Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories


Adapted by Shiro Amano translated by (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-59816-67-37-8

Regular readers (if any of you are still alive out there and not bored to death by my pithy ramblings) will already know that I am utterly immune to computer and video games. Nevertheless the industry has generated some intriguing comics material and occasionally I’ll take a peek at what you youngsters are spending your cash on…

Kingdom Hearts is a series of games which stars a new young hero named Sora working in combination with characters and scenarios from Disney’s globe-girdling cinematic canon and elements of the Fighting Fantasy electronic franchise.

This plucky lad travelled to different realms trying to rescue his two best friends Riku and Kairi who had fallen into the cracks between worlds after a wave of Darkness enveloped all the myriad worlds of creation and wicked creatures named The Heartless were unleashed on the kid’s idyllic land of Destiny Islands.

Once the many Realms were separate; barred to each other by Dark Doorways, with a single Chosen One who carried an ultimate key to all locks, able to pass easily between them.

In his quest Sora was joined by Donald Duck, Goofy and Jiminy Cricket who were similarly searching for their lost King Mickey. During the saga Sora came into possession of the fabled Keyblade which can hurl back the Heartless and unlock all doors…

The comic tie-in Kingudamu Hātsu began in 2003 as a serial in Square Enix’s Japanese Monthly Shōnen Gangan before making the inevitable jump to book collections. Subsequent game releases have been similarly incorporated into the print adventures.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memory – which bridges the gap between the first and second games – opens with Riku and Mickey having sacrificed themselves to keep Ansem, the mastermind behind the chaos, sealed behind the  Doorway to Darkness (trapping themselves there as well) and Sora, Jiminy, Donald and Goofy still searching for a way to rescue them.

In their travels the questers encounter a mysterious stranger who directs them to the Castle Oblivion, but on entering they find that the eerie citadel is stealing their memories, making the shadowy stranger’s confusing predictions and warnings even harder to decipher…

Unaware that they are being manipulated by a shady cabal called Organization XIII, the assembled heroes travel to more incredible worlds with the aid of “Memory Cards” arriving in seedy Traverse Town where the heroic Leon helps them defeat a marauding band of Heartless, after which they are accosted and tested by the sinister Axel before arriving in the Arabian town of Agrabah just in time to assist Aladdin and Princess Jasmine in their struggle against the nefarious Jaffar…

Meanwhile on the other side of the Dark Divide Riku is being tempted and tested by the forces of Evil, but at least he has the indomitable strength of the ghostly King Mickey to help him resist the terrors and seductions of the Disney witch Maleficent and the charismatic Ansem…

Fast-paced and engaging, this tale offers some fascinating moments for fans of classic Disney movies and the Fighting Fantasy universe, but generally it reads like a computer game (probably, to be fair,  Shiro Amano’s intention and brief) so if you’re a narrative purist the ride is likely to feel confused, bumpy and little information-intense in all the wrong places.

If you’re open-minded and clear-headed there’s joy to be gleaned from this peculiar all-ages tome but I rather suspect that more traditional fans might prefer to leave their assorted media unalloyed and sedately separated…
Original manga by Shiro Amano/Enterbrain Inc. © Disney. Characters from Final Fantasy © 2005 Square Enix Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. English translation © 2006 TokyoPop Ltd.