Summary:

Yuma is a young boy living in the year 2038. As with many little boys, all he can think about is the Arville Comet, who is due to return soon. That is until he sees something truly out of this world, changing life as he knows it forever.

Now, Yuma and his friends have a huge secret to share and protect. What does their secret say about the past? What will their secret mean for the future of humanity? Read to find out.

Review:

I was immediately drawn to Break of Dawn, thanks to the promise of being perfect for Cowboy Bebop fans. Who could resist that sort of temptation, right? That said, I loved this tale much less than I hoped.

Break of Dawn is a coming-of-age story in a far-flung future, so it is pretty cool, right? But the stakes are pretty high, with our main characters finding a secret that could save (or doom) humanity. Yikes.

My biggest problem with Break of Dawn is that I just had trouble…caring. I didn’t get into the story, which had a slow pace and never gave me a reason to care about any of the characters. In other words, it’s pretty dull.

That said, there’s no denying the potential of this one! So I’ve got to respect that, even if I wouldn’t read more of it, given the chance.

Highlights:
Sci-Fi Manga
Futuristic Story
Otherworld Experiences
Coming-Of-Age

Will I continue the series? No

Break of Dawn is actually a great seinen scifi manga. It surprised me by being realistic in depicting children and the space part was that too. The manga is very profound, deep and even annoying. It's the year 2038 and a group of children find this secret spaceship that has been stuck on Earth for a long time. Yuma has an autobot called Nanako and it has a lot to do with the ship or it's needed perhaps? The kids want to help the ship, but it's not as easy as it sounds. They need adults for help and those adults, their parents have a history with the ship too. The whole setting is interesting and slow. The characters have rich personas and the kids are just as annoying as kids should be, especially Yuma. It was wonderful! Even the parents have an active role especially towards the end. The friendship, bullying and everything is so well done.

The art is OK, nothing spectacular, but works. This book contains the whole story, but perhaps over 500 pages is a bit too much at once. The story is heavy and has lots of text, so it took time to read this and get into the story. Still, what an amazing manga this is. It's really refreshing for once!

This was an interesting mix of sci-fi and kid adventure story, with a dash of human drama for good measure. This was a sometimes fun, sometimes thoughtful look at childhood in the not so distant past and future. One of the things I really liked is while the scifi-elements added spice to the story, the budling blocks were solid enough on their own that "robots and space" could have been any number of different combinations and the story would have still worked well. I can see why this was made into a movie! It's good! If this is your thing, absolutely give it a read!

Thank you to Kodansha Comics and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this manga. This was a really intriguing story involving space and artificial intelligence. I loved the parallels with the generations and the accessible science. I think I just didn't like the bullying aspect and the emotional whiplash that occurred. Because of these points, I have to give this a 4 out of 5 stars

I am a big fan of manga and I actually really enjoyed Break of Dawn. That said I do think some may not enjoy it as much if they prefer their manga to be more about the panel action than the panel text/dialogue. Break of Dawn at the heart is a coming of age story just set in space. Now saying that I don’t mean it’s not enjoyable it is. But there is a lot of science and a lot of dialogue which I personally loved but some may not.

The story is simple at the basis but does keep you engaged. The art work is also perfect for the genre. A bit of a mixture of coming of age, adventure and slice of life with a heavy dash of sci-fi. So if you like those things you are sure to enjoy this one.

DNF at 18%. I tried but it was so boring. So much space talk and zero things interesting about it. The most interesting thing was that the main character (a literal child) has beef with his robot home assistant. This is not my thing and it is so long that I couldn't see myself finishing it. The art is simplistic and carries the story forward instead of being appealing in its own right. I will say that the book is very "word centered". So if you like manga where the words are more important than the pictures and you like to read a lot, this is the thing for you.

