Saturday, December 8, 2012

The Ugly...

Pandora Hearts, #1
Title: Pandora Hearts #1
Series: Pandora Hearts
Author: Jun Mochizuki

From GoodReads:
The air of celebration surrounding fifteen-year-old Oz Vessaliuss coming-of-age ceremony quickly turns to horror when he is condemned for a sin about which he know nothing. Thrown into the Abyss - an eternal prison from which here is no escape - Oz meets a young girl named Alice who is not what she seems. Now that the relentless cogs of fate have begun to turn, will they lead only to crushing despair for Oz, or will Alice provide him with some shred of hope?

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Okay, I'm going to start off by reiterating that I've never read manga before. I took on the "challenge" of reading it because my daughter loves manga and wanted to share this love with me. However, after reading this one volume, a manga lover I am not. :)


I will say that the art is amazing! I can appreciate the talent evident in the creation of this - I'm not even sure what to call it...novel?? Anyway, kudos to the author for the brilliant artwork. The plot was also intriguing. There is much going on in this first volume...lots of action, conspiring among characters, threats of death, fate...all very exciting. I actually like what I could glean about the characters from the dialog and the frames. My daughter was impressed with my questions about whether this character was responsible for this action and were those characters plotting against this character...I did get into the plot even if I sometimes got lost in the pictures.


My problem with manga is this...I LOVE words. I love having words paint pictures in my head when I'm reading. While reading Pandora Hearts, I tended to get lost looking at actual pictures while trying to read the dialog. Also, since reading "backwards" is new to me, it also took away from my enjoyment. 


So while I have a new appreciation for manga as art and I can respect my daughter's love of it, manga is not for me. I am glad I stepped out of my box and tried something new though. :) 


Please note that although my 3 worm rating typically means I took about a week to read something, I finished Pandora Hearts in a day...it just wasn't my thing. 


1 comment:

  1. Well, thank you for trying anyway. <3

    By the way, this is a comment. I'll tell you what I have to do later...

    ReplyDelete

Now you know what I think...what are your thoughts??