7th Garden

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I will brake this review up into two parts; volume 1-4 and volme 5-8 due to big differences.

Part 1: Volume 1-4:

The first part of 7th garden were a little lacking in both story and character design, it can be unclear what is going on sometimes and the art (which geniunely is amazing) is only 8/10 since it could be hard to follow the action scenes properly.

the story is not too well presented and does not give you too much of what actually happened before, why what is happening is happening. So in the first volumes it could feel a little off watching a person fight, ... like it were for nothing. The story here was 6/10, faily good.

The art is amazing, sometimes directly stunning, i love this series so much due to it's art, the only downfall is that the action scenes could be a little hard to follow with your eyes and mind. 8/10, very good!

In the first part (vol. 1-4) there isn't much of character design, no backstory nor future, basically only barging straight ahead, while we, the readers can be left behind with confusion. The charcters itself are a real hit, though. The main characters looks awesome, cool, sexy and arrogant, which I love, 7.5/10!

The overall enjoyment of this part (vol. 1-4) was 7/10 and I personally feel that's good enough becuase there is it's own charm in not knowing anything from characters and story, it's only when i look over it, that it looks worse than it is, 7/10 is a good amount of enjoyment for me!

So overall It's going down with 7/10 with part 1, what is needed next is: more backstory and a clearer goal, a little easier art in the battle scenes and some real character design!


Part 2: Volume 5-8:

The second part is really interesting, i can tell you that if you came through with the first 4 volumes i can guarantee you a series in top form and few misstakes, since, book 5-8 contains everything that we needed in order to get everything down and understand, take part of the story and live within the characters!

The story becomes clear after volume 5, where basically the whole volume is the backstory to our main protagonist: Awyn Gardener. We now understand a lot more of what is going on, why he's doing things as he is and who he actually is. Later on in volume 7 and 8 you will get to know the character Vyrde, our lovely demon. we get to know why ''they'' did it and her backstory as well as clearing up her goal and understand why she needs to fullfill it! The stroy overall goes from 6/10 to 9/10 with a rapid increasing story!

The art haven't changed much at all, still lovely as it is, but, they did fix the 1 error, it's not confusing between fight scenes anymore. This is enough to change my mind from 8/10 to 9/10, since it's no unique artsyle that won't change. The art is really good and giving proportions to everything that's going on, no picture is put less love in so eveyone is perfectly awesome!

The character design as i said; we get to know backstory to the characters which also is a big part of the understanding of the whole plot, story. The characters goes from ''I don't really care if you die'' to ''I will die with you!'' in your mind and it can become emotional. The character design is 10/10 of the second part as a whole, lovely created!

So, to ble honest i loved this part, book 5-8. I loved it so much I couldn't stop reading even after how much I tried to stop, the enjoyment was totally 10/10 and I will never forget this book series!

Overall, part 2 was amazing, completely amazing and i will give it a 9/10 with almoast nothing to complain about, just some small things here and there, lovely!


Overall story is 9/10 and is fulfilling everything a good story should fulfill!

The art IS perfect, only lacking a unique artsyle, that's it. 9/10

The character design is 9/10 since it could be partly presented better in the first part (vol. 1-4)

The enjoyment is also top rated, if it weren't for part one beeing a little off i would surely rate it 10/10. 9/10 on enjoyment!

The overall, total score is 9/10 since i'm perfectly fine with getting everything late, rather than never.


Read this series through, right now i'm waiting for book 9 (which is currently paused) and if i'm gonna give you a tip that would be; get past the fist part (vol. 1-4) and you will definitely love it, mabye as much as I do!



Note: The series changesfrom T+ (teen+ = 16 yr's old) to M (Mature = 18 yr's old), between volume 4 and 5.

Note: Wifu material

Note: I bought this on sale and I don't know if I would have continued otherwise, if I knew how good it was, i would have done it in the end anyway!

So I just finished the first volume of this series and since there are no reviews yet, I will give my first impression.

7th Garden is a fantasy shounen series and it's about as generic as it gets, though that's not necessarily a bad thing.
(I advice you to only view this as help if you are unsure wether you should give this manga a shot as I did only read the first volume)

First off, the story is your typical "you and your magical partner go off and beat X many bad guys to become the ultimate ruler" kinda thing, but with a nice twist because ... the bad guys are angels and your "magical companion" is the devil. So right off the bat we are dealing with way more interesting thematics of religion and how it's used to control the people of this world. Other than that, the story is nothing new and you can probably tell where it's going to go, so I don't have that much more to say about it. It's serviceable. Nothing more,nothing less.
Same deal with the charcters, our lead is a nice guy with a dark past he tries to hide and the supporting cast did not leave that big of an imperssion after the first volume, though that might change as I continue with the series.

The pacing is really quick in this first volume, which I found odd at first but came to appreciate a lot as I kept reading. As this is, at it's core, just a typical shounen manga, getting all the plotpoints we've heard a million times out of the way quickly is a good idea. This way we get the gritty backstories, the training with the new weapon and the first major fight in these first chapters and never get bored by drawn out, repetitiv exposition. That really works when you want to keep the old tropes that everyone loves but don't want to bore us with them.

Where this maga really shines, in my opinion, is with it's presentation. The artstyle is really rich and pretty. The small details on every panel keep your eyes glued to each page and really make this world feel alive. The characterdesgins (except for some "questionable" female fashion chioces, which I will get to in a second) are also really imaginative without feeling out of place. The shading and use of light makes for very effective visual storytelling at times. In the style department this series excels.
Occasionally I even noticed some really smooth panel layout, which guides your eyes through the page perfectly, though all in all the layout was nothing too special.

One thing that DID bother me stylistically was the fanservice.
Look, I don't have anything against fanservice at all if it's used to accentuate a certain thematic point or if it's just part of what the series wants to be, but in 7th Garden it just seems to have no reason to exist. It's not trying to give you top tier waifus en masse, like with Monster Musume for example, and it also doesn't use it as a means of storytelling, like with Highschool Of The Dead. It just kind of exists. If you were to take out the fanservice it would change absolutely nothing about the series which makes it an unnecessary in my opinion. Though ultimatley it doesn't "hurt" the series, so this is just a minor complaint.

In the end I enjoyed my time with 7th Garden. The quick pacing, interesting themes and beautiful artstyle make me want to dive into this series head first. Though the needless fanservice and the generic story make me wonder if this manga will sustain itself in the longrun.
I would recommend you check out the first volume for yourself and see if it's your thing.