The Tarot Café

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The Tarot Cafe, one really good manwha, and as I can see, not really popular one. Maybe it's not really revolutional or outstanding in any way, but - for me - it was worth reading, reareading, and in the end, buying it (and of course, reading it again :> ).
If you wonder what made me so excited, the first thing is the feel that you get while reading the manwha. Somehow, it consumes you in a world that is kind of realistic, but still magical and alluring, sometimes creepy and odd, sometimes beautiful and elating. The art even emphasizes the feeling, because ... as you may know (or not), the style of manwhas is really wonderful, full of details, faces are all gorgeous (except for the bad guys, obviously), it gives off kind of a gothic-like feeling.
Like the mangas that The Tarot Cafe is usually compared with (Pet Shop Of Horrors and xxxHolic), we get introduced to the way that the "cafe" works, how Pamela, the main female charachter - the owner of the Tarot Cafe and a fortuneteller - accepts "special" costumers after midnight and we get to know some of their stories.. This draws us into the reading quite nicely. The main story starts late, almost in the middle of the whole manga. It has a few flaws (mostly just beacuse of this late development, it doesn't evolve properly) but it is still special although it leans a lot on western myths/christianity. The thing I liked the most about the story is one of the strangest relationships I ever encountered on in fiction. Although the charachters aren't greatly developed or deep, you still can get attached to them, because of all the intense happening. There is also one big twist in the story, but it was a bit obvious for me.. The ending leaves us satisfied, but it's no cliché, nor corny.
Despite of all the small holes in the story and a bit too quick development, I enjoyed the manwha greatly for its great art, atmoshpere and the story unique enough to make me read it again (and maybe someday, again). Worth a read for every mystery/fantasy lover.
Just a notice: there's a quite a lot of shounen-ai : >
For the ending, for all the number-lovers, I give you numbers ;) ->
Story: 7, Art:9* Charachters: 8 Enjoyment:9 Overall:8
*I give the art a 9 just because the faces of some charachters sometimes seem just too similiar to each other

Tarot Cafe is a rather charming manhwa. The main selling point for me is the abundance of sympathetic characters. Pamela, the tarot reader, has a long and fascinating past. She genuinely cares for all of her clients, regardless of the challenges presented to her personally. The clients themselves are engaging and easy to become attached to as you learn their stories, and some of the tales are genuinely heartwarming. The settings are also gorgeous, everywhere from centuries old Turkey to modern London, mystical forests, and the very depths of hell.

The plot itself is a little lackluster. Although individual elements of the past are enthralling (enough ... so that I was willing to excuse plot issues), when it all gets pieced together something is lost. Also, for the first volume, or even two, the primary focus is not on the plot, but on individual clients that have no apparent relationship to each other. On one hand, it makes a nice little collection of one-shot deals to read at your leisure. On the other, it seems both fragmented and slightly frustrating when searching for a real story beneath it all.

Adding to the frustration is the art. Yes, it's lush and detailed, and both beautiful and grotesque scenes are rendered well. But the character faces fall into only three categories: most noticeably, generic sultry bishies. The only feature I could rely on to tell the male characters apart was their hair. Unfortunately, that's a major flaw in my book.

Still, don't let that scare you away from it. It's still very enjoyable overall. It has drama, mystery, comedy, and a bit of horror. Good characters, pretty (if impractical) art, plot twists galore, fun side stories, lots of demons, and a cute uke werewolf. A bonus - you learn some tarot as you read.

Just a mess.

The tarot cafe is a story about a girl who use tarot cards, owns a cafe and is immortal. She is trying to collect beads to complete her contract. There is also significant amount of fantasy elements and the manga is set in the modern-ish world.

if it feels like the description was really lazy that's because it was. And i've still put in more effort than the author did.

The manga is all over the place. The episodic stories, which last for 2 volumes before the main story starts, are boring as shit. Some of them were so bad i started laughing.