Netgalley Review

Star Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

This one was entertaining. Id give it a 3.5 out of 5. The Ai robots were pretty cool, but they weren't as expanded and as well thought out as they could've been. They seemed to just kind of be glossed over especially considering they are some of the biggest characters in the story. Overall Im glad I read it, but probably wont reread it.

I enjoyed this manga more than I anticipated. I found the children to be interesting characters. They were frustrating to read at times but in ways that were realistic. I liked the character growth we got from Yuma but I wish we had gotten more from the other characters as well. For instance, I wished we had gotten more of an ending to Shingo's sister's storyline as I felt that it ended abruptly. The ending of the story was a little rushed as well but I did like the ending overall. It tied up the story and character arcs well. As this is a manga, I feel I should mention the art style which was nice but nothing remarkable. I would recommend this book for older kids and young teens, though I think that it can be enjoyed by older readers as well.

Review to come in May/June on blog/goodreads/other places.

I received this book from Netgalley/the publisher in exchange of an honest review.

+ The coming of age stuff
+ The summer adventure feels, the days of going to school and having adventures after while the days turn hotter. And then also the summer vacation! Ah, I remember those days of just having fun.
+ Some parts of the space/spaceship/AI things that happened. The spaceship I especially liked and I love that the boys did everything they could to help him out.
+ I did like that we got to see Honoka's POV.
+ Seeing some more 2010 stuff, the first time I missed it, but the second time it was clearer. And I really liked getting some more background on the spacecraft, but also see these 3 discover things and try, with limited technology, to do something. And then also see how it all went wrong and why they abandoned the plan.
+ I liked that they all started to work together. The kids from 2010 (who are now not kids of course) and the kids from 2038 (aka our main characters).

+/- I did like the bonus story but I just wished it was a bit longer, a bit more everything.

- Too much dialogue. Especially when it went on and on about AI and space and technology and all that. It can be quite fun to read, but it was just dry AF in this one. I was just getting bored. Which is why I had to scroll back because apparently at one point we went back to 2010... however the characters looked the same to me, haha, so I didn't know it was different until we met a certain character and he mentioned something. But there was just too much blablbalblabla.
- I feel like this one could have been much shorter. It just felt like it kept going.
- The bullying subplot.
- Wako can just fuck off. LORD.
- Wait are the boys at the same school as Kawai? I thought they weren't, but during a big ceremony there they were and it would be a bit weird if they weren't part of the school to just be part of that, right?
- Though I did like that everyone came together it just got too technological and all that.
- The whole thing with Nanako. It just felt a bit too convenient given how Yuma went from hating her to finding her OK.
- While I knew what the space entity/ship looked like, I have to say I had a few different expectations in regards to how it looked now. [spoiler] I was actually kinda looking forward to seeing the whole apartmentbuilding just disappearing, haha. [/spoiler]

All in all, while it had its fun moments, for most I was just utterly bored and I just dragged myself through the book. The fun bits were like little bait bits that just kept me going. If it wasn't for the fun bits, the coming of age, the summer adventure, I think I would have dropped this at around page 100.

This is a sci-fi coming of age manga which leans heavily into the latter. Although a first glance at the cover led me to assume the story would take place in space, I was pleasantly surprised by the earth-focused direction. An alien ship ends up stranded on earth and is disguised as an apartment building. I found this to be very clever, and played well into the question of the morality of AI that the manga focused on. Meanwhile, Yuma is shown to not like the AI bots which strains their relationship with Nanako. This design choice aids in highlighting the story’s core question about the integration of AI with the natural world, and whether or not they can be a part of the ecosystem and planet. The story consistently does a good job of focusing on the relationships of the children. There is a minor bullying subplot that could have been examined more, however the conversations around AI were well-explored and an interesting topic. When it comes to the artwork, the backgrounds are a visual treat, with the apartment building being particularly eye-catching. The character designs stray to the simpler side, however this helped pull the attention towards their environment. There are many visual cues, such as insect sounds, written out across the pages. This all builds into an enjoyable epic summer adventure.