Ranked #1964

Othello (Manga)

I thought that this manga had all of the right things to make it one of the greats. The drama of this high school girl, Yaya, who has another personality inside her, named Nana. The story was very well put together, and portrayed the life of a teenage girl who does not know who she is, and struggles through it.

This manga I recommend for people to read. It's very entertaining and heart wrenching. The art isn't the greatest, but once you get past that, you will fall in love with it.

We've all been there, we have all had those situations were we just stared into the mirror and wished we were someone else. Othello follows Yaya; a girl who wishes for nothing more to be brave, and in doing so creates another personality to combat the problems she is to afraid confront.

I wasn't so sure about this manga at first. It was really angsty and the melodrama felt over the top. The bullying seemed unbelievable and I didn't like the way that it was always Nana saving the day. However, as the story manages to progress it started to turn for the better. The underlying bullying theme kept its ugly head present for the whole thing, which disappointed me, but the story started to shift to Yaya trying to deal with her split personality. At first it was trying to understand what was going on, then it was trying to cope with this disorder. There was just such a subtly undertone in the growth of Yaya as a character, and it really caught my attention. The way she progressed and grew as a character was really something else, and to be honest some of the scenes left me goosebumps.

That being said, the manga was still plagued with some very poor writting. The dialogue felt contrived and the story never felt urgent, it doesn't help that the ending is really lacking. It's a shame too, because this manga could have been so much better. The way the mangka handles Yaya as a character was brilliant, no question in that, but it felt like she didn't know what to do with the rest of the story. It felt like a lot of pointless filler was thrown in there, and like she didn't know how to handle it. I'm not saying Othello is bad, on the contrary, it's really good, but it just could have been so much more, it could have stood at such a higher ground.

The art-work in Othello was truly astounding. Very attentive details in the background, really well drawn characters, and I must say I enjoyed the author's fashion style that she choose for the main characters. What really mad everything stand out were the mannerisms in the characters face, a weight of realism was attached to each movement, each smile, each frown, it felt like that these were real people, not drawn images.

Othello may be easy to pass up. It offers an enjoyable story, but does suffer from some spotty writing. It may not the the masterpiece it could have been, but at the end of the day Othello is still an enjoyable read nonetheless. read more