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Characters

The first aspect that helps you completely immerse yourself in the story is the characters. You meet quite a lot of characters throughout the whole work, but each of them is unique and well-written. It's sadly very rare to find consistent writing like this, where the author pays equal attention to every single character. Even if you don't particularly like someone, you still care. This makes the work feel whole, because every storyline plays its role and no one is left in the shadows just to be there.

I'm a big fan of works where every character is morally grey, because instead of cliché stereotypical discussions, we get very realistic, raw human emotions. I find it very precious and reassuring to follow these characters' thoughts and see how their actions have equivocal consequences.

Elliot instantly became my favorite many years ago the first time I saw him. I just knew at that moment that he's the character I'll forever cherish. His characterization is phenomenal. Absolutely need to mention that retrace LIX ruined my whole life.

Pandora Hearts has something many mangakas fail to achieve - a well-written, complex main character. Reading it, I felt such happiness to finally be able to follow an emotionally intelligent, deep, and dynamic MC. Oz becomes very dear to you along the way.

Relationships

I've cried through at least a third of the manga, if not half, I'm tearing up even writing this right now. Mochijun has an exceptional knowledge of the human psyche that she masterfully uses. Every word, every intention, every look - it all has meaning and will play its role when the time comes. Every relationship between any characters really helps the reader to understand these characters more. That idea of the importance of personal relationships as human support systems is actually in the foundation of the whole work. The reader sees extremely traumatized, doomed-by-fate characters who struggle with inner conflict daily. The relationships they develop and their genuine emotions is what helps them find their real selves. It's very beautifully written and will leave you sobbing.

Plot complexity

Pandora Hearts is the story you want to completely immerse yourself in. The complexity of multiple story lines, time periods, plot twists, and plot details doesn't frighten you but incites further curiosity. You are very excited to know what happens next after every single chapter. I myself finally found time and read 16 volumes in 5 days. I had to forcibly stop myself from reading to eat and sleep, that's how this story completely engulfs you. What I really appreciate is despite its complexity, many characters' connections, and details, there's not one plot hole or forgotten story line. It really takes great talent to create a story like this, and it's an absolute pleasure to read, especially if you're like me and love closely observing every foreshadowing and nuance.

I will be talking about Shinya, Guren, their relationship, and characters that are significant to their story.

Disclaimer: this is purely my interpretation and my opinions about the characters are very biased, enjoy.

Chekhov's gun - the literary principle that a writer should not include an object, detail, character, etc. in a story that is not necessary to the story.

An object, detail, character, etc. that appears near the beginning of a story and does not seem important, but becomes important later

The playwright Anton Chekhov observed that if there is a pistol hanging on the wall in the first act, it must go off before the end of the play, an observation which has become known as "Chekhov's gun".

Shinya

In the novels, Shinya is one of the main characters, sometimes (for example, in volume 4) we even get chapters completely from his perspective. That gives the reader an understanding that his plot line is important and we should consider every piece of information we get about him. So what were these details that we should keep in mind for the future development?

Shinya's identity

We don't know his actual last name, we don't know which clan he came from, his appearance, like his rare white hair and blue eyes, is noted by other characters.

Chekhov's gun here: Kagami intentionally adds these details to Shinya's character design. In Q&A's he mentions the fact that the Hiragi clan deleted all the files about Shinya's past, there is always mystery surrounding Shinya's past.

Now that this is "on the wall" we expect that at some point near the end this gun will "fire". We expect the big reveal of Shinya's identity. How it can be done is up to the author. Maybe it's a conversation, maybe it's a transformation, but still it should happen.

Now, after chapters 151-152 we saw what happened to Shinya. Actually it happened even earlier, in the beginning of 2020, when Kagami's approach changed drastically. Shinya did not appear in any chapter for years, and even if he did appear on one page he would be unconscious, a flashback or just a mention. After chapter 83 with a very good dive into his character you would expect the focus would finally be partially on him. But suddenly Kagami forgets him. In the last years he finally brought him back, but still Shinya doesn't get any meaningful lines, we barely see him, he's like a shadow. In the meantime, we're still waiting for the big reveal, the gun is still on the wall, and now after his death will we ever get it?

Shinya's resurrection

In the end of CA16 after his death, to give Shinya and the others 10 more years of life, Guren activates the apocalypse, where 80% of the population all over the world dies and 7 people are resurrected. Shinya, however, was not brought back to life, and Ferid manually started his heart again. If the resurrected find out about what happened, they die instantly.

Chekhov's gun here: There was no need for that to happen in the plot, all of them could have been successfully resurrected, and nothing that we know to this point would change. So that means Kagami intentionally did that to Shinya. Then in RA19 and the main manga there are multiple occasions where the resurrected (mainly Shinya) almost find out about it.

Now we expect that to "fire" at some point. A build up like that only has one logical conclusion - the secret is to be revealed. What happens to these characters is up to the author again. Maybe every resurrected character except for Shinya dies when they find out, maybe he is the only one who accidentally finds out and doesn't die, because for some reason it didn't work on him. Still, with that many instances of that secret being almost revealed by the end of the manga, it must be revealed.

