Clamp School Detectives, Vol. 02

CLAMP学園探偵団 [Clamp Gakuen Tanteidan] #2

by Clamp

The CLAMP School is famous not just for being the world's most prestigious academy, but also for its students' penchant for partying. Scarcely a week goes by whent here isn't a festival, dance or athletic event. With so much going on, there's plenty of opportunity for something to go wrong -- fortunately the CLAMP School Detectives are eager to protect all the school's goings on...especially ones in which young ladies are likely to attend. Nokoru Imonoyama is founder and leader of the group -- an uber-genius who can detect a woman in distress from two kilometers away. Suoh Takamura is a class secretary and a martial arts master. Akira Ijyuin may be the youngest detective, but he's also one of the world's top chefs. Celebrations, apparitions and gastronomic sensations -- they're all part of the job for the CLAMP School Detectives!

Genres: Manga, Mystery, Comics, Graphic Novels, Shojo, Fiction, Humor

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Ōkawa Nanase 大川七瀬
[born: 2 May 1967; Ōsaka, bloodtype: A]

Mokona Apapa もこなあぱぱ
[born: 16 Jun 1968, Kyōto; bloodtype: A]

Nekoi Mick 猫井みっく
[born: 21 Jan 1969, Kyōto; bloodtype: O]

Igarashi Satsuki 五十嵐さつき
[born: 8 Feb 1969, Kyōto; bloodtype: A]


CLAMP originally began in 1989 as a twelve-member dōjinshi circle, but by 1990, the circle had diminished from twelve to seven. Of the remaining seven, Tamayo Akiyama, Sei Nanao, and Leeza Sei left the group during the production of the RG Veda manga. Other former members of CLAMP also included Soushi Hishika, O-Kyon, Kazue Nakamori, Yuzuru Inoue and Shinya Ōmi. Currently, there are four members in the group.

In 2004, CLAMP's 15th anniversary as a mangaka group, the members changed their names from Nanase Ohkawa, Mokona Apapa, Mick Nekoi, and Satsuki Igarashi to Ageha Ohkawa, Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Satsuki Igarashi (her name is pronounced the same, but written with different characters) respectively. The August 2004 issue of Newtype USA, a magazine specializing in events of the anime and manga subcultures, reported that the members of CLAMP simply wanted to try out new names. In a later interview with Ohkawa, it was revealed that initially Mokona wanted to drop her surname because it sounded too immature for her liking, while Nekoi disliked people commenting that her name was the same as Mick Jagger's. Ohkawa and Igarashi, wanting to go with the flow of Nekoi's and Mokona's name changes, changed their names as well.

In 2006, they made their first USA public debut at Anime Expo in Anaheim, California. They were well received at the convention, with 6,000 fans in attendance at their panel.

Reviews

[Sushi (寿司) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Con il secondo volume, se avete già letto Il ladro dalle mille facce, abbiamo il ritorno della ragazza,futura sposa, di Akira. Non so chi pubblicò prima star. Sono passati davvero più di 10 anni e di questo esiste anche una ristampa di Jpop.

[Bine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Süße Charaktere, nette Geschichten, die aber leider keinen großen Eindruck bei mir hinterlassen hat. Alles ganz niedlich, aber kein Must-Read.

[~Cyanide Latte~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

First rating: 4 stars
Second rating: 5 stars

There's nothing quite like returning to a fluffy, feel-good sort of series, and CLAMP School Detectives continues to deliver on that front. The long chapters continue to help give the manga a fully-fleshed sort of feeling to their episodic nature, and I personally loved a lot of the stories in this volume more than I did in the first (something I recalled from having read the series once before in high school.)

The longest chapter is the first one, following the boys as they uncover a deception by a good-hearted and well-meaning president of the elementary school art club, who has rescued a litter of kittens and takes to hiding them in the art room overnight, setting up a screen projector to show the image of a ghost she's painted in order to protect the kittens. Honestly, I think this particular story has a lot of genuine warmth and heart to it, and a touch more "detective work" on the parts of Nokoru, Suoh and Akira regarding how they handled the case, in comparison to previous chapters from the first volume. (A quick minor note, the splash page that kicks off this chapter shows all three boys throwing a salute at the image of a cat's face in place of a sun. Regrettably, the stance resembles a Nazi salute, so be forewarned that this splash panel can be confusing at first glance if you choose to read this series.)

