REVIEW: volume 1 - pandora hearts

REVIEW #10: Volume 1

Content Type: Manga 

Media/Franchise: Pandora Hearts 

• YEAAAHH PICKED UP A NEW MANGA SERIES!! 🤩 I've heard of Pandora Hearts in passing from fellow Vanitas no Carte fans, and since Jun Mochizuki-sensei is my favorite mangaka I thought about giving this work a shot :D
• a little thing I found interesting was seeing how much MochiJun's artstyle changed over the years :0 I was just starting volume 11 of VNC when I picked up Pandora Hearts, and I knew the latter was MochiJun's earlier work, but it was still somewhat disorienting as well as refreshing to see how different the strokes and shading look 👀
• y'all it's just the first volume but I'm already so confused 😭💔
• right now Pandora Hearts is giving off the vibe of a really, really strange nightmare. like you know how dreams are wonky and don't make any sense? yeah, it's like that 
• I felt strongly that way when Oz arrived at the Abyss after Alice/B-Rabbit saved him from the Baskerville Clan, then the girl Sharon (or, at least, some phantom of her) appeared to "save Oz" from the Abyss and convince Oz that Alice/B-Rabbit was a sinister person, then Sharon transformed into one of the Abyss chains? 😭 with this I'm already getting the vibe that nothing in Pandora Hearts will make sense, but that would be the point of the story - for Oz to be confused about who he should trust, because it would make his search for his "truth" a lot more excruciating 
• but Oz seems like such a sweet guy, and very much childlike at that. it's not a bad thing, I just think it highlights even more how Oz (at least, seemingly) is still just a child, only welcomed into "adulthood" by his ceremony (that eventually becomes the beginning point of the story's conflict). like he gets easily attached to people who show him warmth and feels the need to repay people's good deeds towards him, ohh Oz it's you against the world 😔💔
• so far I really like Gil!! I'm worried to know about what happened to him and my heart dropped when Oz "killed" him at the ceremony 😭 he seems really sweet and humble, and genuinely cares about Oz 
• there also seem to be a lot of factors going on, and it's making me really wonder what Oz's significance is for so many different people to be after him. the Baskerville Clan, Alice/B-Rabbit, the Pandora Hearts organization... and they all seem to have very contrasting intentions with how to deal with Oz 
• I'm also getting the sneaking feeling that there's an aspect of deja vu going on?? because Alice/B-Rabbit talks to Oz like they've been doing this many times before and Oz is getting memory fragments... oh my gee I can tell my brain's already going to hurt reading this 😭 /lh 
• so far I'm greatly intrigued by the story, and I can't wait to know what happens next!! while reading the whole volume I couldn't help but turn page after page and I would legit stand in the grocery/mall stores just to sneak in a few pages 🥹💗 I think that even if I won't fully comprehend the plot the first time around, this is a work I would definitely reread any time, and I would still appreciate many aspects of the plot 😁