Ranked #946

A*D (Manga)

Well, I think I'd say I really liked AD. It's definitely the typical Aki work: Beautiful art, nice plotline, but gradually decreasing quality of work as the chapters go on.

Cons:
For some reason, whenever Aki's manga becomes popular, she either ends it or the quality of her manga goes down. This manga started off great, but after chapter three, you can see that some areas like the background become less and less detailed until much the page is just blank except for a few characters standing there and some flowers. It actually became much worse in chapter 7; even the lines weren't smooth in a few areas [but, during the the time Aki was drawing that chapter, she said there was something wrong with her hand and she couldn't draw as well and she was working on Aruosumente at the same time so you can't really blame her]. In addition, her art just wasn't as dynamic and flamboyant like her other works. And also, her characters' expressions weren't drawn all that well [compared to Aruosumente and Olimpos, whose characters' expressions were very well expressed] There weren't much advancement in the plot around chapter 7 either, since it was pretty much just conversations between Riku and Eiri. That didn't make me really happy since I really wanted to know what's going to happen next. However, I still gave the art an 8 and story a 9 since there are much, much worse manga out there. But, I didn't give the character a full score because the character's personalities aren't exactly that original. I didn't give that low of a score though, because Aki managed to develop her characters' personality more originally later on. Plus, the gaudy "Bird of Paradise" idea was pretty original XD

Pros:
Despite the lack of details, the art is still much better than other manga out there. One example was that her characters were actually proportional most of the time. In addition, when there is a background, it is usually pretty detailed. And yes, all the flowers make everything look so pretty [Aki draws flowers better than most other artists too lol]~ The composition of the art on the pages were pretty nice, though not as well as Hanamatsuri. There were many really pretty and detailed scenes too. And AD plot-wise was pretty good. Aki managed to develop some common archetypes into something original. Plus, the characters have pretty realistic personalities now, after she developed them. And despite the un-advancing chapter 7, the story is getting more and more exciting :3 I can't wait to be able to read chapter 8 now~

Overall, I did find this enjoyable, even though it wasn't as good as other Aki manga. But it's mostly because I was comparing it with Aruosumente, since it's running at the same time as AD. I have to say, I think Aki is putting more effort into Aruosumente rather than AD D: Which makes me sad since AD is just as promising as Aruosumente... Which is kind of why I gave the overall an 8. But if Aki improves AD, I'll definitely change my rating. So despite all the cons, AD was definitely a very enjoyable manga to read! [much better than other manga out there] I recommend it :D read more