Pandora Hearts Review - 87,5/100
The past spring season was a good one for fantasy-series. Among the best ones of this genre was Pandora Hearts. It takes the air of modern-day fairy-tales, and gives them a dark and twisted… twist, resulting into quite a unique series that focuses on themes as the past and forgiveness.
What sets this show apart is its distinct and dark style of storytelling. It has a heavy emphasis on twisted dialogues that are well delivered by the voice actors, and once it gets going, it just keeps getting more and more intriguing. This series has the very interesting characteristic that whenever you think that the creators couldn’t possibly pull any more plot twists, they do. This series is delightfully unpredictable, and just about every plot twist makes the setting more intriguing.
And what an intriguing setting it is! While at first it might seem like nothing special, but soon this series evolves into a multi-layered mystery-series that only gets more and more complex as the revelations come. Combine that with a deep and varied cast of characters and you’ve got a recipe for success.
As for this series’ flaws, it’s that the lead character Oz isn’t always able to carry the series. Whenever Oz starts angsting he tends to drag the entire series along with him, and his times of inner retrospective are deep, but also tend to drag along a bit too much. And overall, the cast could have been more fleshed out. At the end of the series, I only started to feel like I was beginning to get to know the characters. Add the fact that it’s not yet sure whether a second season will come to animate the remaining manga chapters, and you’ve got an incomplete series that desperately needs more screentime.
Nevertheless, Pandora Hearts really is a gem of a series, and when it delivers it really does over and over. Xebec created a really unique graphical style that combines the art style from the 90s and the past decade, and a lot of shots really are visual feasts in terms of aesthetics. The music by Yuki Kajiura may not be her best work, but still shines in every single way. Now if only that second season would get announced.
| Storytelling: | 9/10 |
| Characters: | 8/10 |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 |
| Setting: | 9/10 |
I wonder why you gave 9 for production values on this anime,whose animation just as blurry as these from 90’s ;and you give just 8 for 07-Ghost whose animation is much more clear and clean than this one…
Comment by mds — September 25, 2009 @ 17:20
It’s indeed close, but what makes me favour the graphics of Pandora Hears over 07-Ghost is that 07-Ghost’s character-designs look too much like Sdutio Deen’s regular character-designs, while in Pandora Hearts they have something unique, plus Pandora Hears also has a lot more creativity in the costume and monster design.
Comment by psgels — September 25, 2009 @ 19:00
to me its not how nice the design looks, it how it matches the style… Pandora Hearts was more dark and mysterious… It wasn’t as fantasy-ish as 07-ghost for me, it actually seemed it could be placed in Europe during the 1700-1800’s… So for me, i liked that rougher style..
Comment by Matt — September 25, 2009 @ 19:32
I don’t understand how you can stand this show for a very long time. I dropped at 8th or 9th episode. Animation sucks big time. First I’ve thought it was because of the release i’ve downloaded, but no! This show’s animation is an amateur style. And when i look at the images now, i still see the blurry effect. This show is a decent 7 at most.
Comment by animedyum — September 25, 2009 @ 23:13
What exactly about the show is amateur style? I mean, it wasn’t good, but there were very few distorted faces, and I’ve seen a lot of series in which characters moved a lot less. Sure, the characters didn’t move fluidly all the time, but what series is perfectly animated? What makes this one so bad in comparison to other series?
Oh, and as for the blurriness, that was just me taking screenshots from bad encodes. That has nothing to do with the series itself.
Comment by psgels — September 25, 2009 @ 23:25
I stared watch this anime but didn’t finish.
Comment by silvija — September 26, 2009 @ 14:49
The music in this series was one of the best of this season for me; beaten only by Requiem Phantom and maybe kemono no souja erin (opening song is great)
Comment by SpaceIdiot — September 27, 2009 @ 12:40
Pandora Hearts was AMAZING!! loved it ^-^ i want another season now. -_- so if they annouce it please tell me. GILBERT
Comment by Jamie Bautista — September 27, 2009 @ 21:55
Very good anime (except 24 ep, witch ruined final part a little) . But, in my opinion, it is meaningless without second season.
Comment by Nomus — October 3, 2009 @ 12:29
The problem is, they’ve pretty much destryoed some of the key plot devices in the last episode… Well, if Kuroshitsuji still gets its second season, PH should get one too!
Plus, you anime-viewers haven’t seen Glen’s face and certain characters’ identities…
Comment by Metter — October 12, 2009 @ 11:50