Aug 11, 2015
I love Greek myths. The ways the Greek of old thought the world worked was fascinating to me. I was first introduced to them in the second grade, when my teacher would read us myths after lunch.
I lost touch with Greek myths until I read the Percy Jackson series about three years ago. I loved this series and how it told of the gods' modern whereabouts and how they impacted modern day society.
I also happen to love shoujo. It's probably one of my favorite genres (though it's technically a demographic). If I find a shoujo I mildly enjoy, I'll probably read the
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whole manga in a day. I usually never binge read, but with shoujo I tend to forget about the world around me as I read it. I won't do anything until I finish it.
With my love of these two concepts, Aries seemed right up my alley. I love the idea of Persephone actually enjoying her time with Hades, rather than hating it like in the original myth. I like the idea of love passed through generations as well. Aries seemed like a perfect fit for me when I read the summary. But Aries did so many things wrong that I couldn't enjoy the series as much as I hoped. I couldn't stomach any more of this boring trek, so I did the unthinkable and dropped a shoujo manga out of hate. The only other times I can think of when I stopped reading a shoujo manga was to buy the physical volumes so I could support the creator. This series is my first for numerous reasons.
Arisa is your stereotypical Yuu Watase-style shoujo lead. She's loud, obnoxious, and self-centered. She's also blonde, like most shoujo protagonists, but that's a small nitpick on my part.
Arisa is plain stupid. I can handle stupidity of a manga to an extent, but when she has no other redeeming or relateable qualities, I can't. I really wish the mangaka had made Arisa a better protagonist, but I don't think it would've supported the rest of the manga anyways.
Arisa's love interest is Ayano, or Hades. One annoying thing about this manga is that Hades knows that he was reincarnated, but Arisa, or Persephone, doesn't. This is extremely annoying. She doesn't know until what seems like an eternity, and by then, you've probably dropped the series due to the plot being bland and repetitive.
One way Aries could've kept my interest was if Ayano was attractive. I probably could've longer waited until I dropped this, but Ayano isn't worth it at all. I like to think that I'm attracted to a wide amount of men, ranging from a guy that would rather read a book than be with people, to someone that every girl would surround if they entered a middle school. Ayano is bland looking. His facial features are boring and his hair is horrible. It feels like the author was trying to make him look like a sexy, emo, bad boy. Instead, he looks like he needs to lay off the hair spray and get that bird's nest out of his hair.
Some people will use the excuse that the manga was made in the 80's to justify why the Ayano's design is horrible. That's not a valid excuse at all. For as long as man has existed, there was good art. If the artwork's bad because the manga was written in the 80's, then you could say Da Vinci's art isn't good because it was made centuries ago.
Ayano's personality doesn't redeem his looks at all. He's extremely boring and is your typical "I'm an asshole because I secretly love you".
The other characters aren't worth talking about specifically. The villains are your typical "people that you hate, but the mangaka doesn't bother to give them any traits other than being a huge douche".
Aries has extremely slow pacing. It felt like I've read 80 chapters when I've only read 18. The manga is episodic, which would be fine. However, if you want to create a good episodic work, the characters have to support it. As you can tell from above, these characters don't. There's only one arc from this manga that I remember in a good way. The arc focused on Narcissus and it actually had a plot twist. The twist isn't the most surprising, but it was a nice, yet creepy way to modernize Narcissus.
All in all, Aries isn't worth your time. The characters are bland, the art is bad, and the story drags on forever. If you want to read a good shoujo manga, I suggest skipping this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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