Marry Grave

This is the best manga I've ever read.

I've waited almost two years to share this opinion.
I was certain my feelings would change, but they didn't.
I couldn't just throw under silver every single manga that had raised me since I was a boy
over a mere couple of chapters... but that's what I'm here to tell you I've done.

I think I found this manga when the second chapter was posted on reddit and it ripped away the sleep I was
going to get that night. I was certain I'd seen something like it before. The art, the story, ANYTHING--
but I hadn't. It was perfect. Uplifting. Optimistic. Everything I needed in my life.

I was certain I'd lost my mind.

Me: "There's this manga that looks better than anything I've seen since Made In Abyss but... it's happy?"
Friend: "What do you mean it's happy?"
Me: "It's about a man whose wife is dead and the world has ended and everyone he meets is
doomed or in trouble and-- it's the first time I've felt this happy in months..."

My friend had no good response to this.
He thought I was confessing depression to him.
He was worried about me.
I was worried about him.
I had good reason to be worried about him.
He hadn't yet read Marry Grave.

I was so enraptured by this series that I was certain that the artist was a veteran.
Didn't even bother researching who he was at first. There's no way he was new.
I was certain I'd read something by him before.

"What IS this artstyle?! Where the HELL have I seen this why does it feel so familiar?!"

Look at what we see in chapter one.
- Highly adept usage of negative space.
- Impeccable layout and blocking
- Refined usage of screentones
- "Oda-boxes"
- Creative usage of perspective for dramatic effect.
--- Comedy, videogame homage, creative usage of bubbles interacting with panel borders,
complex light sources, opulently detailed Gothic architecture, effects, multiple unique creature skeletons,
weather, masochistically detailed props that are going to have to be drawn on the main character
MANY DOZENS OF TIMES PER CHAPTER.

"... Why does this feel like Oda and Mashima made a manga starring Vash the Stampede?"
"... Except that's impossible because neither of them had an eye for this much detail
until they had at least five assistants--WHO THE FUCK MAKES THIS?!"

Chapter two.
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS IS HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL!"
Look at panels one through four on page two. The torch light literally occludes the darkness.
Look at panels three and four on page eight. Notice how he looks down and to the left in 3,
and THEN panel 5, which is obscurely tall ONLY to facilitate the hilariously long scream-bubble,
is used to pull our eyes back up to the top to continue a third column. Three column single pages
are also relatively rare and extremely rarely done this thoughtfully.
Look at ALL of page 14. He exudes discomfort and claustrophobia in several ways. Riseman is hunched over.
He's looking at the clock. He's looking back at the mother cooking. All we hear is the sound of a
ticking clock... and boiling water. And most importantly, both walls and the ceiling are in frame.
Look at panel two on page 17. I can't remember the last time I saw someone use this POV in a manga.

Page 19; illumination by lightning. What a gloriously underutilized trope in modern times.
Page 20; post revelation. See the telephoto perspective shot is back for the moment of clarity.
(Think Evangelion. Now stop.)
Page 23: The warped perspective pays off. The lines all swirl together. The slime is revealed.

I've caught up.
There's no more.
I hadn't been this eager to read another chapter of manga since One Piece 399.
I was 12 years old.

Weeks pass.
Every chapter is better than the last. I spend months and months making a youtube video trying to
explain to people why I love this manga so God damn much.

I get more and more technical, but with every week, so does Yamaji Hidenori,
a 32 year old man who's published 15 chapters of one other manga called Atlantid from 2014-2015,
and that's it.
This wasn't experience under the guise of youthful energy; this was God given talent, and passion.

Every chapter creates another multiple pages of script.
I've seen so many manga that I love get canceled because nobody reads them.
Psyren, Iron Knight, Stealth Symphony, Samon the Summoner; fucking NONE OF THEM scratch the skin of
what Marry Grave makes me feel.

I get distracted.
I get busy with life.
Before I know it it's got three chapters left.
It's cancelled.

I've just illegally read the first piece of art in half a decade that made me unquestionably
certain that human beings were amazing and that everything was going to be okay.

I didn't email Viz or Dark Horse or Seven Seas or Kodansha or
Yen Press or Vertical and beg them to let me purchase it.

I did nothing to stop it from dying. That hurt me.

I was applying to jobs when that second chapter came out.

On December 13th, 2017, I was at the lowest point of my life, many months into a
hopeless search for any kind of work related to my college degree.

Marry Grave was perhaps the largest sliver of optimism and hope that kept me turning the crank
in a basement devoid of sunlight, throwing resumes into the ocean hoping somebody would send me a raft.

On January 16th, 2019, I was sitting in the first apartment I'd ever owned, after work at a dream
job I thought I'd never in ten lifetimes be lucky enough to land, weeping inconsolably at the most
perfect "rushed ending" I'd ever seen.

(A few weeks later I spent two weeks disposable paycheck buying as many volumes as I could,
feebly attempting to mask my guilt that it was too little too late.)[https://imgur.com/a/No8p7wC]

Hidenori had no interest in an open ended conclusion, despite the fact that his universe was ten times
more vast than manga that have run for hundreds and hundreds of chapters.

In an act of inexplicable kindness to us, Riseman and Rosalie would get their happy ending.
Marry Grave's universe would get its explanation.
We would get our catharsis.

To those of you who have read the first chapter, this not a spoiler but rather a confirmation of will.

