Pandora Hearts

To young Oz Vessalius, heir to the Vessalius Duke House, the perilous world called the Abyss is nothing more than a folktale used to scare misbehaving children. However, when Oz's coming-of-age ceremony is interrupted by the malicious Baskerville Clan intent on banishing him into the depths of the Abyss, the Vessalius heir realizes that his peaceful life of luxury is at its end. Now, he must confront the world of the Abyss and its dwellers, the monstrous "Chains," which are both not quite as fake as he once believed.

Based on the supernatural fantasy manga of the same name, Pandora Hearts tells the story of fifteen-year-old Oz's journey to discover the meaning behind the strange events that have overtaken his life. Assisted by a mysterious Chain named Alice, whose nickname is "Bloodstained Black Rabbit," and members of a clandestine organization known as "Pandora," Oz begins to realize his existence may have more meaning than he could have ever imagined.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Adaptation:	Pandora Hearts
Side story:	Pandora Hearts Omake

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Characters & Voice Actors

Break, Xerxes

Main

Ishida, Akira
Japanese

Nightray, Gilbert

Main

Toriumi, Kousuke
Japanese

Alice

Main

Kawasumi, Ayako
Japanese

Vessalius, Oz

Main

Minagawa, Junko
Japanese

Rainsworth, Sharon

Main

Hanazawa, Kana
Japanese

Nightray, Elliot

Supporting

Nojima, Hirofumi
Japanese

Vessalius, Jack

Supporting

Ono, Daisuke
Japanese

Nightray, Vincent

Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun
Japanese

Will of the Abyss

Supporting

Kawasumi, Ayako
Japanese

Echo

Supporting

Hirohashi, Ryou
Japanese

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Staff

Nozaki, Keiichi

Producer

Chino, Takatoshi

Producer

Iwasaki, Atsushi

Producer

Okada, Akihiko

Assistant Producer

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Opening Theme

"Parallel Hearts" by FictionJunction (Wakana Ootaki, Keiko Kubota, Kaori Oda, Yuriko Kaida)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Maze" by savage genius feat. Tomoe Ohmi (eps 1-13)
	2: "Watashi wo Mitsukete. (私を見つけて。)" by savage genius (eps 14-25)

Reviews

Feb 7, 2010

Charry

Recommended

When you lose everything and end up with nothing, how do you pick yourself up and move on? Do you lash out in anger and bitterness, hiding your wounds? Do you allow the emptiness inside you to shut out any emotional reaction, numbly accepting your fate? Do you desperately search everywhere for what remains of you, hoping to piece yourself back together? Or do you fear losing again so much that you spend all your time protecting what you already have, nearly crushing it in your tight grasp?

With each of these suggestions, I refer to a particular character in the story whose struggle with loss ...

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Jul 2, 2010

Aeterna

Mixed Feelings

Pandora Hearts is a prime example of wasted potential. It starts out with an interesting premise that grabs you at the start, but after a few episodes, it’s nothing but downhill from there until it finally crashes and burns at the end of its 25-episode run.

Why do I say this?

There are many interesting plot threads and ideas that are introduced at various points in the story, but they are almost never followed through with or they’re executed in a way that, frankly, makes them boring. For example, when we learn about the four dukedoms of Pandora, I get the sense that there’s a lot of ... history and political machinations going on in the background but it hardly ever gets explored, instead focusing on the development of our main heroes, Oz and Alice (which doesn’t sound that bad, but more on that later). Then, we are introduced to the main antagonists, the Baskervilles, who seem really cool and threatening at first, but when we meet them, are like Team Rocket without the silly speeches. In other words, they’re there just to have antagonists in the show and don't do a whole lot to further the story.

The cherry on top was the notably craptastic anime-only ending. I have never even read the manga and I could tell the ending was shoddily put together at the last minute, just to have some sort of conclusion, but honestly, I’d rather have an open ending over what they did here. For fear of being too spoilery, I will just say that the writers thought to throw in a bunch of generic Chains to provide some sort of “ultimate challenge” for the protagonists, but as a result, it comes off as completely random and badly-written.

So let’s move on to the protagonists beginning with Oz. Oz is a lovely young fellow – cheerful, caring, loyal, and brave. However, he’s apathetic, taking everything in stride even when he’s faced with some terrible Chains in the Abyss. It’s completely unrealistic and makes it hard for anyone to connect with him. How can you care about a character who, well, doesn’t care? To his credit, he does get some character development but it either never follows through (e.g. his father issues) or it takes the form of someone lecturing him (this is probably more the fault of the writers than an actual character flaw, though).

