Kyouki no Sanmyaku nite
H.P. Lovecraft's at the Mountains of Madness

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At the Mountains of Madness – Spoiler Free – Recommended

TLDR
Story – 8/10 – 8 x 0.275 = 2,2
Art – 8/10 – 8 x 0.2 = 1,6
Characters – 5/10 – 5 x 0.225 = 1,125
Enjoyment – 7/10 – 7 x 0.3 = 2,1
Total: 7,025 -> 7

Story – 8/10
... At the Mountains of Madness adapts Lovecraft's longest story into a four-volume manga; it is, once more, a Gou Tanabe adaptation.
It is a faithful rendition of the spirit and the atmosphere of the original story, having thus the same strengths and the same weaknesses of the original: it is mostly a story-driven manga – in opposition to a character-driven story –, that mostly serves to advance the element of horror in the Lovecraftian mythos.

Art – 8/10
The art is quite good, although there are no awe-inspiring panels like in Call of Cthulhu, being weaker than the aforementioned work. The cadence of the panels is great, making the story easy to follow; the character design, however, is somewhat lacking, for most characters look like the next character.

Characters – 5/10
Lovecraft is not known for its characters, and At the Mountains of Madness is no exception. The characters only serve to advance the lore of the Lovecraftian mythos and not anything else. They have no personality and play essentially no role; they are not memorable, and if they were replaced by a placeholder, it would have been the same: they are essentially figurines.

Enjoyment – 7/10
The At the Mountains of Madness manga introduces one of the most important stories in the Lovecraftian repertoire, adding a rather well done visual dimension to the original story. The change in the medium doesn’t affect the appreciation of work in the slightest, although the original is also quite good according to Lovecraftian standards. Since it is an adaptation, and thus rendering it hard to review, since it has to live up to the original, what can be said is that it is an enjoyable work that faithfully adapts the original content with good – but not stellar – art, thus deserving a recommendation.

This solid adaptation is a great take on the impossible: visualizing Lovecraft's description of what is incomprehensible to man. Tanabe’s realistic style effectively illustrates the story in volume 1 (despite fairly plain character design) and goes on to a unique artistic vision for the more fantastical volume 2.

However, the manga suffers from its source material. Lovecraft was a master at description, tension and world building- but was prone to bland characters, stilted dialogue and long exposition dumps. Here, dialogue often reads as if it's irrelevant which character is speaking. Still, lines from the original work are selected effectively to efficiently move the plot forward. ... A driving tension leads up to the last third of the story (certainly aided by Tanabe’s illustrations) but is unavoidably disappointed by over-exposition. Thankfully, this exposition gives Tanabe the chance for some wonderful illustrations.

As an adaptation the work absolutely succeeds, but judged as a standalone manga- the characters are bland and the last third leaves a lot to be desired in terms of story. Overall, I'd recommend this adaptation as an alternative to the original novella.

"It was a horror that a single screamed word of their voices had survived, echoing through unthinkable time, distorted, and mocked, and mocking; Takeli-li! Takeli-li!"

At the Mountains of Madness is my first dose of H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror, and I am now hooked. If I had to describe this manga in one word, it would be; fantastically weird. But wait, that's two words.. oh well.

The story is about a team of scientists going on an expedition in Antarctica. But as you correctly guessed, everything goes terribly wrong when they find some ancient "specimens". In the beginning, I found it a bit slow, and it ... was kinda hard to follow the story. But I got used to it soon enough.

The characters were a bit bland, like they were only there for the sake of the story, and I didn't feel their spirit, and the art made it difficult to tell them apart. Aside from that, Gou Tanabe's two-page spreads were so amazing at times, especially toward the end.

I haven't read the book, so I can't say if it's better, but I have a feeling it can't be much better than this.