Yamaji Hidenori's devotion to conveying his fiction to you is a force of nature.
His comprehension of this medium is almost without peer and his success ought be inevitable.
Two years has not been enough time for me to imagine praise in the English language that
can convey to you how I feel about this single piece of fiction he's created.

Please read it.

I really enjoyed Marry Grave. 8 Stars

This is one of my first reviews so I don't really know how to do these things but I can jsut say that I really liked the MC who despite being a airhead is really cool and enyoable. It is not really the indepth of the the Characters or the story that makes this manga special but it is jsut heartwarming and really fun to read. Annd i really adored the worldbuilding and dark fantasy.

Art is also really amazing in my opinion. It fits perfect and the characters and clothers are drawn really cool and unique.

Sadly the manga got axed so it ends after 5 volumes despite a lot of potention for at least 100 more chapters. The Adult MCs and romantic bits were probaly not well recieved by the readed of the shounen magazine were it was published.
Still it was wrapped up somehow statisfying and as it is now the 5 volumes are a quick fun heartwarming read that i can jsut recommend for everyone. I am really looking forward to the next work of the quthor since he is really capable of creating a good long running story with an interesting world which he can execute in his next project.

Marry Grave was a great story cut short and it pains me how underrated this manga is. With each turn the author builds more character, heart warming moments and most importantly a world which is supernatural but believable.

Story: 9
I gave the story a 9 because of it's unique take on the adventure genre and ability to create a memorable cast. Marry grave focuses on the bonds which Sawyer creates and also fleshes out his backstory throughout the chapters. This fragmented growth of his character compliments the main goal of the story where he collects ingredients to resurrect his wife.

His wife is a character that is ever-present in this story and holds a monumental impact on the immersion of the story all whilst being deceased. This helps us root for the protagonist, sweeping us onto his arduous but satisfying journey.

Art: 8
The art is not bad, but also isn't amazing. This leaves the artwork as an above average looking manga with a refreshing art style.

Character: 10
The character's are all lovable and each possess a personality and backstory, granting Marry Grave a memorable cast.

Enjoyment and overall rating: 10 :) and 9
The story was very enjoyable and overall one of my favorites albeit being very brief due to it being cancelled. I highly recommend this story!

Where to begin with this work of art that was not done justice.

I would consider Marry Grave to be a modern day Rave Master or Fairy Tail, with a more romantic twist instead of the usual 'friendship is magic' trope. While manga like Black Clover may be taking the spotlight as a 'shounen successor', I really think that Marry Grave is much more deserving in that regard.

What makes it so much better is that, unlike so many other fantasy-setting manga, it presents the reader with a realistic end goal right off the bat; to reunite Sawyer with his lost wife Rosalie. The set up is so simple, but with the pairing of likable characters and interesting events it makes you want to root for the protagonist to see his goals turn to reality. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good love story, but it's so much more satisfying to see two characters finally come together rather than to see one character just become the strongest or something along those lines.

In this age of dominance by isekai and fan-service, it's very rare to find a manga with so much potential to be a great shounen classic. I have to say, it's a shame this manga was cut short when it definitely could have run for another 100 to 200 chapters and retained the same energy that it captures the readers with in it's initial chapters.

When I first started to read Marry Grave, I thought it would be a nice yet ordinary shounen manga. I am quite glad that it turned out much better than what I expected.

The art is quite simple, not especially outstanding but I came to appreciate it, and may have notice an improvement between the first and last volume.
The characters are also quite simple in a way: Sawyer is a nice airhead, Rosalie is a strong minded girl and I can't say that they have much more depth. This simplicity however collides violently with Marry Grave's world: a world where humans are barely surviving amidst violent monsters. The joyful Sawyer almost makes us forget how painful it is to live in such a world. It is therefore quite wonderful to have very simple, positive characters evolving in a scary world, where emphasis is not put on their tragic lives but rather on the simple desire of two lovers to be by each other's side again.

And this is the true strong point of Marry Grave: the relationship between Sawyer and Rosalie. Even though we begin by following Sawyer's adventure, the main character is actually a duo. Rosalie is not just a love interest for the main character who proceeds to save his beloved, she is truly pictured as being equally important. The absence of fanservice also underlines this equality of this perfectly balanced duo. The relationship between present and past is also very interestingly depicted, and the author invites his readers to read the series again to find out all the details.

My only true regret is how the series was cut short when it was planned to be running on a longer term. The author shows how much more the story could have been developped, so it is a real shame. The last chapters just feel rushed and are not as enjoyable as the previous ones. I however appreciate the author's effort to wrap everything up, leaving not too many question marks or a sense of unfinished.

To sum up, Marry Grave is a great shounen, a wonderful piece, and I can only hope that it gains enough success for the author to be able to write his next series as long as he desires. I have high hopes for whatever he can write next, and will definitely look out for it.

Well I'm not used to writing reviews for manga but this one is outstanding...

The story is nothing too original and has a few of cliches but however more than enjoyable.
Has one of the best flashback arcs in all of manga I have read so far. Intense adventure from chapter to chapter, many races, great world building and many great developed characters.
Has many points of tragedy but however characters show their determination through it.
Sadly manga was axed. However writer was able to end story pretty okay considering that he had 2 chapters to wrap up the story he considered going on at least 150-200 more chapters.

You should definitely read this manga even though its rushed ending, it has just 5 volumes