Pandora Hearts is a manga series by Jun Mochizuki who’s also known for writing and illustrating the Vanitas No Carte series. The story focus on Oz Vessailus, who is brought into the world of the Abyss and must solve its mysteries and find his way out after he was put there by the Baskerville Clan. Oz was punished for a sin he had not committed so he has to find out the reasons he was placed into the Abyss, a dangerous place inhabited by Chains, a special breed of monsters.
The story has a Victorian inspired setting in it similar to other gothic styled manga from Black Butler to Godchild.
The story is long with some inspiration from Alice In Wonderland. The pacing is a bit slow but with the plot twists, the payoff is worth it. You are going to have to pay close attentionor you may have misssomething for your first time reading. Pandora Heart is one of those stories you have to reread to learn more about the plot and lore as each piece, even small ones can play a big part in the larger picture.
The atmosphere is appropriately dark and suspenseful.The art and character designs were good and the art gets better as the story progresses. The characters were interesting and complex,with various layers and these are slowly revealedand you will see them do things that were very surprising. you weren’t really expecting them to be capable of.
Overall it’s a pretty good manga.
It gets 5 out of 5 stars.
There is an anime adaptation of Pandora Hearts but I wouldn’t recommend watching it personally since the anime does stray away from the manga. The anime was being aired when the manga was still being published like many 2000s anime at that time.