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Aug 11, 2020
At the time of writing this, I’m… Overwhelmed. I’m confused. I’m pretty emotional. My feelings are complicated, but I'm convinced that what I've read is a stone-cold classic.
No manga encapsulates the idea of “It gets better later” than Pandora Hearts. At least, for me. You see, nearly all of the manga I like are generally good or at least hold my interest from the outset, and on the first read. Not the case with Pandora Hearts; It took me several attempts to get into it. The reason that this attempt worked was because I loved The Case Study of Vanitas, so I wanted to give
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Pandora Hearts a real fair shake.
Pandora Hearts can be confusing to the point of frustration; The amount of confusion caused by the series during the first few chapters was what caused me to drop it during the first few attempts. But I ended up starting over, and persevering, realizing that I was gonna need the occasional wiki summary of the chapter that I had just read, and that I was occasionally gonna have to go back, and re-read the last few pages if I realized I was getting lost. Once I did this, the story was a lot more manageable. So, I guess that’s my advice for reading Pandora Hearts; You’re gonna have to constantly refresh your memory, and give your full attention to it.
So, onto the actual story; There’s no way I can effectively summarize it. It’s way too complex for me to do so. But I will say this: Stick with it. It’s confusing, non-linear, and convoluted, but I promise that your patience will be rewarded. When it happens will vary somewhat; Some say that it’s great from the beginning, some say around volume 7, some say around volume 11, but for me, it was pretty damn late. Around volume 16. But once Pandora Hearts hooks you, you’re in for a wild ride that can only be described as a complete mindfuck. And when certain events happen, hopefully, you remembered certain plot points from earlier; Because if you do, you’ll be able to predict what happens a page in advance, and when you’re right, you’ll be shocked at how much of a mad lad Mochizuki was to set this shit up, and you’ll be satisfied at yourself for calling it. And from then on, I was hit with some of the most emotional beats that I had ever experienced when reading a manga, all while still being slightly confused as to what was happening. This might take a re-read for me to understand more. I give this aspect of Pandora Hearts a 10/10.
The art’s real good. Everyone’s a fucking supermodel here, and have the most over-the-top fashion sense that you can imagine. And it works super well here. The art’s solid from the outset, but gets better, and better over time until it eventually turns into the wonderfully polished artwork that’s also showcased in Vanitas from the very start. This aspect is definitely a 10/10.
The weakest point of the manga is the characters; While the cast is all well-developed, likeable, and have motivations that make enough sense in the context of the story, I can’t really say that there’s a single character in the cast that became an all-time favourite of mine, compared to characters like Guts, Koro-sensei, Kaiji, Luffy, or… Well, Vanitas. As I said, none of these characters are bad, there just really wasn’t a super huge standout for me. But YMMV on that front, because I know that people have gotten super attached to these characters. The characters get an 8.5/10 from me.
Enjoyment’s an odd one. At the start, I was only a step above tolerating it. Next, I thought it was fairly interesting. Then, I was completely shocked to my core, and finally, I was confidently thinking to myself: “Yep, glad I gave this another chance!” It was very much something that I consistently enjoyed more as I went along. But I think because of how a lot of the later beats ended up re-contextualizing earlier scenes, I ended up retroactively enjoying those scenes more. In that regard, I’m willing to score this as a 9/10.
Pandora Hearts is something, to say the least. As stated earlier, it started off slow, but then improved as time went on, and then it became one of the hardest-hitting manga I had read in quite a long time. It’s absolutely worth your time, and admittedly, some patience. You’ll think “Nothing could possibly be worth this wait” at the start, and once you really get to the meat of things, you think “This actually was worth the wait!”. Because that’s exactly how I felt. I’m feeling a 9.5/10 on this one. So, what are you waiting for? Give this a read.
(On a side note, while I said that I probably need to re-read it to fully understand, knowing myself… I’m probably never gonna get around to doing so.)