The following chapters give us yet another story where Nokoru is threatened by a girl too afraid to openly express her feelings for him, and introduce us to a love interest for Suoh while also throwing a reference out to the side series Man of Many Faces in the form of hints regarding Kindergarten Chairlady Okawa's feelings towards Akira. While the former feels very "meh" to me and I've long since been over the line of girls who threaten Nokoru in lieu of being honest, I do enjoy the latter immensely because both couples are utterly adorable.

The final chapter isn't necessarily a job for the CLAMP School Detectives, but focuses a lot more on showcasing Akira's gentle character as he assists a college-level student in her efforts to improve her skills at making apple pies in order to express her feelings for one of the teachers on campus. I remembered this story pretty starkly, though why, I'm not certain. It's very sweet though, and I think it was a fairly good chapter on which to end this particular volume.

I'm not sure what else I could possibly throw into this review, but I am loving my return to this series. I plan on going through Man of Many Faces next (or the first volume of it, at least,) before wrapping up this one, but I hope to get to it soon and write up a final review expressing my love for this little series.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given the episodic nature of most of the chapters and the frequent recounting of the premise the first volume isn't a prerequisite to read/enjoy this one.

The perfect trio of sixth graders is back to solve more "mysteries" regarding to the unhappiness of any and all "damsels in distress."

I wasn't a big fan of volume 1, finding the protagonists unnecessarily flawless and the stories mostly uninteresting. There was potential though, and I'm happy to say volume 2 capitalizes on it to a degree. One of the four chapters is more of the same, but the other three branch out a little to good effect. More time is given to character development and as a result the individual tales have more depth and appeal. I particularly liked the ghost story and the chapter that focused on Suoh.

Though still suffering some of the issues that plagued the early chapters they are less frequent here and overall volume 2 of Clamp School Detectives is a much more enjoyable read.

[Starbubbles · Rating 4 out of 5]

2009: the funness continues! plus, the poster inside all three books is a fun treat! i wish that clamp would give out credit to who did what in later series like they do in their earlier works.

[Bibliothecat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review for complete series



The CLAMP campus offers education from kindergarten all the way to university. The campus includes all kinds of facilities which almost gives it a city-like atmosphere. The Elementary School Student Board consists of the three bright students Nokoru, Suoh and Akira who, following Nokoru's lead, decide to found the CLAMP school detectives - helpers for all the female students in need!

This is a cute manga as long as you keep in mind that it's a comedy - the way the school board is run is far from realistic. Nokoru, who despite being very intelligent, is actually pretty lazy. At least until a girl is involved - he seems to have made it his priority to make sure all girls are happy and will develop incredible strength and speed to be at the ladies' rescue. Akira, who also stars in CLAMP's Man of Many Faces, is beyond proud of all that Nokoru does and is always cheering him on. Suoh is about the most normal among these characters and tries hard to maintain order while keeping up with his friends' antics.

CLAMP School Detectives is a very episodic manga without much of an actual story behind it. For better or for worse, this is a short series consisting of only three volumes. Given the episodic nature and the lack of actual plot, a longer series would probably have been too much. But the CLAMP campus is actually a really neat crossover of at least a handful of CLAMP's works. CLAMP, of course, loves to make crossovers with all their works - unfortunately, this work was made before most of their others. I think it could have been a great series if characters from more of their other works would have had a cameo - seeing nudges to other works was really one of the best parts of this one.

It doesn't come as a surprise that CLAMP's art is also lovely in this one. The characters, all silliness and antics aside, have a lot of charm and it just delivers a beautifully drawn series with nice characters and humour that leans into the parody genre. It's neither deep nor an essential read - but it is a nice and cute story for in between or simply for those who love CLAMP.

[Rahmah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Masih menceritakan tentang OSIS SD + Klub Detektif Clamp School. Sebenarnya buat ukuran mini-series gini agak gimana gitu kalau ada romance yang kurang pas. Tapi dikomik ini, cuma Nokoru yang nggak dipasangin sama cewek ya :).

