Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Chiaki__Nanami
When I first started watching this anime, I didn't exactly have high expectations for it. It immediately drew me in by the first or second episode. One disappointment I had was that I had hoped there was a little more romance. This anime got me laughing a lot and the whole atmosphere of the anime was just fun and enjoyable.
The characters continued to grow as the story progressed and overall the characters had good personalities and were cleverly thought out thoroughly. The manga goes into a lot more depth and actually finishes the story, so you should also check that out if you enjoyed this anime
In a way this anime reminded me a lot of the game Kingdom Hearts as it is produced by the same studio (Square Enix). This art was very similar and the overall atmosphere and environment was ali…
Read at the sourcealyuch
This was mentioned in previous reviews, yet unfortunate enough to require mentioning again: such wasted potential. The animated version of the otherwise well woven story line of the manga was tremendously lacking. To be fair, the manga had only just concluded last year while the anime was produced in its early years of serialization. Nevertheless, the anime is far from dispelling justice to its preceding manga, and the animation was--in my opinion--subpar. A major concern was the over usage of still-shots with minor movement edited in, and thus added a drollness throughout-- even during action scenes. Honestly, I would love if this could be redone to better capture the essence of what the manga had offered.
Read at the sourcegedata
Every now and then you come across an anime with all the right tools for success but ends up having to fight an uphill battle against unfortunate surrounding factors. Take a manga that's nowhere near complete, hand it off to a studio with an unimpressive track record, and what do you get? Well, honestly now that I think about it, a lot of adaptations of manga/LNs/VNs fit this criterion, but today I'll be highlighting yet another unfortunate case in Pandora Hearts. An anime with a compelling backdrop but not a clue as to how to handle it in the long run. Whilst the show may have come out half-baked, I'd be remiss to leave out mention of its solid foundation
The world Pandora Hearts presents within its 25 episode run is one that makes no qualms in making parallels with Lewis Carroll's Alice…
Read at the sourceLeopah
Oh Pandora Hearts, how you have let me down.
I'm kicking off this review by saying that I didn't watch this at anyone's request. A friend of mine mentioned watching it in passing and with nothing else to go on I threw myself headfirst into it.
Pandora Hearts had potential which is a downright shame because it wasted it by veering off into "nothing-is-explained land."
Story: 5/10
The initial premise was awesome. Dark, horrific, desperate. A lot of the story elements in Pandora Hearts are drawn from Alice in Wonderland and twisted into darker themes. The basic premise is that Oz Vessalius, a spoiled rich kid, is thrown into the Abyss which is basically hell. Oz is forced to make a contract with a Chain called Alice to escape from the Abyss, and is captured by the mysterious organization Pan…
Read at the sourcetreeflyer
OK, short version, take your mouse and click the arrow to take you the other direction.
Get far from this show of indecisive characters, pointless enemies, and plot holes, no plot chasms so deep you find cavemen, dinosaurs, and a cackling maniac smearing feces on turtles.
I'll wait...
Still here? Ok, I can understand that this is going to take a little more convincing.
Story: 3
Starts out fine. Oz, a 15 year old, seemingly carefree noble is attacked at his Bar Mitzvah (j.k.) and is pulled into a world called abyss where he meets a crazy woman named Alice. Alice is a chain, she has random weird powers and is stronger than a bunch of other chains but seems to need this kid to escape abyss. Within 15 minutes and only one brief talk they form a blood pact, or maybe they just kiss, and esc…
Read at the sourceZeroReq011
Ah, what do we wonder have here? A fine lot, a fine lot indeed, all wonderfully fat and skinny and in between. Come to tea then to wonder? Hmm? A wonderland you say? A wonderland! A wonderland? Fallen down the rabbit hole, you wonder? Bees in your bonnets? Butterflies in your stomach? Bats in your belfry? No need to wonder... You're already here, Wonder! It's wonderland! A wonderfully wonderful wonder of a wonderland, Wonder. But you must have wondered by now if Wonderland's the name, Mr. Wonder? No, Mrs. Wonder. It's-
...the Abyss.
W-what the hell? Who's there?
Pandora Hearts was adapted by a manga of the same name by Jun Mochizuki. Produced by Xebec, and directed by Takao Kato, the story takes place in a universe of two different dimensions... of sorts: a humanity inhabited Victorian…
Read at the sourceHinami
Imagine your reality falling into pieces on your fifteenth birthday, pushed into a broken toy box and relentlessly pursued by people you barely know.
Pushed aside and left broken, do you accept death in the name of saving another's life, desperately looking for pieces of yourself to confirm your existence? Knowing nothing about yourself, wanting to find out, yet scared of finding out, how do you move on? How do you protect something you once lost, in fear of losing it again, suffocating it with your loyalty and inability to let it leave your sight?
