I Won't Allow You To Take It From Me.

[rionaleonhart]

A few months ago, on Tumblr, wyomingsmustache sent me a question: If someone were to tell you they made a show and tailored it to you specifically, what sort of elements would you hope it had?

It was interesting to think about! After some pondering, I came up with the following list:

- A blend of darkness and humour. I’m interested in dark themes, but I can struggle with shows that take themselves too seriously.
- A good balance of characters suffering emotionally, characters having moments to breathe, and characters writhing attractively around in physical agony.
- Sequences in which characters don’t entirely know what’s real, whether they can trust their own perception or their own memories.
- Good-hearted characters doing terrible things. Maybe they’re cornered into it. Maybe they’re just too weak to do the right thing when it comes down to it. I love bad decisions, and I love it when a well-intentioned character looks desperately over at the right path but ends up going down the wrong one anyway.
- Very screwed-up, very intense character dynamics.
- Plenty of sexual tension all over the place, but no or few canonical pairings, so I’m free to envision endless scenarios in which everyone gets together.
- Maybe a character can make out with their evil duplicate at some point, though.

Cinder_Quill replied to say that the Pandora Hearts manga had all of these things. I knew nothing about Pandora Hearts, but 'this includes all the elements of your ideal series' was a very strong pitch, so I ordered the first volume.

Halfway through the first volume, I ordered the next two. I had no idea what was going on, but Oz was spending a lot of time confused and terrified, which was great, and he seemed to have a bit of a crush on everyone, which was also great. That was all I really needed to know, frankly.

Shortly after that, I sent Cinder_Quill a note: Three chapters in: Oz has been kissed, he's been choked, he's been possessed, he's been unsettlingly felt up, he's been stabbed by a friend, he's accidentally harmed a friend himself, he's fallen to his knees and screamed, and I can tell you that this was a spot-on recommendation. I picked it up because you said it contained everything I wanted, and you were not kidding. I am hugely enjoying watching this young man get physically and psychologically wrecked.

And thus my quest began. It turns out that Pandora Hearts is not an easy series to obtain in English, at least if you're in the UK! Over the past four months, I've been checking every used book distributor I could find, pouncing whenever one of them happened to have the next volume in. It's not a mission I can especially recommend embarking on, but I have really been enjoying Pandora Hearts.

I wrote the below notes when I was in volume seven and Cinder_Quill asked how I was getting on with the series:



I'm perpetually confused about what's going on, so it's hard for me to talk about the series in any depth, but the art and character interactions are delightful. I'm shipping Oz with everyone, particularly Gilbert and Elliot, and I'm intrigued by the manga exploring Oz's self-sacrificing side and going 'this isn't just heroism, there's something wrong with this kid, he doesn't value himself at all.'

Self-sacrifice is something I often have a negative reaction to in fiction. It can be done well, but I feel characters are often unrealistically quick to give up their lives, and it tends to overlap with a couple of other things I dislike. So I was very excited to realise that the story wasn't just presenting Oz's self-sacrificing tendencies as a noble quality but was interested in tackling them as a problem.

Brief thoughts on assorted characters:

Oz: has chemistry with everyone, which is always a great quality in a protagonist! Lots of trauma that he deals with (or fails to deal with) in fascinating ways. Fun blend of silliness and sincerity. I like him enormously.

Gilbert: perfect awkward young man, has a lot of intense feelings, I love him.

Alice: her boldness and her general lack of understanding of the world are fun qualities! I like her, but I don't feel 'there's a lot of interesting stuff to explore here' in the way I do with Oz and Gilbert. (In Gilbert's case, the interesting stuff is mainly just how in love with Oz he is, but I'd happily watch that being dug into all day.)

Break: I didn't really have any interest in Break until the scene where Vincent poisoned Sharon and it became clear that Break passionately cared about her. Showing me what a character values really helps me to get invested! He's still not one of my favourites, but that scene definitely helped me warm to him.

Vincent: scary!

Elliot: haven't seen that much of him yet, but I can never resist a shitty angry teenager who has a heart of gold and really goddamn wishes he didn't.



Here end the notes I made in volume seven! I'm now in volume fifteen, but I think these notes have held up reasonably well. Although I do now have at least slightly more of an idea of what's going on in the plot. Sometimes.

Of course, I've also seen a lot more of Elliot! He might be my favourite by this point, although it's close between him and Gilbert. I met Elliot and went 'wow, he's so angry and obnoxious. I'm going to love him, aren't I?' And, of course, I was.

In conclusion, it turns out that the 'this contains all the elements of your ideal series' promise was absolutely accurate. (Well, nobody's made out with their evil duplicate as of volume fifteen, but characters have had sexual tension with their duplicates; I'll accept it.) If the last few volumes make their way safely here from the US, I think I might have completed my collection at last; fingers crossed!