This is definitely a unique manga. A unique style, not necessarily absolutely to my liking, but very distinguishable. The similarity of the faces was quite confusing at times but at least they all had different hairstyles and clothes.
The story was pretty cliche but twisted in such a way that it appeared brand new. There were many interesting sub-plots that, in my opinion, were not used to their full potential. For example, I would have loved it if Othello's character was explored more, and that's just one thing. Because they weren't of much significance to neither the main plot nor to the main characters' development, they ended up being... frankly, quite pointless.
Also, not enough character development. Ororon, Chiaki, Mitsume... they did develop... a little bit... but it was not convincing.
Another thing, some plot developments were down right illogical given the nature of the story. There's no excuse for this.
The ending too, left me unsatisfied. I thought that this manga was about the meaning and importance of life but in the end it only implied so. At first, it seems as though the mangaka was too focused on making it the 'Hamlet' quality kind of tragedy. But in the end, they failed to express it, thus leaving no emotional impact, to me at least.
What really struck me was the inner monologues, however. Hence the high rating I gave it. They were really deep, beautifully written and true to each character. They were on a level that is usually beyond manga in a literary sense - you could find something like this in a well-received fiction book. Perhaps it was the fast pacing that did not let me invest myself into this emotionally but I could really sympathize with each character. It was so beautiful how one character dedicated their thoughts to another as if they were writing a letter (Ororon's thoughts in particular). And they were not just your usual word-to-word definitions of their feelings as opposed to what we usually see in most manga. No, there were metaphors, there were aposiopesises, there were implications...
I guess I should say now, kudos to the translators for not failing to make it sound great!
I feel I'm giving this manga a higher rating than it actually deserves but that's more because of my weakness for beautiful words. I feel that while writing it the mangaka bit more than they could chew. A little planning wouldn't have hurt.
(-29)
(+106)