Pandora Hearts explores the story of Oz Vessalius ( or Bezarius, as I'm used to ), a boy whose life is thrown into chaos on his fifteenth birthday, at his coming-of-ceremony. The anime, I'd say, has an overarching theme of loss and self-discov…
Read at the sourcemusouka_3008
I will keep it short and sweet. I hated it... I truly hated it. I see so many good reviews and I don't get it. I suffered through this series. I hated the cookie cutter characters, the plot had enough loose ends to make a lovely sweater from, and the art was awful. Yea, I've seen worse in anime but not from such a high ranking series. I heard so many good things so to have actually watched it - well I'm not impressed. The story was original, however, I just feel that more could have been done to develop anything in the story, yes, ANYTHING. I felt that their was so much built up in the plot to only have it crash land in the last 5 eps. Overall don't expect to stand up and cheer at the end of the series... it gets a meh, from me.
Read at the sourceBouum
If I was told : 'Hey, there's another season of Pandora Hearts' I would believe it...
I feel like something is still missing after 25 episodes. If I was to delete the few last episode from my mind and write this review, I would have been able put a way better score. I often say : When the Ending is bad the whole thing becomes bad. This 'rule' apply to Pandora Hearts. In fact... it's like it is made for this show.
Pandora Hearts had a lot of potential !
The First Episodes were mysterious and I had a lot of question on my mind. I have to say many of them are still unanswered or I feel like the given answer is lame. [WATCH OUT FOR POSSIBLE SPOILER!] Oz sins was his very existence ? Why ?... Because his father never wanted him ? So he send him into Abyss ? And Also, he send him into Abyss b…
Read at the sourcejai88
Pandora Hearts is an anime that draws inspiration and many thematic elements from the story Alice in Wonderland. It is about a young aristocrat named Oz Bezarius, the heir of a noble house, who becomes the victim of a dark ceremony in the first episode and is cast down into the "Abyss" - a prison like area inhabited by monsters called Chains. While there, he meets the Chain known as Alice, the Black Rabbit.
The show starts out incredibly strong, but its strength doesn't last long at all. The overlying problem with the show is that it doesn't seem to know what direction it wants to go in. You are initially presented with a dark and gothic horror that almost immediately makes way for super deformed art and bright, flashing colours. The show remains this way, tying together ridiculous anime…
Read at the sourceLuccasDMC
Next time you pick up an anime to watch, beware!
The curse of the unfinished manga may be in it.
To be quite honest, if the only mistake of Pandora Hearts was having an open ending due to the manga not being finished I wouldn't have given such a low rating to it. Let's just say that the open (and bad) ending was the cherry on the top.
Oz Bezarius, son of a nobleman is about to come of age and thus, a ceremony to celebrate this fact will be held in a mansion that hides many secrets behind it. While exploring outside the place, Oz starts to see, in his mind, a disturbed girl who is in a room full of toys. Still confused about what he saw, the young man returns to the mansion and the ritual starts. When the ceremony is about to finish, Oz finds himself surrounded by mysterious people who…
Read at the sourceNaturally_Morbid
First of all, this is truly one of my favorite anime.
Story: When you first read abou this anime you might be thinking "Oh great, just another remake of Alice in Wonderland." This anime has many simularities to Alice in Wonderland and has the same feeling but it has a very unique story. The story is mysterious, beautiful, and kept me interested the whole way through.
Art: The art in both the anime and manga is amazing. It is not too shounen or shoujo and is very pleasant to look at.
Sound: The music in this anime isn't the best quality to the anime but I found the soundtrack to be beautiful and worth listening to when not watching the anime. Another part to sound that I find very important is the voice actors. The voice actors in Pandora Hearts do a wonderful job of portraying the chara…
Read at the sourceAeterna
Pandora Hearts is a prime example of wasted potential. It starts out with an interesting premise that grabs you at the start, but after a few episodes, it’s nothing but downhill from there until it finally crashes and burns at the end of its 25-episode run.
Why do I say this?
There are many interesting plot threads and ideas that are introduced at various points in the story, but they are almost never followed through with or they’re executed in a way that, frankly, makes them boring. For example, when we learn about the four dukedoms of Pandora, I get the sense that there’s a lot of history and political machinations going on in the background but it hardly ever gets explored, instead focusing on the development of our main heroes, Oz and Alice (which doesn’t sound that bad, but more on…
Read at the sourceshine_heaven
What gives people the strength to go on after they have fallen? What makes them strive for the perspective of a bright future? Seeking to answer those questions, “Pandora Hearts” gives the impression of a charming, unique series that differs from its counterparts through adapting a popular scheme, but not entirely living off it. Why, then, is it nothing amazing in particular?
