Bokurano - Mohiro Kitoh-san's latest manga series

[TronDD]

Chapters 33-37 have hit the streets!

Christmas came early.



Oh man, that was rough.

Spoiler:

Komo was my favorite. Her story is well told.

An interesting theory of physics is talked about, too, for the sci-fi buffs.

Spoiler:

If they can transport people by switching bits, including transporting their soul, why can't they switch the bits to clone a person including their soul? Unless the soul is a seperate entity that has nothing to do with matter and is just transported with the bit information.

This also raises the question, if the clone is simply a corpse, are the kids really dying or ar souless clones replacing their real bodies in the world?

[ZeusIrae]

Yes it was sad but very good.

The thing I thougt was intresting is the age of the "enemy" pilot.

[animernq]

Originally Posted by TronDD

Spoiler:

If they can transport people by switching bits, including transporting their soul, why can't they switch the bits to clone a person including their soul? Unless the soul is a seperate entity that has nothing to do with matter and is just transported with the bit information.

This also raises the question, if the clone is simply a corpse, are the kids really dying or ar souless clones replacing their real bodies in the world?

Spoiler:

Memories and souls can't be cloned because they are not physical objects. Since they cannot be replicated they cannot be transfered to a clone. I guess that if you cloned a disk it would probably lose all the information for the same reason.

Since the kids are not being teleported away and replaced with a dead body it is safe to say that they are really dying.

[pnyxtr]

It's fun to see the speculation here. Personally, I think the physics of it is a bunch of complete bullshit. (But what do I know, I only ever got as far as master's level...)
That doesn't really matter for the enjoyment, of course. An alternate reality story can just as well have alternate physics.

As for the story, I thought this was one of the more hopeful (if sad) arcs. It'll be interesting to see if this is really the direction he's going with it now.

[stpehen]

Originally Posted by ZeusIrae

The thing I thougt was intresting is the age of the "enemy" pilot.

I don't think this necessarily means anything. The only reason that "our" pilots are kids (aside from Kitoh's specialty being depictions of adolescent psychology) is that they stumbled across Kokopelli while on a summer-school field trip. It just means that the characters who were contracted happened to be kids, not that only kids can be pilots.

[chrno_the_sinner]

So we now have 5 kids left, Kanji Yoshikawa, Ushiro, Aiko Tokosumi, Yoko Machi, and Kana. Besides Kana, one of these kids aren't bound to the contract.

My bet's on one of the girls. Tokosumi was mentioned directly by Dung Beetle a while back before Kako's turn (where DB said that Kako and Takami were the only one with a good head on her shoulders. Tokosumi also kinda had a good head on her shoulders, but she'd probably be the victim of bullying) so I think she'll be a pilot, although she has had a good ammount of screentime (with her awesome reactions to everything), so I'm currently betting on Machi to be exempt.

In any case, I think Ushiro will likely be the last pilot before the adults take over, based on his screentime.

[Quajafrie]

The last chapter was so wonderful, so lyrical... I loved it. And only by thinking how good it can be if animated... It was just perfect. Komo's story was amazing.

[Diedrupo]

Originally Posted by chrno_the_sinner

So we now have 5 kids left, Kanji Yoshikawa, Ushiro, Aiko Tokosumi, Yoko Machi, and Kana. Besides Kana, one of these kids aren't bound to the contract.

My bet's on one of the girls. Tokosumi was mentioned directly by Dung Beetle a while back before Kako's turn (where DB said that Kako and Takami were the only one with a good head on her shoulders. Tokosumi also kinda had a good head on her shoulders, but she'd probably be the victim of bullying) so I think she'll be a pilot, although she has had a good ammount of screentime (with her awesome reactions to everything), so I'm currently betting on Machi to be exempt.

In any case, I think Ushiro will likely be the last pilot before the adults take over, based on his screentime.

I think an interesting twist would be if Ushiro fails to win, causing the world to end, and we never see the adults take control. It would make sense to end the story after all the kids have been used up anyway.

[stpehen]

Bump for Chapter 38!

Spoiler:

One thing I'm finding very interesting as the number of pilots winds down is not only the increased amount of screentime and interconnectivity the remaining children have, but the increasing role the outside world is coming to play in the story. Now not only is the government involved, but the media has tracked the story back to the summer school at the beginning.

And how about that Mr. Hatagai? If he isn't the slimiest, most despicable character in a Kitoh manga, I'll eat my hat.

[Diedrupo]

Aw I was hoping

Spoiler:

Aiko

would live longer!
My speculation on the pilot who didn't sign the contract... Well its pretty narrowed down now but I am going to guess Yoko will be the one who survives, since she was the last person to touch the contract, and perhaps anyone after the initial 14 (including Chizuru's baby) gets excluded? If that doesn't exclude Yoko, then it's either Kanji or Jun and it's a toss up between them.