What we got instead was Shinya dying by being cut in half as the best sniper of humanity in the middle of a sword fight. Big sigh.

Now overall, I was very disappointed by the development of his character in the last 5-6 years (and even before that, to be honest). Shinya is a very tragic character. Since he was little, he was going through hell every single day. No one was there to help him or support him. That made him develop a belief that there is nothing worth going after in this world, that his life didn't matter. After he met Guren, he gained a meaning to his life, but that belief that he didn't matter was still there. He didn't find out that for Guren he mattered more than the whole world (both literally and figuratively), that he mattered and was not just a weapon. This ending for him that we got is ridiculous. After all the pain he endured not even knowing what the person who he lives for hides from him constantly and that actually it was to protect him, he dies in a battle being "useful". He never gained an understanding that he himself is enough. And it's not just a tragic ending in the sense that "well, not everyone has a happy ending", it's just bad writing.

Guren

Guren is the main character of the novels and arguably one of the main characters of the main manga. He's a very important key character who moves the plot the most. So what exactly did chapter 152 do to him?

Similarly to Shinya, since he was 5 he was subjected to experiments and a very intense training, did not have a "normal" childhood in the slightest, and there was always Mahiru manipulating and abusing him. All of this made him very self-destructive. At first glance you might not notice that, but throughout the novels and the main manga he's willing to endure anything as long as his family is okay or he's doing the right thing. Sometimes he has no regard for his life, he always blames himself. And being subject to constant abuse from the Hiragi clan, Mahiru, and Ferid, he still fights losing everything.

If we look at his character plot line, we see someone who constantly can't catch a break. After killing almost the whole population of the world, he starts developing a plan to bring all the people back, save his friends, and make it all right again. Now, Kagami wrote only 2 volumes of RA19, saying that the further volumes will spoil the main manga (yeah, very believable from someone who can barely focus on writing the main manga and still does it like he saw it for the first time yesterday), so we don't fully know the extent of Guren's plan. But we do know he has been developing it since he was 16, and we saw him execute it until the very end.

Now here it's where it's getting ridiculous. Making a subsequent series of novels about the main character developing a plan, making him be successful at the stages of this plan in the span of 8 years, and then making him fail in the last minute of that plan for absolutely no reason except to make Yuu actually bring everyone back. It's been a long time since I stopped blaming characters in ONS for their decisions because the writing got so bad and obvious there is no one else to blame except for the author. These decisions no longer seem to flow as the plot goes, the reader can actually sense the author having a hand in the making of them as he goes. When reading a coherent fictional work, you do not think of the author, you don't question his decisions. You question other characters and the circumstances. It's not an essay, the plot should flow.

When Kagami actually cared about this work, the reader could discern the moral of the story - to never give up, to be true to yourself, and that the main strength comes from caring about others and being selfless rather than abandoning and using everyone while staying alone. Right now, after chapter 152 the moral is… no matter what you do, no matter what hardships you go through, you will fail?… All that Guren did in his life did not matter in the end. And again, it's not just a tragic ending, it doesn't make any sense. The gun is still on the wall.

Guren and Shinya

Now finally the Chekhov's gun that did fire, or so Kagami thinks. Guren and Shinya dying together as humans. It was mentioned by both of them several times. Many years ago I said the same thing - it is to be expected for them to die together in the end. Because what can I do? The gun is on the wall. But yet again it didn't actually fire.

When we look at their relationship, we can see that it's two people who care about each other more than anything in their lives and who are separated constantly by the circumstances, with miscommunication born amidst all of it. Shinya's mask drops when he's with Guren, and Guren feels the immense connection to Shinya. Their feelings towards each other are very sincere, but every time something is in the way. After the apocalypse, the main obstacle is the secret about resurrection.

Then in the RA19 novels and the main manga, we get numerous scenes where Guren senses that Shinya will deduce what's actually going on and prevents it to save him, and Shinya accepts that, but he knows something is wrong, and his patience wears thin. That's when the reader expects that by the end of the work we will get a proper communication between them. It's not the case of "probable" or "likely". It must happen, period. That's how storytelling works.

And Kagami is someone who used that in the past. Think of CA16, they always had communication problems, but in the end, Shinya reveals to Guren, that meeting him was the meaning of his life. And we see in chapter 83 that it changed him. For Guren he was willing to go against that belief he had that you should only rely on cold logic in your decisions. And what does Kagami tell the reader in 152? Care about somebody, follow your heart, find meaning in your life by being with that person, and die horribly without communicating with them. But hey, at least they died together, right… The gun fired, but the cartridge was blank.

Bonus

Narumi is still nowhere to be found ever since he last appeared in chapter 77. His story line started in the novels too, but I guess Kagami didn't want to bother continuing it anymore and thought no one would notice if he just threw out a whole character from the plot. It feels like he did the same to every other character figuratively, especially with the way he suddenly started giving Shinya's words and personality traits to Mahiru in the recent chapters.