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jun 14, 2020
(This is a reupload, due to it being falsely tagged as preliminary)
When it comes to the subject of “series that disappoint”, most people talk about how much potential X series had. And while that’s not totally wrong, I feel like this is a somewhat inaccurate term, since a lot of series that supposedly had potential were actually good for a while. It’s just that they couldn’t maintain that momentum. And nowhere is this more present than in The Promised Neverland. Neverland, from the outset, was already capitalizing on its potential very effectively.
Back in late 2018, to early 2019, I got back into the hobby of
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reading manga. And one of the series that had me jump back into said hobby was The Promised Neverland after a combination of a cool premise, and hearing people rave about it. Among others, like Hero Academia Vigilantes, but that has nothing to do with this. Point is, Neverland had quickly become one of my favourite manga of all time. And for good reason! See, this series has one of the strongest arcs in shonen that I have ever, and since read. I’d go so far as to say that it’s one of THE all-time greats, along with Soul Society, Chuunin exams, Frieza, and even Enies Lobby, for fuck’s sake. Yes, I’m praising it to that extent, because I really do think it was that good.
The first arc of Neverland is intense, and full of thrills. Characters coming up with insane gambits, outsmarting each other, and resorting to the most desperate of tactics. Our villain, Mama Isabella is really threatening, and does have a very intimidating presence. Our main cast of Emma, Ray, and Norman are interesting, and while yes, a lot of their dialogue, and their ideas sound way too smart for 12-year olds, it can be explained in-universe with… Well, I won’t spoil it, but considering the world that the characters live in, it makes sense. I think the strongest aspect about the characters at that point is despite them being really smart, they are, at the end of the day, 12-year old kids. They can be irrational at times, and make bad calls. They make mistakes. Quite a lot. So when they actually manage to win at the end, it really feels earned, as a proper underdog victory should.
The following arcs, while not quite as strong as the first arc, are still good. The sort of ‘interlude’ arc that comes immediately after the first arc allows for us to slow down a little, adds plenty of effective world-building, introduces a few new, and fairly important characters. In general, it’s very clearly meant to be a setup for things to come much, much later on. It does it’s job, and it does it well. No real issues here.
I know Goldy Pond is a somewhat divisive arc, and a lot of people like to point to this being the start of the fall of the series, but I argue that it’s a damn fine arc. If this was in about 80% of other shonen series, this is where they would peak, and this is the part that everyone would talk about. It’s certainly a lot more action-packed than the first arc, and leans closer to the classic shonen setup of characters splitting up, and fighting their own fights, but there’s still plenty of interesting strategies and a lot of interesting revelations here. The new characters that are introduced, while not as compelling as our main cast, still serve their purpose here pretty decently.
And now, this is the what virtually everyone agrees on: The good things REALLY start faltering. After a certain character that I won’t name dies, the story starts to take another dip. There is some good payoff early on in this arc, and it does set up a few mysteries, but the fact that they timeskipped a journey that could’ve been it’s own arc (And just told us what happened) contributing more to the worldbuilding of the series was the biggest red flag. And it becomes a huge problem, when later on in the arc, all the emotional impact and payoff is counting on us to care about these details that could’ve been explored in this timeskipped segment.
I could go on and on about the problems with the first half of the final arc. I could talk about how rushed it was, how a whole bunch of characters end up being relegated to the background (Including Ray, one of the MAIN TRIO), the bullshit talk-no-jutsus, the complete absence of interesting strategies… Really, it’s not good. At all. It’s totally mediocre, bland, and forgettable. But the real meat of the problems comes in the second half of the final arc.
I’m going to jump into spoilers in the next paragraph, so if you’re interested in reading it, then don’t continue.
