I never expected to like Pandora Hearts. I hate the Victorian era, get easily bored by mysteries, and am typically annoyed by fluffy cuteness. I much prefer violence, blood, and deep, dark storylines. And yet, I love Pandora Hearts to pieces!! I think I experience it from a different angle than many other PH fans, so I want to offer my perspective.

I love all the characters here. Really, I've never loved so many characters so much before. They all have very colorful personalities, representing most of the standard animanga archetypes but elaborating on each in unique ways. I connect with all of them very strongly. There's lots of great chemistry between the characters, ranging from laugh-out-loud funny to depressingly-dark. I love the full spectrum of emotion here. But characters alone do not a good series make.

The plot is incredible. It is complex, but not to the point of confusion. The whole thing so far is about unraveling what happened during a tragedy 100 years ago in order to prevent it from happening again. As such, most of the plot takes place in the past, and is revealed through pieces of characters' memories. Herein lies my favorite philosophical obsession with this series. I love how PH addresses the fact that partial memory is a very dangerous thing. The characters get their memories back gradually, and in very fragmented form. They don't know the whole story, and their assumptions about what happened and about who they are given the limited information they have affects self-image, personality, and actions, even if the assumption they made isn't true.

How do people deal with the idea that there's more to them than the life they know, or that they're essentially more than one person? What if everybody around them expects them to be somebody else? How does this shape their perception of identity? What if you don't remember enough? What if you forgot that you wanted to forget? And what do you do when you remember too much? Or what if the past that made you who you are completely changed? These are the kinds of questions addressed in Pandora Hearts.

There is much re-read value in this series. Many things happen before they are explained, or before a character remembers its significance, so you pick up on a lot of things you missed on your 2nd (or 3rd or 10th) read through.

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This is my first time ever writing a manga review, so please bare with me.

I want to start saying that this manga may not be the easiest reading; the plot is like a puzzle, at first you get to see the big picture, but without getting into the details, you won't reach the end result. I must say that this may be my favorite part about the series, each little detail is relevant either for the main plot or to get some character development and that enriches the story more and more every time you read. There's actually no time to get bored because everything is in constant movement.

The characters development here it's delightful as no one ends the same way they started, they go back and forth in their own individual worlds. The premise here is that there's not one only way to act, but actually a wide range of options where everyone can go at their own pace, and that makes possible for us readers to experience first hand the emotions/thinking that made a character the way they're at the moment or why they decided to change in some point.

Finally, the art. The main points are it's beautiful settings, a great amount of details, and a unique way of expressing emotions. In this last point I want to emphasize, because Mochizuki Jun is not only great with words (like those white/black pages that made me cry with dialogue solely), but the way she can make a few pages or even with just a single smile to overflow with emotion makes this manga a master piece.

Hope this would help you if you're still not sure about reading it, but give it a try.

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