[Quarkboy]

Well, what I got from chapter 38 was even more important .

I think it's a sign as to what Kitoh-san's next manga will be about!

Think about it:

Narutaru - Kids Controlling Monsters (Pokemon)
Bokurano - Kids Controlling Giant Robots (Evangelion)
New Work - Kids Being Magical Girls! (Sailor Moon)

He obviously can draw the "girls in frilly dresses" from the cover of this chapter, so I think Kitoh's trilogy of seemingly cliche but hauntingly deep manga needs to end up with a giagantic send up of the Mahou Shoujo genre.

You think?

[TronDD]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

New Work - Kids Being Magical Girls! (Sailor Moon)

He obviously can draw the "girls in frilly dresses" from the cover of this chapter, so I think Kitoh's trilogy of seemingly cliche but hauntingly deep manga needs to end up with a giagantic send up of the Mahou Shoujo genre.

You think?

I could go for that. I can only imagine what he could work into a magical girl story. It's knotting my stomach already.

[syrion]

I think Yoko will survive. If you look at the first chapter, she hesitates before she puts her hand down, and Waku forces her to do it... so it's not really by her own free will.

[Diedrupo]

Then again, we never saw Kanji or Jun touch it. However I definately am rooting for Yoko at this point.

I also still think Bokurano will end after Jun's story. I can't imagine Kitoh writing about the adult pilots.

[Quajafrie]

Chapters 39-40 out! A great warm-up for the upcoming anime.

So... I think that Aiko's story is not really that interesting... But it was okay, I guess.

[Quarkboy]

Here's something I thought of just recently, maybe it might be important (or not ).

We've all been assuming that, from the designs of cars, planes, and the geo-political environment etc... that the world of Bokurano is set in the near-future.

But...

Spoiler:

Since we know that there are a large number of different versions of the world, maybe the world of Bokurano isn't in the future at all. Maybe that world is simply a different world from our own. Which means....... Maybe OUR world is one of the enemy worlds that they will end up fighting against.

Perhaps that is simply too "OMG, What a twist!" -like, though... M. night shamalan aside...

[piccu]

Originally Posted by Quarkboy

Spoiler:

Since we know that there are a large number of different versions of the world, maybe the world of Bokurano isn't in the future at all. Maybe that world is simply a different world from our own. Which means....... Maybe OUR world is one of the enemy worlds that they will end up fighting against.

Perhaps that is simply too "OMG, What a twist!" -like, though... M. night shamalan aside...

Spoiler:

I had exactly the same thought, but I kinda surpressed to think about that more... It just feels too weird, to have x other different alternate worlds and that the world where Bokurano takes place isn't ours

[tsurumaru]

Originally Posted by piccu

Spoiler:

I had exactly the same thought, but I kinda surpressed to think about that more... It just feels too weird, to have x other different alternate worlds and that the world where Bokurano takes place isn't ours

Spoiler:

Unless of course the 15th person's "role" is to fight as the next world's 1st introductory pilot. ie whoever didn't sign the contract has to take up Kokopelli's role on the next determined universe which ends up being our own! (assuming that is that the Bokurano universe triumphs) .....

LOL imagine the last panel of the manga being a real photograph of a mysterious object sighted in the South Pacific ..... "Zearth!"

[Quarkboy]

Here's another thought I had:

Spoiler:

Maybe, at a truly meta level, the plot of this manga is a commentary on the creative process for Mohiro Kitoh himself. I can image that at any point in time, he is constantly creating variations of worlds, and the battling them against each other in his mind, until eventually one emerges victorious. And it's that world that ends up being drawn in his manga.


Oh, and from a purely physics perspectives, this scenario of quantum histories is inconsistent with experiment. There is definitely a "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics which is what the sci-fi is based on, however, there is also something called "Bell's inequality", which has been experimentally tested, which fixes all possible histories to be equally probable. Or, in another way of putting it, there are no "hidden variables" that could allow one to determine the outcome of the various histories. Since theoretically one could use the battles to predict the outcome of the histories (unless you simply through free-will out the door), this particular method of choosing the "correct" quantum history contradicts physics.

But that's just the physics Ph.d in me talking, please ignore it and enjoy the series. Don't get me started on Dung beetle's "discrete space time" mumbo jumbo. Loop-quantum gravity has all kinds of theoretical issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem

[Diedrupo]

I was rereading Bokurano the other day when it occured to me that Kokopelli was the very last member of whatever team he was on. I wonder if that means the last person guiding Zearth would get to live for quite some time, but who knows. Either way, I can't see Oku continuing the story when it's down to the two military personnel piloting Zearth with Machi and Kana watching, so some kind of twist needs to occur around then.

wait, just read stephen's translation for 41:

Spoiler:

OMFG what the hell happens in the last couple pages??? I almost don't want to know until I can see the actual pages myself.
NM, just read the raw, whew! that was a close one.