Nikola Tesla was a man ahead of his time. Realizing this, he put all of his inventions into crystals to preserve them until the world was ready for their use. But now the fragments of the crystal have started tragedies, and a group of special agents has been curated to find them.

The agents in question are high schooler Botan Negoro and Agent Kuruma who just can not find their common ground. Botan, a trained ninja since birth, has been preparing for this mission, Mission T, her entire life with her grandfather by her side. While Kuruma is confused as to why he has to work with a teenager on such a big mission, he quickly learns in their first mission together why she is qualified for the job. However, it does not stop them from bickering the entire way through. 

In their first mission, you can see just how dangerous these fragments are. Trains and cars are being warped to different locations, melting the people inside. But as always, there is always an antagonistic group lurking in the distance. Their name is “Little House”, and if they get their hands on all the fragments there is no telling what they could do.

The artwork by Koto Sannomiya was truly breathtaking, especially in the wide shot scenes. Sannomiya was able to beautifully display beautiful scenery as well as harrowing scenes like the melted bodies on the train and the intense fighting scenes. Unfortunately, this beautiful artwork was not transferred over to the anime, so I will just continue to read the manga for the visual and the style. 

The storytelling by Masafumi Nishida and Tadayoshi Kubo was solid but confused me in some scenarios. The banters between Botan and Kuruma were enjoyable, albeit distracting from the mission at large, it definitely lays the groundwork for how their relationship will bloom. And if there is anything I’m a sucker for it’s enemies-to-friends. It was frustrating to see after (and sometimes during) their missions, they would get new information that was seemingly omitted from the beginning from Botan and her grandfather.

There was also an attempt at discussing racism in their country (outside of Japan) regarding a  father who was struggling to find work due to the color of his skin. Botan resonated with the man’s son as they both had lost their mother, but the sadness doesn’t really take over the chapter – it just adds more mystery to Botan’s life.

Volume One of Telsa Note shows promise as a new superspy-themed manga, regardless of the small hiccups it may have. As of this post, Volume Four is out, and I’m curious to see how the storytelling improves and the artwork flourishes.