At this point in the story, it’s basically being carried by the titular “promise”. That was the mystery that this final arc had set up in the beginning. This final bit, however, is about tying up the loose ends of the first arc. We’re going back to Gracefield house, the setting of the first arc, and dealing with Mama. Kind of like what the song Return to Hangar is to the song Hangar 18. Only problem is, that this part is, similarly to Return to Hangar, completely inferior to what it was meant to follow up on in every single way. There are some absolutely pathetic attempts at “redemption” arcs that are so rushed, and weak, that they might as well not even have bothered. A particular spot that stuck out to me was what was meant to be the completion of Mama Isabella’s arc; That is to say, her sacrifice, and death. But there’s absolutely no emotion, no buildup, NOTHING to make it compelling. It just comes out of nowhere. Saddest thing was, that the chapter where we actually see her die is actually well-executed, well-drawn, and is a good example of a death scene. But with so little buildup, and development, it doesn’t hit even an twentieth of how hard it should. Oh, and I forgot to mention that they also have to tie up the loose ends of the first half of this arc though, so they end up just using some plot contrivance to handwave all that. Did that last sentence feel like it came out of nowhere? Yeah, that’s how about 90% of this arc felt.
Believe it or not though, it gets worse STILL. The promise that they’ve been building up to is supposed to be essentially, a free wish that has been heavily implied to require a sacrifice. And everyone’s betting that it’s gonna be the main cast, or something. But nope, they're all going to the human world! And no one has to stay behind. By that point, any remaining semblance of stakes in this series have been completely thrown out the window. They pretend there are some stakes after by claiming that Emma lost her memories of her family, and will totally never reunite with them! Except she does, and still remembers them to some extremely vague degree, so she may as well have just gotten all her memories back, for all the difference it makes. This ending is just so, so, SO weak.
Now I think I should talk about the characters. The main cast, Emma, Ray, and Norman, are pretty clearly archetypes. Emma’s the bright, athletic type, Ray is the serious, less athletic, somewhat cynical guy, and Norman’s somewhere in-between. They’re cliche, but they’re well-executed, and do the job really well. They never were the most fleshed-out, or interesting cast, but they’ve got their flaws, and are certainly developed enough for me to care about them. But later on, Emma becomes the SOLE focus of the trio, and she’s just a flat, boring power of friendship shonen stereotype. Norman’s basically nothing, and Ray may as well not exist. It literally feels like the author kept forgetting that Ray existed, and then occasionally remembered to write a couple of lines for him, and then told the artist to draw him into the panel. I’ve already talked about Isabella throughout this review, and as for the rest of the cast, there’s basically nothing to say about them. Sonju and Musica are basically just plot devices that are there to pull solutions out of the ass dimension, and the other side characters are so forgettable, I’ve literally forgotten all their names, as someone who followed the series absolutely religiously, weekly.
The art’s good. It always remains good. This is something that Neverland never fails to deliver on. Characters are consistently well-drawn, as are backgrounds, and the cover art for the tankobons is consistently wonderful. Posuka Demizu really did the best with what she could. BUT… And this is really not something I say often, her skills were sadly wasted on the later parts of this manga.
The biggest question I have to ask is WHY? Why is this all so rushed? Why did we skip over important worldbuilding? Why did this drop so hard in quality? Like, were they afraid that it was going to be axed, so they just wanted to complete the story? Were there declining sales? Health issues? Was the author bored of writing it? Did the author just run out of ideas? I have no idea, but regardless, Neverland’s final arc is a disaster that will go down in history in the same way as something like Bleach, or Death Note did.
You might be arguing now that a bad ending doesn’t necessarily ruin a good series, but I disagree. A bad ending indeed CAN ruin a series, and will absolutely hurt your impression of it, since this is what you remember; It doesn’t always, but it is totally capable of doing so by rendering what was set up earlier pointless, or not delivering on the promises it made. And this was far more than just a bad ending, this was a bad final arc.
Then you combine that with the sting that I felt reading this compared to the others I just mentioned, because this used to be one of my favourite manga of all time. Frankly, that’s enough to drag down what was originally for me a 10/10 manga down to a 4. To get the most out of this series, just read up to the point that the certain character that I mentioned dies, then stop. And make up a better, more fleshed-out ending in your head that actually required some serious sacrifice, and had some proper emotional payoff.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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