STORY (7)
Good beginning. This series starts with really nicely developed foundations. It seems very promising; we get to know Oz Vessalius, your typical young hero-wannabe, but as soon as Alice shows up, things start getting interesting. Oz ends up in the twisted realm of “Abyss”, only to be saved by the mad rabbit, however nothing comes free of charge. And nothing is the same when he goes back to his world.
And he…
Read at the sourceIceAndCream
I've only given a 10-star rating to a handful of animes. And this is one of them.
"Abyss" was supposed to be a legend, a tale to frighten young children, a horrific place where evil people were taken. But Oz Bezarius discovers the truth for himself. After being forced into Abyss when his coming-of-age ceremony gets crashed, Abyss turns out to be a separate dimension that looks like a giant broken toybox. And the only way to leave is to make a contract with a being named Alice, who sometimes exists in the form of an impertinent young girl, and at other times as a giant anthropomorphic rabbit. Once they return to our world, things start to really get interesting….
It's hard to give a summary of Pandora Hearts, since it has so much content. It's mostly a drama, but there is some action/adve…
Read at the sourceMisaTange
Story:
Oz Vessalius, heir to one of the duke houses, has just turned fifteen. His life is rich and carefree, darkened only by the constant absence of his father. At his coming-of-age ceremony, however, everything changes. For no reason that he can discern, he's cast into the prison known as the "Abyss", only to be saved by a "chain" known as Alice, the bloodstained black rabbit. It is unknown why was he cast into Abyss, how does Alice factor into it all, and what does the organization known as "Pandora" want with him. [Source: Anime News Network]
Excellent story. It has many multiple twists, cliffhangers, etc with some elements from Alice in Wonderland, but it all fits into the story. It has very little fillers, which I like VERY much.
Art/Animation:
Compared to the anime of today, it is…
Read at the sourceFredDuck
(This is my first review ever.)
Oh, dear. I'm shocked at the overall positive vibe people have for this show. Was I watching something else by mistake?
The story itself is serviceable, perhaps even interesting, but it's buried under a glacial pace. They managed to cover about 12 episodes' worth of material in 25 episodes, which seems like the director was suddenly told just before they went on air that he had twice as much time as he thought he did. I just read that the manga is still going while the anime has finished. Oh wait, no. It didn't finish. It ended. Finishing sounds like they gave you some kind of resolution. I challenge you to find someone who can honestly say they liked slapdash episode 25.
There are only 2 characters they try to explore, one of which is Oz, but in Pandora…
Read at the sourceCharry
When you lose everything and end up with nothing, how do you pick yourself up and move on? Do you lash out in anger and bitterness, hiding your wounds? Do you allow the emptiness inside you to shut out any emotional reaction, numbly accepting your fate? Do you desperately search everywhere for what remains of you, hoping to piece yourself back together? Or do you fear losing again so much that you spend all your time protecting what you already have, nearly crushing it in your tight grasp?
With each of these suggestions, I refer to a particular character in the story whose struggle with loss reflects one of these patterns. This theme of loss and the struggle to regain or find acceptance is by no means a new one to either drama or anime/manga, but in Pandora Hearts it is approached in a se…
Read at the sourcedreido_avenue
Truthfully, at first, I was thrown off by the first episode of this anime. It was too generic for my tastes, both the art and the overused plot. But I still stuck with it, just for the first few ten or so episodes to see if it would improve. And it surprisingly did, with its plot and characters; the anime was a whole lot richer and promising than I had first suspected to be. Simply put, I was intrigued with the dark elements, found myself honestly amused with the jokes, and entertained with the twists that came with it. Which led me to read the manga, which actually I think is better than its anime counterpart in terms of explaining and conveying what the artist wanted to convey. To conclude, what I am trying to say is that stick with the anime and see that it has a deeper web of intricacy…
Read at the sourceTii
I wish the ending would continue on... yet that is what the manga is for. I heard the anime pulls you in for the mangas sake. I was automatically pulled in at the very start when Oz was bowing down to the people of abys.
This anime is my favorite, and for the very first time on the top of my list to recomend to people around the world. -nod nod-
My favorite movie when I was really really little was Alice in Wonderland, and now as Pandora Hearts captures that feel to it, I love it as well.
If you enjoy Disneys Alice, then you'll enjoy this Alice too
and a guy who hates being called 'seaweed head' which I find very cute.
Also, who can live without a wild mad hatter running around acting to innocent? His 'lips like sugar' will want you to know just how 'Sweet' this anime can get
;D
Read at the source