About the Mangaka

Not a lot of information available on Amano Kozue unfortunately. While she’s now famous for her Aria and Aqua creation, she also worked on a number of other manga, including Mukuukai – Amano Kozue Tanpenshu 1 a one volume one-hot, Roman Club which ran for six volumes, and Sora no Uta – Amano Kozue Tanpenshu 2 another single volume one-shot. All of which were done before Aqua and Aria, and all of which are still unlicensed. She has a website with a gallery showing off concept art from the Aria world, find it here.

About the Manga

Amano-sensei is a goddess, no other words can describe her The world she has drawn is so vibrant and alive it’s almost jumping off the page to suck you into it.

The double page spreads to show off various scenes are simply breath taking, one of my favourites from the series is the Aqua Alta scene from volume one. Her use of colour is equally stunning, leading to some truly mind blowing scenes, such as the one below. (click to see full sized)

She backs up her stunning penmanship with a story that is both easy going, subtle and enjoyable.The stunning art makes the story all the more enjoyable, and is essential to keep the reader reading, since this series is slow with the progression.

My only complaint with the story is towards the end of volume two, when suddenly Alice-chan is added to the mix. I don’t have an issue with the fact she was added, but rather the suddenness of it. We go from her not being there, to her being best buds and being there, with no explanation. While it may be explained at a later date in Aria, I felt it was a bit bad.

I was never able to get the ADV version of this series, though I’m still trying, just so I can compare it, however I bought the Tokyopop version, and my initial delight soon turned to despair.

I can not understand why Tokyopop want to treat their readers as though we’re all six year olds with the brain power of a dead sheep. The sporadic use of honorifics was frankly annoying, if your going to use them, use them; if not, then don’t. However TP went one better (or worse) and decided to translate from Japanese > English > Italian for the honorifics. They decided we’re all to thick to understand -san, -chan etc, but we all know what what Signorina and Signor mean, cause we’re all fluent in Italian. I understand they wanted to set the mood, since this is set in a Italian styled city. However don’t add stuff to the script, you ruin the mood that Amano-sensei is creating. I was also annoyed by the rewrites of the script, which while true they were minor, they left me wondering why they had to change them anyway.

Also, a pet peeve I’ll admit, but I hated ‘kitty’ I preferred the original ‘nyanko-san’ that Akari used, it sounded cuter IMO

However the biggest hatchet job was done on the colour pages. The awesome colour page above was bleached and turned black and white, it it looks so damned ugly now it’s unbelievable. They also totally removed Amano-sensei’s original contents page:

(click for full sized)

Finally, we have the cover art, the original was strong, vibrant, and full of life. The TP one is mute, flat, and dull. The Lettering they choose for the title doesn’t match the series. They also removed the extras that were in the original version, which is annoying.

However the one area they do do extremely well is the paper quality. The copies I have are almost white, not quite Yen Press or Seven Seas quality, but a lot better than they usually are. Hopefully they’ll use this source in future.

The story follows Akari as she leaves Manhome (earth) and travels to the water planet Aqua (mars), where she wants to learn to be an undine. The story drifts along slowly, much like the life of those around her. Yet it’s always full of interesting things, and events.

While it’s true this is only two volumes long this was because it moved magazines, and the story carried on in the Aria series.

Despite my grievances with TP, this series has to go on my Essential Read list, no manga collection is going to be complete without Aqua and Aria in it!!

Where to Buy

As always, head on over to the Book Depository who have both volumes for a reduced price and free world wide shipping