock.
Meanwhile, young Cast seeks to become a Smith’s apprentice (a “Striker), and probably one day a Smith herself, but her schoolteacher constantly tells her that she can’t be, simply because she is both a disabled girl and, implicitly, because she is poor.
So, naturally, said teacher serves as the first antagonist that Cast and Miss Clock have to face, and he nails it. He’s a total jerk to everyone and obsessed with money and power, he’s a sneaky liar and he’s been working a long con in Cast’s home city of Brick. On top of that, he is openly sexist, classist and ableist. So you know he goes down.
Perfect starter villain: deliciously hateable, but little real threat.
And, from then on, the adventures continue.
Now, may I say that Clock Striker may very well be one of the best new manga I’ve read in a while.
The series is still in its infancy, but there are already several mysteries in this world that leave us readers entrapped. The wars in the past, what happened to the Smiths, Miss Clock’s mysterious past and Cast’s missing father (the last of which is bit of a cliché, but I can roll with it).
It’s like One Piece, in that way. I can also see in it various things that remind of other alternate-world battle manga like Toto and Zombie Powder. You can really feel the Japanese manga influence, but not in a merely vague way like we did with Avatar or Xiaolin Showdown.
And another cool thing about the series is that it’s just self-aware and meta enough to label each new chapter according to which story arc it’s in.
But, while I do appreciate that the series does show any racial diversity at all (even coming from one of the most diverse “manga” magazines out there), it does ladle the plights faced by non-White disabled women on a little bit thick. Our protag Cast is simultaneously looked-down upon for being all three (she is missing a hand). Her being all at once Black and female and disabled almost feels like a bit too much, like the author is trying too hard to gain sympathy and push the envelope, to the point where it almost feels overdone.
But at least her issues (at least so far) are treated with respect by both the author and the “good” characters in the story. Cast and her family do not speak in “yo yo yo” ebonics, nor do they have afros or dress like hoods (although they are poor). And, when Spanish-speakers do appear, the only really racialist things they do are speak Spanish, have Spanish names, and serve the characters elote corn. It’s not like they’re all wearing sombreros and speaking in broken English.
It doesn’t feel great that I even had to write that, but that’s the level of racism I wouldn’t put past this world to give me.
Cast is a shining example of a protagonist. She is confident, smart and righteous without being stupid, gullible or overly-dark. And Miss Clock plays the Crabby Mentor with a Heart of Gold to a tee. Our heroes use math and science to fight battles, but there’s not too much going on and on about the relationships between X and Y and equations and all that guff. Just a lot of “mix this with that” and boom-boom-boom. Clock freaking uses hard light weaponry and can hack enemies’ eyes to make them see illusions!
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A second read-through even revealed to me that there was a stinger added in after the end of the last chapter!
Now, I’m not sure if I’d actually spend money to own this manga series, but you can be sure that I will definitely be following its progress in any way that I can.
And you should, too!
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