Black Bird

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So to start of, I have seen some pretty bad reviews for this manga and that's fair enough, everyone had there own opinions and not everyone like the same thing. That said, I did love this manga so very much so this review may not be very helpful but I'd just like to write what I thought about it.

I personally loved this manga. It may be because I love the whole fantasy genre but I think the mangaka created something really amazing with Black Bird.
I loved the characters, I loved Kyou and Misao. I loved Taro and I loved everyone, seriously even sho. The characters ... were funny and serious and there was really a good mix (in my opinion) which I loved because it's always great to have a mixture of different character types.
I liked the art, it was different to the other types I'd seen and held a lot of detail which made my breath catch a few times. Really I love most manga art because it's just so amazing how it looks and really as a person who does a lot of art in her spare time, it is one of most favourite types of art to do.
I found the story also very interesting, it wasn't something I'd seen before and it really got me hooked. I stayed up for hours reading this manga the past few days, I just couldn't put them down. I've always liked stories with demons and humans and I love stories with a lot of love and romance and hardships and drama, the good stuff. I found that this manga had all of that for me.
It made me cry so much as well, I cried with happiness, I cried with sadness, I laughed and got so emotional that I can't put it into words, I just so happen to get very emotional attached to fictional things, so this isn't a new feeling for me but honestly I love reading something that makes me feel so emotional and this was one of those things.
SPOILERS
The ending was literally perfect for me, I cried so much because they never actually said whether she lived or died and for those few pages it was so tempting to skip to the end but I didn't and when sou runs up to them both gosh, I cried like a bitch because she was alive and it just showed that there love had kept them both alive and that miracles do happen and omg I was terrified reading the end but I loved it I really did.

Honestly I think a lot of people will disagree with me but I don't think that because Misao is always being attacked and because she cries a lot that she is weak. Really if I were in her situation yes, I may try and defend myself a little more, but I will still cry as much as she has, I love Misao and her character and all these things make her character. I can see however, that these things could be seen as annoying and pathetic and a little stupid but I don't think that.
I guess that could be a criticism even if I don't actually think it to be true, there are a lot of things that could be said as criticism, I know that but honestly I don't have any myself.

Most of you probably won't find this review helpful, I don't write them for that though. I write these reviews because honestly, whether you agree with what I'm saying or not, I like to share my opinions on these things, manga and anime, with others who love manga and anime like I do.

SO yeah, I loved this manga and I'll probably read it again sometime because it really was a great one. It's one of those that leave a permanent emotional imprint, the ones you never forget and now I sound really cheesy but omg I really loved it.
:)

Hmm what to say about Black Bird. Words fail me, but here I am. Black Bird is the type of story that normally I would enjoy (genre-wise), but somehow it just didn't work out with BB. It takes all the bad parts about shoujo stories and combines them into one. Somehow, I still wanted to finish it though, so I guess that says *something* about the manga, though I'm not sure what exactly that something is.

Story (4): the story itself was kind of 'meh'. It's not the worst I've ever read, but there really wasn't a point. It was very predictable. After reading ... about half the story, I already knew what was going to happen.

Art (6): I thought the art was actually pretty nice. It's not amazing or particularly noteworthy, but it's clean and easy to understand. I didn't like how big Misao's eyes were, though. They took up half her face sometimes. I also didn't really like most of her outfits. The art is fine, but it isn't good enough to cover up for the poor story.

Character (3): the characters were the weakest part of this story. Misao has NO agency. I don't think she ever decides to do anything on her own. I don't want to give away what happens, so pardon me for being vague, but the only time she ever really "decides" to do something for herself, it's not really even a decision, it's just accepting the inevitable. For most of the manga, all I could think about was how much easier everyone's lives would be if Misao just died. It's not that I wanted her to die...but I kind of did. It disturbed me how infantalized she was. She cried on every other page. who cries that often? It was excessive even by shoujo standards. I also could never understand why Misao and Kyou even loved each other. Misao didn't really have much of a personality, and Kyou spent most of his time maintaining a poker face. It was also annoying that all of the "Great 8" were male. In one of the omake about the mangaka's life, she mentioned that one of her editors suggested that one of the Great 8 be a female, but it was rejected. Why? I really don't understand. The only girls in this manga are Misao, Misao's mom, Misao's 2 friends, Kyou's cousin, Kyou's mom, and Shou's female sidekick (who just kind of disappears after she is no longer relevant to the plot), and the fox head's girlfriend (also disappears without explanation). There's also 1 girl in a side story (Zenki's sister), but she isn't a part of the main BB plot since she has her own story. There were many characters who were introduced, never developed, and then forgotten. They weren't even "put on a bus"; they just disappeared.

In my opinion, the characters are the most important part of a story. If you don't care about the characters, why should you care about what happens to them? I did not care about the characters of BB, so the story wasn't very compelling.

Enjoyment (5): I think that if you like Twilight, you will probably like this kind of story. It has a lot of similarities. Misao is JUST LIKE BELLA, in a very bad way. I read to the end because I wanted to see what would happen. It's like eating a box of chocolates, hoping that at least one of them will be good, and then feeling sick at the end because you ate allll that sugar, and none of them were good. I hoped that Misao would finally do something other than be rescued and hate herself, but it never happened.

Honestly, I do not recommend this manga. I wanted it to be good, and I wanted to like it, but it was lacking in many ways. The notes left by the mangaka throughout each volume are heartwarming and it really seems like she tried hard, but in the end it was very disappointing.

I wanted to like this manga, I really did. I had high expectations and because of it I had a hard time putting it down. Kyo had some very sweet moments but his abusive, controlling and down right creepy behavior completely ruined this manga for me.