Then, there’s Alice, Pandora Heart’s main tsundere. She doesn’t end up being nearly as interesting as she first presents herself to be, although her little quirks make her more endearing than Oz, such as her insistence that Oz is her manservant and her fondness for meat (LOL since when does a rabbit like meat so much?). Still, I’m afraid to say she doesn’t have much depth to her, the most being her desire to regain all the fragments of her memory. The rest of the time, she’s relegated to being a source of humour and/or romantic tension with Oz or, in her B-Rabbit form, being the series own deus ex machina.

There are some notable characters – namely Gil, Break, and Vincent – who receive some notable time and developing on top of interesting histories and colourful personalities, but they’re supporting characters who must eventually step back to let the main plot take center stage.

As for the animation, overall, it’s poor. There are some nice designs floating around, but when it comes down to making everything move, it’s lacking, especially for such a recent and (relatively) short series. I’ve seen longer and older series with equal or better animation, to be honest. I swear, I have never seen so much floating hair and clothes in anime in my life – it was like a gust of wind went by and the animators simply took a single frame from that and kept it for the entire sequence while keeping the mouths moving. Even in the opening sequence (which are nearly always of high quality), there’s a shot of Oz running that looks odd and clunky.

Most reviews will also point out the lovely music, but then it’s by Kajiura Yuki, so that’s a given. If you’ve heard Kajiura’s music before, you’ll recognize her style almost immediately, so whether that’s a positive or a negative is up to you. For me, it’s generally a positive since she pulls through with another solid soundtrack, but personally, I’d like to see her try something different from what she usually composes. For Pandora Heart’s purposes, though, it’s good listening material here, although certain tracks tend to get overplayed. Voice acting was pretty solid, so no complaints here.

So overall, Pandora Hearts began as a very promising series with a lot of great ideas that could have continued being great until the end if executed properly. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen and the series falls flat on its face by the halfway point. I would say either read the manga (which I’m told is better?) or find another fantasy series.

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Apr 4, 2010

FredDuck

Not Recommended

(This is my first review ever.)

Oh, dear. I'm shocked at the overall positive vibe people have for this show. Was I watching something else by mistake?

The story itself is serviceable, perhaps even interesting, but it's buried under a glacial pace. They managed to cover about 12 episodes' worth of material in 25 episodes, which seems like the director was suddenly told just before they went on air that he had twice as much time as he thought he did. I just read that the manga is still going while the anime has finished. Oh wait, no. It didn't finish. It ended. Finishing sounds like they ... gave you some kind of resolution. I challenge you to find someone who can honestly say they liked slapdash episode 25.

There are only 2 characters they try to explore, one of which is Oz, but in Pandora Hearts' 25 episodes you learn far less about him than say, the entire cast of Cowboy Bebop in the same amount of time. Everyone else is generally one-dimensional, though the second explored character turns out to be surprisingly well-rounded.

The good news is that Oz does develop slightly. That's all the good news I have.

For most of the show's 9-hour run, the characters are rather crudely drawn and spend the majority of their time sitting or standing still. It's been a long time since I've seen an animated show with so little animation. Every episode is stuffed with padding...slowly sliding pictures of scenery or whatnot with recaps thrown in to desperately take up screen time.

Not sure what's up with MyAnimeList. When I write the review, it wants me to rate the "Art," but when I submit, it says "Animation." Those are different things, man! Art is 3, Animation is 2.

Episode 8 was a turning point in the series because there was finally decent art, interesting camera angles, and 9 (amazingly enough) has some animation in it...a brief fight scene! On the down side, some of the frequent flashbacks begin to flash back to earlier in the SAME episode! There was even a scene where all the characters are talking while facing away from the camera so they didn't have to animate anything at all! In the entire show, there are only about 3-4 episodes that are really animated.

There were some things I liked about the show. The music box theme is pleasant and sticks in your head, though by the end of the show they're opening the watch just to play the tune. The main theme is reimagined several times in interesting ways. The voice acting is well-done.

Beyond that, the character designs are nice, although everyone's clothes billow out and hover (due to lack of animation). The first plot twist was completely unexpected and handled nicely. I also found one character's bloodthirsty fixation on eating animals charming.

But those are just shiny bits glimmering from a sea of slow and muck.

(4) Bad.
Actually, you know what? I'm going to drop it to (1) Unwatchable. It's cruel to pretend that you're going to go somewhere, then don't.

I kept watching, hoping it would get better. The second half of the show is a decent start to a show, with mysteries and interesting characters introduced, but then poof, the show ends and you're left wondering why they (and you) even bothered.

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