Complex Age is a manga that revolves around Nagisa Katura, a 26 year-old woman who works a relatively normal office job as a temp worker on the weekdays, but secretly enjoys the world of cosplay and, to a seemingly lesser extent, anime. However, as both of these aspects of her life begin to increasingly come into conflict with one another, she will have to decide what she's willing to give up in order to be happy...her cosplay, or her "normal" life.
This is basically the story as presented by the back cover, and in most synopses online. However, I find that the story is a bit more psychological in nature and tone.
Nagisa is what I would call a very flawed, yet sympathetic character. Within the first page or two, we witness her looking at photos of herself (in cosplay, of course) and reading the comments - to which she says to herself "It's true...I *am* perfect." This, along with many other moments throughout the volume, says to me that Nagisa is just a bit of a narcissist.
We also see that her cosplay hobby is a bit on an otaku level - she's a massive perfectionist, being incredibly detailed in her costume designs, posing, and characterization, to the point where she's overly critical of others when they don't quite meet her standards (a flaw which we see her working on throughout this volume). She's not just into dressing as her favorite character - she essentially wants to *be* her favorite character.
And all of that seems to come about because, despite being what may appear to be a bit of an annoying character, Nagisa is also very human - though she's well-renowned for her talent in cosplay, she's also quite a bit unconfident in herself, fretting over body image issues, such as being too tall, too old, or just not as good as the others. We really get a glimpse into this last point when a younger woman joins her cosplay group and attempts to play the same character as her - Nagisa is dreadfully worried about being overthrown, but not in a vengeful way; she's simply frightened and saddened at the thought that she might not be the end-all-be-all that she believed she was to her chosen cosplay character, and that she might not be able to hide her true self behind the character that she cosplays as anymore.
We also have the conflict mentioned earlier - Nagisa doesn't tell her coworkers or family about her cosplay hobby, going so far as to hide it, for they, according to her, wouldn't understand and would think her some kind of bizarre weirdo. While there is room for this to be varying degrees of true, we're never really shown any proof of her claims (not in this volume, anyways). In fact, a fellow cosplayer is surprised that Nagisa doesn't share her cosplay obsession with others - the cosplayer has shared her hobby with others before and it has only ever been a positive experience or not a big deal, so she's not sure why Nagisa is so secretive. Perhaps cosplay really is looked down upon harshly in Japan, where the story takes place, as admittedly I am an outsider to it - but regardless, Nagisa's hiding it comes across again as her being slightly unconfident and unwilling to open up about herself to others.
That's the thing about Nagisa throughout this volume, as well - she remains a pretty quiet and introspective character by all means, except for when she goes on about cosplay - but thankfully we do see a few cracks in her shell towards the end, pointing towards what I hope is a hopeful future for the story.
However, that is also where I have to bring up a little criticism with Complex Age thus far (I am giving it a 3 out of 5, after all) - Nagisa is relatively quiet, even in her introspection...and though there are other characters as well, they are sometimes too into their cosplay to reveal their true selves (they *are* playing another character, after all), and no one really gets a chance to shine through much. Because of this, the volume has a bit of a bland flavor...not a bad flavor, mind you, but just a tad bit bland. It's above average, but only a little.
I also have to take issue a little bit with the length of the volume - though the page count is about 200, only 150 or so are the meat of the story, which feels short to me; it clocks in at 6 chapters, with the rest of the pages being the usual glossary of terms, translation notes, ads...but also a surprising inclusion of the one-off version of Complex Age, which of course inspired this story. It's a little bit different from the main story, but the themes are the same and it's pretty interesting...but with that being said, I hope the manga doesn't end up following the events of the one-off entirely, both for personal reasons, and because I feel like its inclusion would thus slightly spoil the story of the longer-form manga.
Ultimately, Volume 1 of Complex Age feels like it's mostly just setting up the story for later - and at this point, the story seems to be moving along a little slowly. You couldn't really do without this volume...but you could do this volume better, I think. Most of all, I think Complex Age is a uniquely interesting storyline that has potential. I would recommend it if you are into the complex psychological underpinnings of a character who is slightly narcissistic, very perfectionist, yet also sympathetic and unconfident, who is just trying to learn how to find herself and how to best to live her life while balancing things out with an obsessive hobby. I understand why that description wouldn't fit well or be marketable on a back cover...but I feel that that is really what I got out of this volume.