Ranked #7220

Ever 17 (Manga)

I have not seen any reviews for this so I thought I would write one. For the uninitiated out there, Ever 17 was a visual novel for the PC made by KiD in 2002. It is by far the best visual novel I have ever played, and has not only one of the greatest stories in visual novels, but (what I believe to be) one of the greatest in media itself.

It is sadly underappreciated, so when I heard a manga was being made for it, on the one hand I was glad, because it would be getting more mainstream exposure. On the other, I was very skeptical of it, and I will now explain why.

Story: Simply put, the story of Ever 17 cannot be told in manga form. For me to explain why it can't work, would involve spoilers of the original visual novel. Let me put it to you this way, the way in which the plot is constructed in the VN means it cannot work in any other format. Especially with the way the manga presents things. The start of the story can be done I suppose, but as with many VN's there are multiple routes. Some anime such as Shuffle and Clannad(kinda) were able to pull this off. What I will say is that they will definitely not be able to do the True Ending. Currently the manga seems to be following Tsugumi's route.

I can think of at least three of the plot twists, that would make no sense whatsoever in manga form. And these are vital plot points that can't be written around. You probably think I'm crazy, but trust me anyone who has played the VN will say the same thing.

Which means the writer(s) for this manga are going to have to take some major liberties for this story to work. Speaking on what they have done so far, they have followed faithfully to the VN's story, although they have added a couple of plot points, originally not present, which gives me faith they have this planned out.

Artwork: The artwork is very good! The characters and backgrounds are well drawn. Compared to their VN incarnations, the characters are drawn a little more "rounded" but apart from that they keep faithful to their original designs.

Characters: The manga is not really that far into the characters' personalities yet, but I can tell you from playing the VN that all of the characters are excellent, every single one is vital to the storyline and if you removed one the story falls apart, all of them are well developed.

Overall: I really hope this manga succeeds and comes up with some other ending to the story, because the way they have done things, there is no way it can follow the VN's ending. So I highly suggest you play that, instead of reading this manga. read more