Sort of like Evangelion, but with nipples!
Creative Staff
Story: Masamune Kuji
Art: Riku Ayakawa
Character Design: Hisasi
Mecha Design: Kurogin
Translation: Caleb D. Cook
What They Say
Invaders from another world are attacking the Earth, and humanity’s only hope lies in special armors called Hybrid Heart Gears, or HHGs. Hida Kizuna might seem unexceptional, but he has a skill that can turn the tide of battle–by getting female HHG users hot and bothered, he can replenish their energy!
The Review! (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Contains nudity.
Technical:
This first volume lives up to the quality level that I have come to expect out of Yen Press. Clean printing with solid blacks from start to finish, color page inserts at the front of the volume, and even art printed right on the inside of front and back covers. The art printed on the inside covers is definitely unique and cool.
The art is a little of a mishmash. This manga adaptation is based on a light novel series where one artist designed the characters and another the mecha. Then this manga is drawn by a third artist, Ayakawa. While the characters are very attractive and drawn well by Ayakawa, the mecha seems out of place and disjointed. My complaint with the character design is that two of the main three characters look very similar, too similar, to the manga. I’m sure in the later anime adaptation with different colored hair, telling the two girls apart is easy.
Content:
Kizuna thought he was a special boy when he was younger. His mother was a brilliant scientist and had him undergoing tests examining his capabilities to wield super-powered suits. She told him repeatedly he was the only person in the world that could use the suit and save humanity from the aliens invading the world. That all changed one day when other girls were found compatible and better suited than Kizuna. His mother immediately banished him from the lab and a decade later he hasn’t seen his mother since.
That is until his older sister summoned him to the school training kids to use these super-powered suits known as Hybrid Heart Gears. Kizuna’s sister is the Supreme Commander of this particular school, and she wants him to train with the other girls. None of that makes any sense to him considering how weak he is compared to girls using the Hybrid Heart Gears. But the whereabouts of their mother remains a mystery for the reader. I assumed their mother would be at the school, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
This is a rough start to this series and I can’t believe the editor of the original light novel didn’t say, “whoa, this beginning is too much like Evangelion, come up with something different”. Although, I guess there are enough young readers out there that haven’t read or watched the Evangelion series. From here, things continue to be mediocre, unfortunately. Kizuna learns that while he is weak in the super armor suit, he does have a ton of stamina and can share it with the other girls. Of course, he can only share or reset the girl’s stamina with a solid session of groping. Yeah, groping.
Will Kizuna be able to keep his libido up enough to repower his female team members? Will he ever get strong enough to fight the aliens himself? We will learn what happened to his mother?
In Summary:
Nothing new with this series; mecha, boobs, and a single male that is both weak and the key to a superpower. I couldn’t help but repeatedly think of the similarities in this initial story setup and Evangelion. It was actually uncanny and showed that the author Kuji was heavily influenced by Evangelion. The biggest differences come in Hybrid x Heart’s aliens versus humans and the titillation factor. An alien force basically killed most of the human population and forced the survivors onto small manmade islands around the world. To fight the aliens, humans have created super-powered suits for girls to fight in, and show a lot of skin. Pretty simple so far, but this is the first volume and they tend to be difficult to set up. The good news is that there are enough mysteries going on to make me want to read the next volume. Why did Kizuna’s mother abandon him? Why did his older sister become the head of the training school for the fighters? Why is their armor little more than a bikini?
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: Mature
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: October 31, 2017
MSRP: $13.00
