During Fall 2024, here on ANN, I reviewed studio TriF's debut anime series Mecha-Ude as it aired weekly. Overall it was a great 12-episode show, densely packed with enough plot to fuel a series twice its length, elevated by wonderfully kinetic action animation heavily influenced by Kill la Kill, and other works by Studio Trigger. Now the manga iteration of its story arrives in a full-color English-language physical edition, where previously it was available only in black-and-white courtesy of Azuki's web reader.

Mecha-Ude's manga seems to have been developed in close conjunction with the anime, debuting in 2022 and concluding mere weeks before its first TV episode broadcast in 2024. Originating as a Kickstarter project in 2016, Mecha-Ude debuted on screens in nascent form as a single 25-minute OVA in 2018. That OVA was successful enough to attract media company Pony Canyon's attention (and funding), so the tiny studio TriF greatly expanded the story for its eventual full series, with the OVA repurposed as the third episode.

This first manga volume covers the initial nine chapters corresponding to the first two anime episodes. We're very much in introductory mode here, with Hikaru hearing a strange voice only he can perceive calling for help, which leads him to his fateful meeting with Alma, and all the madness that follows. Alma is, to all intents and purposes, a talking metal arm (a “Mecha-Ude”) with a huge orange eyeball, and five fingers on its hand. Somehow, Alma ends up fusing with Hikaru's hoodie. Hikaru isn't exactly enthused by this encounter, especially as other Mecha-Ude-users start hunting them down to capture “Trigger Arm” Alma. Hikaru's merely expendable.

Two main organizations battle to possess Alma – large conglomerate the Kagami Group, which appears to operate a successful drone business, and the mysterious ARMS. The Kagami Group's two operatives that we meet – Oner and Twos – use Mecha-Ude that are shackled, and robbed of their free will and autonomy. They're both villain-coded, at least for the moment. ARM's primary representative is Aki, a red-haired teenage girl who wields two Mecha-Ude who attach to either thigh, named Sinis and Dex. (“Left” and “Right” appropriately.)

Aki's very much a “punch in the face then ask questions later” kind of girl, and after her initial attempt to capture Alma goes awry, she winds up becoming a transfer student in Hikaru's class – much to his horror. It seems we speedrun through a typical rom-com setup, with Hikaru doing his best to avoid the terrifying Aki, who is eventually waylaid by cookies made by my absolute favorite character, Meru. Meru is a romance-obsessed menace who sees romcom tropes everywhere and does her best to push Aki and Hikaru together. I love Meru and her sheer obliviousness, and she's just as delightfully bonkers here as she is in her anime incarnation.

Everything in Mecha-Ude volume 1 is so close to the anime that it almost feels like reading through storyboards. The gags are the same, many camera angles are identical, there's little here that feels exclusive to the printed medium. The artwork is absolutely nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done. While I generally prefer the black-and-white original art, the digital coloring at least fits the anime's color palette extremely accurately, and the simple character designs are pretty close. The pacing remains as brisk as the anime, though the static action sequences can't hope to equal TriF's innovative and impressive use of CG mecha animation. Paneling is sometimes a little hard to follow, and I had to re-read a couple of pages to parse the action.

Mecha-Ude Volume 1 succeeds as far as introducing the characters and their place in the story, and the fact the print edition has been produced in vibrant color is an unusual touch. This doesn't feel like the definitive version of the story though, it misses the anime's irrepressible energy and constant motion. It's nice that a manga version exists, but in this case, it feels unnecessary next to its flashier sibling.