Ranked #2659

sola (Manga)

(This is my first review)

(I only was able to read the first volume as Broccoli Books went out of business)

I am a big fan of the Sola anime and once I learned it was based off a manga, I bought the manga in a heart beat. Now is the manga as good as the anime?

-STORY-

I would have to say that it was only average. The story itself is great, the idea is brilliant and it made a fantastic anime but the storytelling was mediocre. The whole manga is only two volumes, which is too short for all the content the story can provide. The story is told in a very fast paced action and it skips a lot of details. There are a lot of "filler" scenes as well as characters do random pointless actions that really don't have a spot in the manga. It also has a lot of plot holes throughout the story as new questions are created in the story but barely any of which seem to be answered before creating more questions. That issue is further complicated with how fast events occur, there isn't enough time to really digest what is going on and it makes the whole story filled with potential relatively confusing.

-ART-

One of the first things you will notice about the manga is the characters look very unique and likeable. The female characters are designed cutely. One of my favourite bits of the artwork is the character expressions. Their facial expressions match the characters' emotions absolutely perfectly. The artwork is relatively simple though, there isn't much depth in any of the art, there can be some good frames but there are also frames where there isn't a background or really any detail at all. That's one of the biggest problems of the manga, the art needs more sophistication.

-CHARACTER-

As mentioned before the characters are very unique and likeable. The girls are cute if you need that in your manga. The characters are quite realistic actually having motives for their actions. There is huge depth in the characters especially that they all have back stories that link them together. The characters' pasts are also very mysterious which keeps the reader wondering for the truth.

-ENJOYMENT-

The story was very fast paced and it was very much hard to understand without either re-reading or reading very slowly. I never found any scene in this particularly funny even thought he manga tried at a few points to be funny. The mood of this book would of also been better if it was a bit more consistent since the manga has a lot of points where it is serious followed by points where it is not serious.

-CONCLUSION-

If your a Sola fan, you might consider it because the events are different. If you are looking for an interesting plot but don't mind spending extra time to try to digest what is going on, consider looking at this, but I highly recommend watching the anime instead. read more