SPOILERS ... FOR 1 EPISODIC STORY AND ITS RIDICOLOUSNESS.

This guy is an alchemist. Can create anything the plot demands him too. He kidnaps this princess and tries to make her laugh. But she is one of those dominatrix woman that get off by killing you. Not knowing this the alchemist creates this ultimate jester who's sole goal is to make her laugh. She tortures him daily. He fixes the doll daily. The alchemist relaizes the women is fucked up as hell and falls in love with there doll and now they have started a weird relationship. The absurdity of it made me laugh for a little too long.

END OF SPOILERS FOR 1 EPISODIC STORY AND ITS RIDICOLOUSNESS.

The rest of the series is also a mess. You can't follow the characters, you can't follow the story. Everything is all over the place. There is also a bunch of weirdo shit in there for no discernible reason.

The characters have barely any development and the ones that do, develop for stupid reasons. The series which is already confusing as it is. Also pulls the fucking Non-linear narrative. Fuck anyone who pulls that shit.

I Honestly can't tell you more about the series since it was so bad. The ending was also very weird and random. The only decent part about the series was when they finally started revealing all the information . and the art. The art is nice to look at.

TLDR: I mean its awful guys. Read a better manga. Every character is overdramatic. Falls in love for no reason. Does stupid ass decisions. And fails at being melodramatic. 2/10

Pamela... Far as I can remember must be the only character from the manga/anime medium to look authentically trad-goth. None other could pull it off right. (The japanese author Mihara Mitsukazu published a couple works that attempted to. Without success.). Goth-ness is often misunderstood, so is Gothicism. But I'll give it that one sole pat on the back for getting one thing right nobody else could. Oh, and the art is lovely. Though I shouldn't have to say this, as anyone already into this visual style will be inclined to agree.

So far from what I could tell this does the typical mushy, mish-mash of story ... telling you always run into within asian works. It blends together a variety of themes from low fantasy, the victorian -era setting, gothic + goth, dark romanticism and religious symbolism together to tell some kind of deep tale (It pretends to be.) And that's what bugs me so much...

This overshot so hard with it's formula that you shouldn't begin to utter the question "Why isn't it more popular?" Like with any smaller niche, I am noticing a trend of what I like to call "amateurish enthusiasm". People so deep into their own world, they are eager on writing this extremely ambitious story to feel good about having achieved something. WITHOUT, the nuance and compelling ties to the real world, which are needed in order for a wider audience to grasp it.

You just can't throw people into a world with highly specific, highly subjectively tailored lore and expect it to click. It's why I really found a ton of RPGs pretentious, even if they're probably not when you disassemble them to their core ideas and values.

Bleh... All The Tarot Cafe needed was an eye to eye episodic format. Simple and straight forward. We as the readers don't need to know every meticulous detail of each person's tragic life to follow the story nor message. So had it opted for a more abstract and minimal approach with an angle on pseudo-occultic form of divination I would've been very pleased.

Now that I am not, and low on reading material. I guess I will go on another existential tirade.

https://www.graphitecomics.com/title/TOKYOPOP/The-Tarot-Cafe < You can get a feel for it here, the first volume is available for free.

As you know from the other manga I reviewed, I love anything really supernatural, this is no exception. The manga has the same feel as xxxHOLiC and Pet Shop of Horror with a main storyline mixed into the small storylines that show up. We have a girl who has a café where people can come and get their Tarot read and clear up any lose ends that they may have in this world. She mostly helps the Supernatural because she herself is supernatural in that she has lived for over 700 years. It’s amazing to me how the stories seem to play out sometimes through ... the ages as some of the beings she caters to never die and their past is laid out on the table. With their past, the future sometimes is also shown and when it isn’t, then it is better to let them take their own future in their hands. You can compare that in xxxHOLiC and Pet Shop as the wish or want of pet being to understand themselves better and the wish being granted or the aftermath of the pet is them doing something to achieve a happier ending.

