Clover (Clamp manga)
Clover (Clamp manga)
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Clover (Clamp manga)

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Clover (Clamp manga)

Clover (stylized in all caps) is a manga series created by Clamp, a creative team made up by Satsuki Igarashi, Nanase Ohkawa, Tsubaki Nekoi, and Mokona. The manga takes place in a dystopian future, where the government is out to control the "Clovers", a race of children with special powers.

Clover was serialized in Kodansha's Amie from 1997 until the magazine's demise in 1999. Kodansha Comics released the entire series in English as one hardcover volume in 2020.

Clover is set in a futuristic world where 10 years ago, the government launched the Clover Leaf Project, a nationwide search for children with magical abilities. These children are dubbed "Clovers" and ranked according to the strength of their powers, with four-leaf being the strongest. Higher leafs have more advanced abilities, such as being able to determine the locations and powers of lower leafs. The only four-leaf Clover, Su, has abilities so immense that she is confined to a military research facility, and her rank is kept secret. She is monitored by a parliamentary military council known as the Wizards, and sought after by the army of Azaiea, a country located beyond a mountain border.

During a meeting with General Ko, one of the five Wizards, Kazuhiko Fay Ryu resigns from his position as deputy commander of the parliamentary military. Kazuhiko is indebted to Ko after she saved him from court-martial on several occasions, and to pay her back, she orders him to meet Su and fulfill her final wish. Ko also imprints Kazuhiko with a tattoo that grants him temporary magic powers. With help from Gingetsu and his partner Ran, Kazuhiko and Su use a teleportation device to reach Fairy Park, Su's chosen destination. However, the device is hijacked and the two emerge in Azaiea, where they are subdued by the Xiao Mao. The Xiao Mao's leader lets them go after learning of Kazuhiko's reputation in the underground, and offers to hold off the Azaiean Army led by Bols.

Using technology that tracks the radiation of their weapons, Bols approaches the two and challenges Kazuhiko to a duel. He pins Kazuhiko with a blade while Azaiean soldiers go after Su, but Gingetsu comes to their rescue and brings them to safety. While being escorted in a car, Su sings a song composed by Ora, Kazuhiko's deceased lover. They stay at a government hotel, which gets invaded by soldiers working for the Wizards, and Su conjures mechanical wings to carry them both out of the building. Afterwards, Su reveals to Kazuhiko that she is a four-leaf Clover. She explains the purpose of the Clover Leaf Project, and mentions the existence of three Clovers of the three-leaf rank, though only two are still alive.

After another encounter with Bols, Ran teleports the duo to Fairy Park, which has a statue of a fairy that Su associates with Ora. Su confesses that she used to talk with Ora over radio waves, and despite never meeting in person, she was her first real friend. Ora told Su about the outside world, her relationship with Kazuhiko, and her ability to know when she would die. They had also written a song titled "CLOVER" together, which the statue recites in honor of Ora. While exploring the park, Su shares that as a child, her parents sold her to the military to experiment on her powers, then professes her love for Kazuhiko. Suddenly, the Wizards take control of Ora's statue and manipulate the park's structures to attack them. Kazuhiko is injured in the attack, but with Su's help, he summons a laser cannon to destroy the statue. Gingetsu arrives to retrieve Kazuhiko and arrest Bols, who was spectating the duo, while Su stays at the ruined park. Having found her happiness, Su thanks Kazuhiko and self-destructs, setting the park ablaze.

General Ko tells the Wizards how Su promised to destroy herself upon reaching Fairy Park, and that Kazuhiko also needed to die out of fear that anyone Su became emotionally attached to would use her as a weapon to control the world.

Volumes 3-4 depict events before Volumes 1-2, beginning with Su hearing Ora's voice in her dreams through radio waves. Meanwhile, Kazuhiko and Gingetsu attend one of Ora's performances, and Su sings along in her greenhouse, wishing to meet Ora. Against the Wizards' orders to keep Su isolated, Ko allows her to use radio waves to call Ora, who talks about music and love. They co-write the song "CLOVER," but on the night of Ora's birthday, she tells Su that she is a one-leaf Clover and going to die soon. As she predicted, Ora is shot by a sniper while performing the song, to which Kazuhiko resigns from the military to dedicate himself to finding the perpetrator.

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