87 Clockers is a manga about overclocking by Tomoko Ninomiya, creator of Nodame Cantabile. It was serialized from 2011 to 2016, starting out in Jump X and moving to Weekly Young Jump in 2014.
Ichinose, a violin music student, is coming towards a crossroads in his life. He has to decide what to do with his future, but he doesn't feel pulled towards any one particular dream. In the absence of any ambition, he decides to work alongside his mother, who is a piano teacher, and teach violin. But one night, he sees a pretty, sad girl standing barefoot outside an apartment. A little investigation shows that she seems to share the apartment with a cat and a mysterious guy called Mike. Will meeting her be the trigger that can change his dull life?
This work contains examples of the following:
- All Love Is Unrequited: Oh boy, this gets quite a workout in this manga!
- Hana and Julia towards Mike
- Kanade towards Hana
- Hana's fiancé, Hijiri, even had a theme park built just to show his affections for her!
- Bland-Name Product: For example, a video card that looks a lot like a typical nVidia card but which is labeled "VT 600R"
- Character Name Alias: In the first tournament, Mike and Hana as Chestnut and Peach.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Applies to Kanade, who despite being in music school, no longer competes in musical competitions and music having lost its glamour to him.
- Explosive Instrumentation: Kanade's first computer exploded once he started tinkering with it after Hana left.
- Extreme Omnivore: Mike is know to eat cat food from time to time. That's how he met Kanade and Hana.
- Freudian Slip: When Kanade was being woken by Hana do to some farm work for Murata, he thought it was his mom who was waking him up.
- Gamer Chick: Julia
- Grapes of Luxury: Averted. Hana (who works at a pineapple processing factory) serves Mike pineapples for dinner so much that Mike has grown tired of it. To put things in context, Mike is more or less living in poverty, while fruits of any kind are considered luxury items in Japan.
- Good Old Ways: Julia prefers air-cooled machines rather than water-cooled or even LN 2 cooling. They almost won the first tournament with it.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Kanade's ear for music proved extremely useful in a few instances.
- During the first tournament as a player, he was able to locate enemies in a dark since he was able to hear the slightest of sounds.
- While in the farm trying to qualify for the 3D overclocking contest, he saved Murata from failure when he heard the insulation pot starting to separate from the rest of the machine. They ended up setting a world record.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Though his feelings for her are genuine, Hana may appear to be this while Hikiri was telling his story of his rejection after rejection despite improving himself. He managed to solicit both Murata and Kanade's sympathy and irritation.
- Meal Ticket: The ulterior motive behind Mike's and Julia's 'friendship' with Kanade.
- Noob: The manga is more or less Kanade's journey in the world of computer overclocking from the very beginning.
- Mike, of all people, is one of these for First-Person Shooter games, with hilarious results during the first tournament.
- Overclocking Attack: Refers to both the literal and original version. The main theme of the manga is how far you can get away with it without destroying your machine.
- Self-Made Man: Played with, as one of Hana's criticism of Hikiri was that he was mooching off his father. This drove him into founding his own gaming company with a college colleague without outside help, which ended up somewhat successful.
- Shipper on Deck: Hana's father and aunt towards her fiancé.
- Shout-Out: One of the characters is named after and has an eyepatch like Danpei Tenge
- Shown Their Work: LN 2 cooling, Super PI world records, the whole works.
- The Ace: Mike is pretty much competing to be this in the overclocking world.
- The Casanova: To the horror of his mother and delight of his sister, they think Kanade is becoming one. Misleading evidence include Hana's and Julia's visits home, and Julia's call card to her workplace (a cabaret).
- Training from Hell: Julia pretty much put Kanade through this in preparation for both tournaments.
