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Description
From Tokyopop: Inez is a young orphan girl with a special gift that allows her to communicate with all creatures. A great destiny awaits her, the nature of which she is yet unaware.
As our story opens, Inez is traveling with an old wizard named Kaager and a faithful dog named Zode. Her country is about to plunge into its first winter in one hundred years and ominous signs abound concerning the return of a demon-race which threatens the country's fragile peace.
Can little Inez- via a magic amulet - bring back her country's ancient dragon protector in time?
The shoujo art style is pretty but everyone looks the same and with so many people being other people inside and out of dreams plus the expanse of time and constantly shifting perspectives, it's damn near impossible to follow who you're with at any one time without people boldly stating their names. It's easy to understand the thrust of the story, it is incredibly simplistic, but it's trying to figure out who is in each panel that is the problem. I'm sure tons of detail and nuance is passing me by because every pretty boy character looks the same.
Put simply it's like I'm reading this series out of order with randomly missing and incomplete chapters.
The beginning was tolerable, it started out with a fresh sense of adventure and full of mysteries, but it started to get very confusing later on. All those time skips and dimensions made my head spin. I had to reread several chapters and read interpretations on the web in order to understand what was going on. I wish the author cleared things up for the readers.
The main characters weren't as deeply developed as I want them to be. But the artwork was beautifully drawn, except the guy's faces (i.e. those thick, pouty lips).
The ending was a positive one, but it didn't end the way I want it to end:
Spoiler (mouse over to view)
The ending can be interpreted in different ways, but from what I see, it looks like a harem ending. Inez/Enril ends up with 3 different guys (including Yulan) in some paradise/alternate reality.
Anyways, this is what I would call "hard-core fantasy", and it may not be for everyone.
The art is very beautiful, as the story progresses, and readers can understand the story more only by volume 6 or 7 onwards. Story is not told chronologically, which is why the manhwa is very confusing for some.
I don't really like the main character, Enril, as she is so selfish and cruel, wanting Yulan for herself and all that. Knowing that Kyrette loves her, she took advantage of the situation and used him for her own good. Yeah, in the end, they(Enril, Yulan, Kyrette, Zeyer) lived in a place almost like a paradise for a long time, though it's still unfair for some of them, such as Kyrette and Zeyer who have to watch Enril and Yulan's love affair when all of them are in love with her. But they are all happy in the end, good for them I guess. What happened to grandpa?
Things could have been simplified, but the author dragged on, with a lot of meaningless monologues, which confuse the readers even more. And Yulan should have expressed his love for Enril more openly, not keeping to himself all the time which is so hard to watch him like that.
This story is also quite dark, not like the usual fluffy and full of romance kind of shoujo manhwa. It's different. Which is why I kept on reading, plus the art is so awesome, and readers are swept into this magical world when reading it.
At first i was having second thoughts whether i should continue on reading this manga all of the consistent flashbacks is making me frustrated and confused. But because of the gorgeous art i hold on to it and i'm glad i did. After i understood the plot twists i simply thought this was genius, it was romantic, thrilling, breathtaking and GREAT! well what can i say i'm really amazed that author did a really good job with this, its definitely one of the greatest manga ive ever read. I just love it even though it gave me hard time at first.
This wasn't bad at all, in terms of drawing style, characters, or action. What was annoying as hell was the sudden changes in perspective that were really difficult to keep track of. A shifting between Enril's personalities, suddenly moving from the internal dialogue from one character to another, the quick shift in place/time, made this a hard read. And I thought Saver was a bitch! Well, over all, the imagination and art pulled me into it. I wish it had been more coherent, a little more straight forward in plot. I understand that it's supposed to be mysterious and questionable until the end, but reading it straight through really gave me a headache. I had to stop several time because I was annoyed at the shifts. Well, that said, I liked Inez and Yulan. I even liked Kyrette quite a bit. It was interesting.
-Deemed the first ever manga to give me a serious headache -
This plot has many charming points, but at the same time it is very confusing. Just think of watching a really weird movie you couldn't get out of your head but yet you didn't really get what it was about either - it's the same with this story.
What furthers the confusion (and makes me a bit sad too) is that some plot points are not very detailed (like their stay in the elven city). It is like they put in only the peak situations from this storyline and left the rest out. Maybe the author ran out of space?
Furthermore it has extremly fast-paced story-telling and skips details but makes clear what happened in between with short dialogues or monologues. You will get what I mean once you reach volume 5 ^.^
Also it jumps from one POV to another without any warning, causing some confusion. There are also many substories told, yet they are all connected.
It is very hard to discern whether a character is female or male, "he or she" (at least in the translations).
Otherwise I can only repeat, the story is very charming to follow, but I think the author has to work on her story telling quite a bit (Model was a bit confusing too, though not as bad by far).
This is one of the manhwas I definitely want to own. It's exciting but a teeny bit cliche. But that doesn't matter because I love the characters' development. For those who wish to know
Spoiler (highlight to view)
she ends up with Yulan
. Although I wish she could have had both. A bit draggy at some points and sometimes the drawings annoy me because their head/hair is so big lol. But it's worth giving a try.
I love it but i think it was recently dropped by tokyopop and i really want to know who she ends up with. i found myself switching who i wanted her to end up with over and over...if u miss even one chapter, it gets really confusing. it only appeals to certain tastes so if you don't like it after the first two books, don't bother finishing it.
Personally, I find Arcana to be one heck of a story(and it helps that Yulan's the definition of coolness). The art's not bad(but if you're looking fluff, this won't be it). There's a fine air of mystery in all of this manga-ka's plots, and it keeps you on edge, dying to find out what is going on.
BUT, if you don't like complicated fantasy, this probably won't interest you. The relationships between everyone is very complicated, and it's easy to get lost if you miss a volume(which happens. a lot).
Still, I'd give this a chance. It's always nice to have a change in taste, right?
If you're a fan of Lee So Young, then I would highly recommend Arcana.
I, for one, love her art work, especially in "Model". I know a lot of you don't like her art work but I think it's beautiful. The plot so far is alright - it's nothing I've never heard of nor is it boring.
For a reader whose never read any of Lee So Young's work, I'd say take a look at her other works first. *cough* MODEL!! *cough*
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