Sophie-chanCritiques

This was one cool manga. The art was cute. The story was different. Only negative, if I have to be picky, is that certain things happen abruptly, making the pacing a bit rushed. However, this does not feel like a debut manga at all. Also, the story and illustrations are by a single person, which is something I seldom see in a manga. Hats off to that! Loved reading this book and eagerly awaiting the next volume. Thanks to Tokyopop for giving me an advance review copy.

2.5 Stars

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It had been a while since I read the first volume of Ocean of Secrets but the story came back to me rather quickly once I started the second volume. The art is quite nice, but some of the characters really look alike which makes it difficult to tell them apart.

The story however, goes so fast that many details are lost. Characters don't get the time to develop because they have to jump from event to event. The premise is very interesting, but the story would benefit from slowing down and taking the time to be told. I understand this might be difficult in the scope of a manga volume, but this should be taken in consideration when developing a story.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

good start to an interesting series - looks like it has potential to be a good one

This is Sophie-chan's first manga and she says she has been working on the story for years. It is a good twist on the secret-princess story. The second volume comes out in a couple of months and I think this will be a fun one to follow.

http://webereading.com/2017/12/a-stack-of-eight.html

I was really excited to read the first volume in this new YA fantasy manga series. The story sounded amazing. I ended up being a bit disappointed, the whole book is okay but never really drew me in.

The idea behind the story itself is a fun one. However the whole explanation of the magic system in the beginning was very lecture-like and was an awkward info-dump that bogged down the flow of the story.

Additionally the dialogue between characters comes off as very simple and awkward. The whole story was fairly simple. I would have liked more explanation behind the four kingdoms and their magic up front, but maybe done in a story format rather than a lecture.

The illustration is simple but well done. It’s very no-frills; I prefer a lot more detail in my mangas. The characters were easy to distinguish from one another but not very engaging. The story panels were easy to follow but, again, overly simple for me.

Overall this was okay but not great. I thought everything was too simple and plain; I was expecting something magical but ended up with a child-like story with awkward dialogue. The illustration was similar; decently done but with very little detail. I had high hopes for this series but ended up just wanting...more...from it. I don’t plan on continuing the series.

It’s no secret that I love manga. So when I had the opportunity to review a copy of a new manga I’d never heard of before, of course I jumped on it. Ocean of Secrets, Volume 1 is a brand new series by the mangaka Sophie-chan. The cover was full of pretty purples, and drew my eye to it immediately. This volume will be released on May 16, 2017, just a little over a week from now.

Ocean of Secrets Volume 1 is about Lia, an orphaned seventeen year old living near the Atlantic coastline. One day while out boating with her adoptive sister Lia is swept away at sea, only to be rescued by two strangers. Albert and Moria take her in aboard their magical ship, and Lia is plunged into a world in the clouds, a world very different from her own.

For the most part, the writing itself was good. There were a few times the phrasing felt just a tad bit awkward, but nothing that stood out too much. I also liked the art. Some cells do have quite a bit of white space, leaving backgrounds up to the imagination entirely on some pages.

The thing I liked the most about this manga was probably the first chapter. It was well paced, and I was drawn to Lia and her sister rather quickly. The art was pretty. I was definitely drawn in and wanted to keep reading.

However, the rest manga moves fast. Very fast. A bit too fast, really. There were a few times that it felt like a few pages were missing, events occurring so quickly that it felt almost wrong. There was a lot of telling rather than showing. I would have liked to see a bit more Lia’s reaction to events rather. The second chapter included quite a bit of infodumping.

On the other hand, it’s quite nice to have one volume be such a complete story arc. This isn’t something we always see in manga and it can be a good thing to pick up a manga volume and get a very complete story without needing to dedicate yourself to the next three or four volumes as well, if not the entire series. Still, I couldn’t help but wish that a few scenes were extended by just a couple of pages. I think we could have used a little more time with a few of the characters to really get in their heads a little more and identify with them, or at least sympathize for them, a little better.

The end of the book has some great bonuses. There are alternate character designs of the main characters. And, most interestingly, there are alternate versions of some of the pages. It’s fascinating seeing the earlier versions and alternative layouts, and despite many manga having small bonus things at the end of the volume, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before.

Now, there is something I want to talk about that really grates on my nerves in regards to the book. It isn’t anything with the story itself – writing or drawing wise. Every ten or twenty pages is a notation at the top of the page that says “Read this way” with arrows pointing in the proper direction. This may sound nit-picky, but hear me out. First, it’s a bit insulting to the reader. Yes, manga reads right to left starting at what Americans would commonly thing of as the back of the book. Though this may feel odd for first time manga readers (I know it did for me when I started reading manga) it is easy enough to follow. Moreover, this occurs throughout the entirety book. At this point it gets a bit insulting. I find it hard to believe readers will forget what direction they’ve been reading in for the past hundred pages.

On a similar note, the review copy has water marks on every page (at least the digit one). I know, I know. How much can one person complain? But really! I haven’t seen another publisher do this with any other early copies of manga or graphic novels I’ve requested. And it is quite distracting when trying to read. More so than I initially expected it would, really. This is a manga, after all, and having the images shaded over was very, very distracting and made it hard to pick apart the images versus the watermarks on some pages.

Despite pacing issues, I am interested to see where the story is going, especially since what I assumed to be the main plot of the entire series resolved itself in one volume. What direction is the manga going in? I can make guesses, but I’m not positive. If you like fantasy manga give this one a try. If you don’t like fantasy manga, or don’t like infodumps then this may not be the manga for you.