Anime Review: Pandora Hearts

Pandora Hearts revolves around Oz Vessalius, the future heir to the noble Vessalius house, one of the four duke houses, and his life until now has been quite good, only darkened by his father’s constant absence. But at his coming-of-age ceremony everything changes. For seemingly no reason he is thrown into the prison commonly regarded as a myth, the “Abyss”, only to be saved by the “chain” known as Alice, the Bloodstained Black Rabbit.

This anime is amazing in so many ways, and its haunting, dark “Alice in Wonderland” theme is really well made. Many of the popular characters from the original story are there, but not in the way you might have imagined. And sometimes they are close to unrecognizable, but the Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, Alice, they are all there, and maybe even the caterpillar (even thou, I’m not very sure about that one). The hole that Alice fell into and the tea party are there as well, so as you can see many things from the fairy tale are represented in this story, but you can hardly recognize them in their new shape.

*SPOILER ALERT*

This anime is so good, and even thou it in ways reminds me about other anime that I’ve seen it doesn’t irritate me, or feel old for that matter. There are just so many things to like about it. First of all: Holy crap! Does this anime have wonderful characters or what?!? All of them are just perfect in their own way, and they harmonize with each other in a way that I find quite rare in anime. Every character have something important to give to the plot of the story, even the evil “chains”, and the minor characters. Even the ones that only appear once or twice. Everyone feels relevant to the plot, which I don’t think I have ever seen in another anime before.

Another thing to like about this anime is that even thou it has a familiar feel with its Alice in Wonderland inspired story, it’s far from enough to feel as if you are watching a remake of the story. It just enough to make you feel comfortable with the creepiness of the monsters and some characters, and the creepy setting in the Abyss, but then again, not enough to not be completely creped out when they say “A yummy smelling human” over and over and over again as they try to make a meal out of Oz. And honestly, any doll that moves, talks, or in any way suggest it’s alive creeps me out!

The only downsides with this anime is that it gave you ideas on how it was going to end already in the first couple of episodes, since it (especially in the beginning) reminds you quite a lot about two other anime, where in one the main character dies in the end, and I pretty much immediately thought that Oz was going to die in the end of the anime. Why I thought that is the contract between Alice and Oz, everything around him becoming her contractor just reminded me so strongly about Black Butler I was convinced for half of the anime that in the end Oz was going to die due to that contract. Thou that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Then we have the fact that many of the characters and how they interact with each other, the clothing, the secret organization Pandora, and so on and so on, reminded me very much of D.Gray-Man, and as it seems right now, the ending in that one is not going to be a happy one, thou you never know. Anyway, that had me thinking that it was going to be a much darker anime than it actually was. No sad moments of character deaths (or close to death) so far, and honestly I hope there won’t be. I love those guys, it would be so sad to see them go.

There is a third anime that Pandora Hearts remind me of, thou that has nothing to do with the plot. Just how fantastically AMAZING the soundtrack is. It’s perfect for every scene, highlighting every moment, bringing out its maximum potential without ever taking anything from the plot, and that reminded me a lot about Tsubasa Chronicles, which has one of the best soundtracks out there, or that's at leat my oppinion.

Now I just have one last thing to say. WHY wasn’t this longer? And WHY didn’t they finish it up?! I wanted to know how it ended! Not this mid-story ending! None of the IMPORTANT questions was answered!! How could they end it like that!!! I want a season two!!! What will happen!! I want to know! Now!

*Links*

Want know more about this Anime? Go to;
http://myanimelist.net/anime/5530/Pandora_Hearts

Want to watch it? Go to;
http://www.animefreak.tv/watch/pandora-hearts-english-dubbed-online-free

~Rosey