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REVIEW: Pastel GN 1




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Godaistudios



Joined: 12 Jun 2003
Posts: 2075
Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment)
PostPosted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 12:54 am Reply with quote
Wow... harsh words for Pastel - though I don't quite agree. While there is the fault that Kobayashi is re-using his prior work Parallel and rehashing it into Pastel at times, I have found the characters personalities enjoyable, especially as the story develops. I don't expect a ton of story to come out on the first volume of anything. Certainly, this might not have hit your buttons Carlo, but you should be open to the fact that the story might actually take a direction. Yes, the personalities do start off a little flat, but I've enjoyed the several volumes I've read and liked how the characters have grown. A masterpiece? No. But it's a fun read and holds up well enough.

As for my take, I'd give the first manga a C in story and a C+ in overall rating. I think the first volume does what it has to do - just enough to get people hooked and get them to keep reading. Of course, that's just my opinion on it.
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Strategos



Joined: 25 Sep 2004
Posts: 91
Location: Ohio
PostPosted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:33 am Reply with quote
I also thought the review was a bit harsh...I don't think I have ever read a first volume of a manga, especially one of this genre, that has had a great plot at this point. Usually the first volume introduces characters and has fanservice to make the reader interested enough to buy the next volume where some sort of plot starts to appear. I think Pastel actually gets quite good as the story continues, but it has been a while before I read the first volume.
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jmays
ANN Past Staff


Joined: 29 Jul 2002
Posts: 1390
Location: St. Louis, MO
PostPosted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:04 am Reply with quote
Isn't that sort of backward? You're complaining that Carlo reviewed what he read rather than what he...might read in the future?
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ANN_Bamboo
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Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 3904
Location: CO
PostPosted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:08 am Reply with quote
I have to agree with Carlo on this one, actually. The first volume of Pastel is just absurd. It pulls out every cliche in the book, and it's so vapid it's almost insulting.

Maybe it could get good in the future, but it's bad now. After all, he's not reviewing future volumes. He's reviewing the first one.
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Kagemusha



Joined: 20 Feb 2004
Posts: 2783
Location: Boston
PostPosted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 12:22 pm Reply with quote
Aside from the very nice art (I do like the watercolors) Pastel is standard shonen-romance, which as Carlo pointed out, is basically T&A and cliches. Characters are boring; story is boring; pretty much everything is mediocre unless you either haven't ever read the genre or are actually a fan of similar titles (it seems a large percentage of manga fans fall into this category.) The art is nice though, and I suppose it's better than some other titles in the genre (which isn't hard.)
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Godaistudios



Joined: 12 Jun 2003
Posts: 2075
Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment)
PostPosted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 4:15 pm Reply with quote
While I may appear biased since I've read beyond the first volume, that wasn't my intent. I did not mean to suggest that he should base his review on future volumes - that would be silly and absurd. What I bring into question is how he goes about reviewing Vol 1. of "fill in the blank" title.

Perhaps it's a different approach/philosophy, but when reading the first volume of any series, I don't set my expectations too high when it comes to character and plot development. With Pastel, I agree that it is cliche - but I don't see the story any worse off than so many of the other typical shounen romance titles out there. I personally thought the personalities were fairly decent as well - and based on this one volume alone, I would expect further development in the future. I just feel he might have had his expectations set a little too high for this title's inaugural volume.

Mind you, it's not like I completely disagreed with him, it's just a difference of opinion.
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HitokiriShadow



Joined: 09 May 2005
Posts: 6251
PostPosted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:28 pm Reply with quote
I picked up Pastel when it came out a few weeks ago because I heard it was pretty good. The first volume was mediocre but I'm hoping it will get better later. The volume had a good deal of cliches and lots of fanservice, but I didn't think it was that bad. It certainly could have been better though, even with all the T&A.
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shrodu



Joined: 12 Jun 2006
Posts: 8
PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 4:56 pm Reply with quote
Kinda' harsh.

I kinda' enjoyed it. I just bought it and am looking forward to some new ones.

The storyline was good, the fanservice was good.

I don't see what these Reviewers are seeing that's wrong with it. Maybe we need more reviewers.


Anyway, I've got the 1st 2 and am getting the 3rd one that comes out on the 27th this month.
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Tony K.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
Posts: 11446
Location: Frisco, TX
PostPosted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 2:00 am Reply with quote
shrodu, please do not revive threads that have been inactive for over 4 months.
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