my humble opinion on 'Pretear' ~ both anime and manga

Should I not admit that ‘tis completely childish and plain? Oh, should I not face the truth?

Still, I do not care a single bit. Yes, it might be an unsuitable thing to watch when you are 20 years old, and ‘tis not as if I never watched such things, so I cannot even explain myself by trying to prove I was only going to ‘broaden m horizons’. I know many seiyuus as well as the director and the studio, so it would not go that easy if I said I was going to risk and try something new

Fascinating!

So simple and still so deep, so unsophisticated, and still so touching…

Yes, completely unsuitable for an adult! And I am not one, by the way ^_~

I was watching the series as if I were still a 10 years old girl. You know, the director was the same one who created BSSM and Aria. The tricks and plot developments were the same as in the 90s mahout-shoujos. The characters, the clothing, the lines and intonations, everything was for little girls who still believe in miracles, but everything was so sincere and so serious…

The music

was splendid as well. I missed so much, those cute melodies for everyday life, those funny ones for comedy episodes, those heroic ones for henshin and battles, those sad ones for tragic moments… I am in love with the OST, completely

The seiyuus

as well. Some of them were the ones I already knew very well, some were the new for me, but all of them had completely standard voices for a shoujo, but that ‘standardness’ was not boring, ‘twas what I would call ‘classics’. Yep, no surprises, but great quality instead. For example, Hayate’s seiyuu was Toriumi-san, who voiced Lantis, and Himeno’s voice sounded quite close to that of Hikaru, especially in the ending song. I believe ‘tis not a coincidence ^.^

the manga

was one of the most strange things I have ever read. Chapters 1-16 were marvellous and I enjoyed them every second I was reading, as the plot was quite different, and a lot of new developments were present, and in general the story seemed more… profound?

Then comes the 17^th chapter and brings a complete mess into the stable pace of the manga. Though we have serious matters which were not present in the anime, we simply have no time to enjoy or to feel sad about them. Neither the death of one of the knights, nor the personal feelings of the main characters, including both Himeno’s family and Takako, and Sasame as well, nothing had the effect of the sharp pain as if a knife was stabbed into your heart, which was in the anime. The romantic scenes from the anime were absent as well, and though we had some substitutes in the beginning and in the middle which were very promising, the finishing chapters of manga lacked them greatly. Suddenly we have a huge disaster, but only 2 pages to understand it. We have romance problems, but only a few lines to guess about that. We have a complicated family relationship, but only several times ‘tis mentioned. Suddenly we face death, despair, tears, rescuing and resurrection, but…  o____O only in two chapters???

Remember that manga was the original piece, and everything we have in the anime is ‘added’, and anime is the ‘improved’ version of the manga. Therefore, I should admit I was quite happy to see the messy ending being changed into a normal shoujo finale, with morals, with love winning over hate, with everyone safe and sound and happy and friendly and loving and caring, and what is the most important – every adjective I used right now is completely explainable and realistic, under the circumstances provided in the anime. The manga chapters 17-19 were unfortunately devoid of that kind of basis… which was a huge disappointment

Well, we can assume the authors were in a hurry or something prevented them from following the normal idea to the very end… at least, I hope so

Still, the graphics

was not as if we could complain about it. The lines and the colouring were very professional, the style looking somewhat of a CLAMPish, but different and recognizable, at the same time

unfortunately, HAL faced some obvious problems with graphics at the period, so the anime graphics was a complete opposite, just a failure. I wonder how HAL managed to find or train its artists in such a short period of time before they created Aria, because Aria was perfect…

conclusion

like a balm to the soul, tired of pop and longing for classics. I am sad about the fact I have already finished it...

p. s.
I was wondering for a long time whether Kei was voiced by a female seiyuu or not... well, some changes in the way characters look are good to make anime different from manga and thus, interesting... but this change o___O