Review by Frank Plowright
UnOrdinary takes place in a world where super powers are commonplace, although costumes aren’t. It’s resulted in a society based on strength defining who’s right in any given situation, and the opinions of those without powers being irrelevant. These attitudes are instituted at elite schools for super powered teens, but as seen in unOrdinary 1, John has been able to navigate Wellston High without using powers. It was revealed at the end that he has them, and indeed held the position of King at a previous school, yet chooses not to use them. He’s already changed the attitude of the very powerful Sera, and this volume opens with him working on Arlo, Wellston’s “King”. Arlo is puzzled by John’s lack of deference and has discovered the truth.
While John continues to motivate much of the plot creator uru-chan (always lower case being the choice) moves some background plot into the foreground and near the start involves some students who only previously had a small role. The overall plotting continues to be admirable in taking John and others to places they’d prefer not to go, making for compulsive drama, while also showing how some people institute their own drama. Arlo is a one man dramatic society.
Uru-chan is a better writer than artist. To some extent this is a consequence of unOrdinary originally being created for online presentation, but not all aspects are down to that. Almost everyone has the same face, and as conversation occurs more frequently than action, hair colour is the primary distinguishing feature. Allowing for John constantly repressing himself, others could have more variety with their expressions, and uru-chan hampers herself by following a frequently seen manga style of drawing characters without eyes. The use of black-bordered pages for scenes other than flashbacks breaks with manga tradition, so why avoid eyes? It comes across as plain idle and in places draws attention away from what’s happening.
A game of poker as allegory to John’s situation is strained and takes too many pages to make a point, but otherwise these chapters are excellently paced, escalating toward a major problem occupying the finale. This brings another background plot into the foreground and introduces a new mystery taking us into unOrdinary 3.
