Wow. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was still in high school, obsessing over this obscure anime/manga that hardly anyone knew about. In 2009, I watched an anime called 07-Ghost, and let me tell you, I was OBSESSED with it. Almost as obsessed with it as I was with Shounen Onmyouji. I even made AMVs for it, and nothing else ever made me try to attempt that before. One of my best friends even got me volume 3 of the manga as a present once, back when Go! Comi still had the license for it. Of course, those three volumes were all that anyone got in the US back then, and unless you read it online, you couldn't read the whole story, since by that time, Go! Comi had shut down, and their licenses were in limbo. I did read it online up until volume 7, but then stopped due to other obligations. Then, several years later, Viz Media rescued the manga, and in 2015, released every single volume. As of this writing, I now own the whole series, and have read it from volume 1 to volume 17. After years of not even touching this manga, and having finally picked it up again, what do I think of it?

Well...I won't lie, the manga does have good qualities, but it's held back by a pretty hefty amount of problems.

At first, the story seems basic. A young boy, Teito Klein, is sent to a special military school thanks to his ability to use a kind of attack energy called Zaiphon, which is very rare for a human. Every day, he has strange dreams that frighten him, but doesn't know why. One day, he overhears someone named Ayanami talking, and suddenly, he realizes why he has those dreams: They're actually memories from long ago, and the man, Ayanami, killed someone he loved and took everything from him. With the help of his friend Mikage, he escapes the Barsburg Empire and finds allies in three bishops of the Barsburg Church: Frau, Castor, and Labrador. In due time, he discovers great secrets about himself, which put him and his friends in danger more often than not, and he is now determined to find the truth behind both his fractured memories, and the history of his homeland, the Raggs Kingdom, as a whole, and doing so may end up destroying the world.

I was introduced to 07-Ghost through the anime first, and I didn't read the manga until a little later. I loved the anime's art style: it was clean, clear, with a lot of bright colors, full of creative shots and camera angles, no distorted faces, etc. On the other hand, the manga's artwork is much more messy. That's not to say the art is bad. Far from it, actually. I think a better word for it would be busy. Lines aren't always clean and straight, there's lots of jagged edges and sharp angles, and sometimes I feel like the artwork could use a lot more polishing. From what I hear, this was the first ever manga made by Yuki Amemiya and Yukino Ichihara, so I think a lot of the artwork's problems can be attributed to them still trying to truly polish and find their art style. Thankfully, the drawings slowly get better and better, though it's still rather busy and all over the place at times.

I also think the jagged, messy artwork also contributes to the manga's other problem: the pacing. Everything goes really, REALLY fast in this manga. First, Teito's in the military academy, them boom he's in the church, then an epic fight scene, then he leaves the church, then there's yet another plot twist that changes everything, and so on. There don't seem to be ANY chapters where the characters can just sit down, breathe, and take a break. If you're a big fan of fast paced action manga, then this is definitely for you. On one hand, there's no filler, so the story is always moving forward, always having something happen, and I've heard some people that don't like the anime say it was too slow paced and had too much filler, with nothing else happening. In the manga, there's always something going on, hardly leaving any moments for the readers to get bored, which is always great! On the other hand, 07-Ghost seems to think that it has to keep going at full speed, taking no breaks, which can make the story really hard to follow at times, what with all the crazy, plot twisting revelations that crop up every few chapters or so. It can really made the reader get all discombobulated, because something's ALWAYS going on and there's hardly any breathing room.

For what it's worth, the fast pacing does manage to keep the characters on their toes, and as a result, they're always changing and evolving. At first, they seem like archetypal anime tropes: the impulsive, reckless main character, the good-hearted skirt-chaser, the smart one who wears glasses, the girly man who loves plants, etc. But with the way the story is always moving forward, it forces the characters to confront their demons, face their pasts, and really change to get from point A to point B. Reading further into the manga, the characters are more than just one-dimensional archetypes with one personality trait. Even the villains are given reasonably good character development that shows that they aren't just typical Saturday morning cartoon villains who want to take over the world. In fact, many of their motives are deep and even sympathetic, even though the manga makes it clear that their actions shouldn't be easily forgiven. The characters, while still a little bland sometimes, really shine over the course of the series.

Of course, even the characters aren't spared from getting bogged down by some serious setbacks, the biggest one of them being Teito. Don't get me wrong, he's a decent main character, if still kinda cliche in some ways. But sometimes I feel like the narrative tries way too hard to make him the center of everything. At one point, he's shown to have the Eye of Mikhail, then it's revealed he's the long lost prince of the Raggs Kingdom, and the list goes on! No, seriously, he's revealed to be at least FIVE different things at once, all of which are super important to the storyline. Now, two or three of these reveals are fine, but more than five? I think this, along with the fast pace and heaps of plot twists kind of bog the story down by making it feel bloated by adding in all of these different elements. If the mangakas just cut out some of the excess fat and tried to develop some of the ideas they already had, I think 07-Ghost would be a lot more refined and polished than it is now.

I was originally going to rate this a little lower, but then I read the ending, which was extremely exciting and satisfying in the best ways possible, which made up for most of the series' flaws. I won't lie, 07-Ghost isn't perfect, and I don't like it as much now as I did when I first saw it in high school. But honestly, reading it again, and in its entirety, was like reuniting with an old friend and catching up on lost time. That old friend is still kind of awkward, but still a great old friend regardless. At least, that's how I see the series. If you're a fan of fast paced action, then this is definitely the manga for you. For their first manga, Amemiya and Ichihara did a splendid job, though not without a few bumps on the way, and from what I hear, they're still making manga. Here's hoping they're successful! While not great, 07-Ghost is a moving, ambitious, action-packed epic that will definitely give you an adrenaline rush.

If only someone would license rescue Cantarella and release its final two volumes!