Btw,, terjemahan untuk nama panggilan banyak kesalahannya dikomik ini. Kayak Suoh atau Suo. Sebenarnya Akira itu manggil Suo, Takamura atau nama kecilnya? Mungkin menurutku aja ini agak mengganggu, karena namakan juga salah satu hal penting. Untuk lainnya karena nggak baca versi Jepang dan juga nggak ngerti kalau disuruh baca :p, jadi cukup paham ^^.

[Stacey Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Broken up into a few different stories the Clamp School Detectives work to solve crimes....of the weird variety. A ghost is scaring the art students, the chairman is threatened, unexplained phenomena and apple pies, each story is different. The Clamp School detectives must find answers to all the strange happenings and keep the students and everyone safe at the school. Paperwork piles up for the chairman who always finds a way to put off the work of going through the stack on his desk. But the students' safety comes first....and he hates doing paperwork.

[Adrian Santiago · Rating 2 out of 5]

Me gustó solo la ùltima historia, sobre la mujer y el hombre que querían cocinar un pay.

Pero las demás... meh, me sentí como leyendo la biografía de una boyband o algo así. Están muy melosos y llenos de chicas enamoradas de los morritos famososo y mágicamente expertos y buenos en todo. Lo cuál tampoco estaría tan mal... pero son morritos de primaria. Así que tampoco está tan cool.

Y si se compara la historia a otras obras maestras como RG Vega, X, Tsubasa o la perfecta xxxHolic, utta. Le pondría un -8555 de calificación.

[Léa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Manga pour enfant, au dessin fidèle à Clamp et aux histoires simples mais mignonnes.
Les histoires ici sont les suivantes : 1/ un supposé fantôme au club d'art
2/ on veut faire annuler le bal de l'école
3/ fête culturelle dans un cercle de glycine (+ Suoh trouve l'amour)
4/ une prof triste a cause d'une tarte aux pommes (elle veut l'offrir au prof d'éco dont elle est amoureuse, mais il cuisine mieux qu'elle)

[Shin Donghae · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karakter yang manis, cerita yang (cukup) bagus, yang sayangnya tidak membuat saya terkesan. Semua sangat imut namun tidak dengan selipan romansanya hha.
Artwork Mokona Apapa luar biasa seperti biasanya

[Lori CucVig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Altri tre casi per la nostra Clamp Detective. Stavolta tutti e tre si mettono in gioco e diventano a turno protagonisti delle vicende. Ho apprezzato questo cambiamento. Così la seconda e la terza storia sono diventare meno stereotipate. Ora la lettura è diventata apprezzabile.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Charming book by clamp, this series is a fun read, appropriate for all ages.

[Vera City · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tierno y divertido con un humor absurdo

[Phi LE · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Oh my OTP, Suo x Nagisa-chan ❤️❤️❤️

[Myz · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5.

Ça tourne en rond et certains passages sont vraiment cringe asf !

[Lissibith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another cute volume. Though even more than in the first volume, there's some stuff in here that just *doesn't* make sense, and you don't just need to suspend your disbelief, you need to manacle it to the wall (or just laugh, which is what I did in the end). As an example, at one point in this, the chairwoman of Clamp School creates a device to get aerial views of the campus. This device can go at varying speeds and give a good overview of the ground below. Seems legit so far, right?

The device is a missile. A missile whose speed can be controlled. And which can go so slowly it's drifting like a blimp, but can also go so fast that its passing can damage stuff it passes. Uh... huh.

Aside from that there's a bit of cute character development in episodic form, a new girlfriend for one of our main trio and lots of helping damsels in distress (even the completely irrational ones who probably should receive some sort of punishment for what counts as at least assault). That sort of awkward feeling never quite goes away so I can't entirely enjoy this for what it is, but there's definitely some fun moments and when a story hits all its marks, it can actually be very sweet.

[Hiba A · Rating 2 out of 5]

I swear to God this was one of the most silly things I've ever read

But it was cute and it was CLAMP and you know what it was nice to read about boys who respect women so much like shit I was falling love with these kids

[Agnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suoh met his love :)

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clamp School Detectives, Book 2 by Clamp (2003)

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had trouble telling the characters apart....

[Nastasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Brianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good.

[Ricardo Marín]

3.5 / 5