At the end of this story I finally decided that the group called Anonymous shouldn’t exist… why? Because after each story each of the characters who’re part of Anonymous have, well, turn against it in some way, are rebelling, didn’t follow orders or are just no longer good assassin for Anonymous since they are feeling emotions. I found that a bit funny, but hey, it was very nice to watch each Anonymous member turn away from Anonymous.

Plot- The main plot revolves around many different characters who are part of the organization Anonymous, in other words, their assassins. And while some stories are a bit darker others a more sugar coated and fluffy and no story ever gets overly dark. I enjoyed all the stories but none of them really gripped me, the sad ones got to me a bit but didn’t tug my heart strings overly much, the fluffy ones were cute but not overly so. So all in all I enjoyed the stories but I didn’t love them.

Characters- There are so many characters in these stories, as each story focuses on a different main character and different secondary characters, but each character was quite different and each had their own struggles.

Art- The art is fine, nothing extraordinary, but not bad either, each character has pretty unique designs so it doesn’t feel like the characters designs were reused.

Other- This set of short stories is good, I liked and enjoyed it, but it felt like it was lacking something. There was something missing from them, a sort of charm that… just wasn’t there. But though that charm was missing and kept me from loving these stories the stories were still good and enjoyable and the mangaka did a nice job at portraying an assassin group without making it overly dark and a bit more touching. I do recommend this manga.

6/10 – Liked it

The art for this one is exceptionally good, and I found it very easy to follow if you treat it as a bunch of oneshots that are connected due to the principle characters all being members of the secret organization. The only thing that keeps me from rating this any higher than a 7 is because I just cannot see myself wanting to read it again.

Although I think the art style, the plot and the characters somewhat suit each other, it can be refined still. However, it is still a gem in the many mangas I've read; it isn't best but one of the better.

I only read the first two chapters - but yes, it's bland. It should be heartstring-tugging but ... nothing.

And I can't get over the organisation's name being anonymous. I keep waiting for them to ask me if I liek mudkips or something.

I found the plot a little hard to follow sometimes. That isn't my main complaint, though. While the premise seemed interesting, the execution was just generally bad. Someone previously described it as "sugar-coated", which at times I agree with. Even in its darkest moments, though, this manga felt kind of bare to me. I didn't know enough about the characters to like them or care whether they suffered. You have to have an emotional investment in characters to have an emotional payout when bad things happen. This kind of a premise needs to be written with delicacy, subtlety, and there wasn't any there. Anyway, I'm giving it a 5, because I wouldn't say it was bad, it just wasn't really good, either. Kind of... blah.

A rare work reminiscent of the hopelessness of Gunslinger Girl, Anonymous is a strong story that is appropriately bleak, although not consistently so. The plot may not be anything particularly special, but the content is mildly intellectually stimulating. A good pick for those who enjoy tragedies and internal struggle, as long as you don't mind some humanity occasionally creeping in.

EDIT: Well, I have to make a slight adjustment to my comment. Some of the stories are rather, er, sugar-coated, but for the majority of them you can still see the contrast that makes it interesting.

... Last updated on July 2nd, 2009, 12:20pm

It's touching, and somehow tragic. It shows the human side of young assasins that despite being "anonymous" still have identity conflicts and haven't lost their human side. A worthy read.

... Last updated on March 17th, 2009, 4:12pm