Unlike the others, this manga is rather shorter in that we get to the main problem early on, about the end of the second manga. At least, it sort of comes into play. It does get much clearer as the story goes on but you only get it in pieces going through the other stories. I love this style of story telling because you get a satisfaction early on while still having to think about what is going on. Many of the stories they show have a bit of a gay relationship in where a male will fall in love with another male so those that have problems with that probably shouldn’t read it. Still, if you changed the characters around and thought of them as female, the relationship isn’t all that different. They do not normally show any sexual images (except for the last manga) but there are some scenes of torture and bondage, sometimes going into the extreme at times.

Character personalities show a lot more through the third manga (just a bit of a warning). You do get a little interaction between some of the characters but the more your going to understand about Pamela happens later on leaving you sort of with a mysterious glow about her. I consider her much like Yuko that way and yet again, we do get much more from Pamela then with Yuko. Aaron is a little bit annoying. He is a character that comes in the second manga and starts working there, acting like a little child at times. He is sometimes cute in that he is like a big puppy dog but other then that, sometimes he seems to pop up at the wrong times and have a really strange look to him to add a bit of comedy to the story.

The artwork is beautiful with characters having delicate mysterious looking designs based on what supernatural creature they are to portray. The almond style eyes take on almost a life of there own for each character, sometimes rather large and other times rather small and delicate to work with the faces. Sadly, many of the men look like women and actually make it hard to tell the two genders apart so when I think someone is a girl, it ends up being a very beautiful man. There is an air of sophistication in every image but the backgrounds seem to be lacking. Many times we have no background or a black background that sort of just feels a bit bland. Sadly a lot of the writing is really small when it talks about what the cards means so it’s hard to read and I have to grab a magnifying glass at times just to understand what the main idea of the card is. If I was any better at remembering Tarot Cards, it would be a little easier maybe.

I know many readers will think there's nothing special about this great little manwha but I found it to be exactly what I needed. If you like supernatural stories with good character development then this is one you might want to add to your library.

Pamela, the main character, has an interesting backstory herself -- but as a tarot reader, she's also a vehicle for exposing the backstories of her clients. The tarot reading angle is a great mechanism for introducing characters and revealing their motivations, etc.

The locations are also beautifully drawn. There's the depths of hell where the story eventually leads, but there are also ... great locations like London and Turkey. If you're worried that it's too "horror" or too scary, it's not. It's a relatively light read.

My criticisms, are that the character artwork is a little too similar. It's hard to tell some characters apart. Some more identifying characteristics would have helped. The storyline itself is pretty simple, which I don't mind.

Most of all, if you're a fan of tarot cards, this is a great read. The way it weaves in a greater supernatural story with the concept of tarot readings is excellent.

Looking for OG Goth vibes content? You got it here!

The Tarot Café was the first manwha I ever read, many years ago, when I thought it was just some horror manga, and I was wrong. The characters are interesting, and their designs are amazing. The history develops at a good pace, and the mysterious atmosphere, both given by the café and the characters, is intriguing. You're constantly wondering how things will develop and what type of characters Angela will have to deal with.

At first, you might think that the episodic chapters are all what the story is about, but slowly you fall into the ... mysteries of the protagonist and her friends. Even though it has a horror and mysterious history, the mix of romance does not disappoint. Some relationships may be a little weird and seem out of nowhere, but considering the peace of history, that is completely ok.

Now, some problems that I had while reading it:
The artist clearly has a "type" when drawing. Don't get me wrong, the character designs are really cool, and they deliver that goth style, but sometimes, it is way too much. Some designs are extremely exaggerated with extreme details for no reason. This is probably up for debate and depends on your opinion, but I'm sure you're going to notice it. 
Also, when analyzing the many characters and side characters, you can see that the artist can make different body types and faces but chooses to always make the same faces. Unfortunately, the characters will always have this same face, so get used to it. 

In the end, that an 8 only cause of that, but the rest is amazing. It is a must-read if you like horror and mysterious histories with a bit of romance.