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The Tarot Cafe, one really good manwha, and as I can see, not really popular one. Maybe it's not really revolutional or outstanding in any way, but - for me - it was worth reading, reareading, and in the end, buying it (and of course, reading it again :> ).
If you wonder what made me so excited, the first thing is the feel that you get while reading the manwha. Somehow, it consumes you in a world that is kind of realistic, but still magical and alluring, sometimes creepy and odd, sometimes beautiful and elating. The art even emphasizes the feeling, because ... as you may know (or not), the style of manwhas is really wonderful, full of details, faces are all gorgeous (except for the bad guys, obviously), it gives off kind of a gothic-like feeling.
Like the mangas that The Tarot Cafe is usually compared with (Pet Shop Of Horrors and xxxHolic), we get introduced to the way that the "cafe" works, how Pamela, the main female charachter - the owner of the Tarot Cafe and a fortuneteller - accepts "special" costumers after midnight and we get to know some of their stories.. This draws us into the reading quite nicely. The main story starts late, almost in the middle of the whole manga. It has a few flaws (mostly just beacuse of this late development, it doesn't evolve properly) but it is still special although it leans a lot on western myths/christianity. The thing I liked the most about the story is one of the strangest relationships I ever encountered on in fiction. Although the charachters aren't greatly developed or deep, you still can get attached to them, because of all the intense happening. There is also one big twist in the story, but it was a bit obvious for me.. The ending leaves us satisfied, but it's no cliché, nor corny.
Despite of all the small holes in the story and a bit too quick development, I enjoyed the manwha greatly for its great art, atmoshpere and the story unique enough to make me read it again (and maybe someday, again). Worth a read for every mystery/fantasy lover.
Just a notice: there's a quite a lot of shounen-ai : >
For the ending, for all the number-lovers, I give you numbers ;) ->
Story: 7, Art:9* Charachters: 8 Enjoyment:9 Overall:8
*I give the art a 9 just because the faces of some charachters sometimes seem just too similiar to each other