So here we are again looking a the second Kingdom Hearts manga adaption and no this won't be running theme after volume 2 I'll move on to something else. I do plan on review all the Kingdom Hearts manga adaption but not for a while. Anyway before we begin I said in my review of Final Mix volume 1 I give my experience with the game series which is what I will pointlessly do now. So back when the first Kingdom Hearts game came out I remember thinking I wouldn't like it and though it was stupid in several ways, but you know I was a stupid 13/14 year old at the time so many teenagers at that age will say anything is stupid for well stupid reason. However after seeing both the first game and 2 being played I decided to try out the series, but I didn't have a PS2 at the time. I had a Xbox,Game Cube, GBA, PS1, N64,Game Boy Colour, and even a Game Gear but no PS2. But I was in like as Chain of Memories was on the GBA so got it has a gift at Easter(yes me and my sister used just about any holiday as an excuse to get a gift we normally couldn't get) and I loved it actually. I know lots of people hate on Chain of Memories or complain about the card system but Chain of Memories was the first game I had played so I couldn't compare it to anything, even when I did get a PS2 and could play other two games I still love it. Birth by Sleep is my favorite game in the series but Chain of Memories just has special place in my heart, it's like the Gundam series, Zeta and After War might be my favorites but Destiny also has a special place in my heart, but that's a another story.
Anyway let's get on with the review, now first off I just want to say that even though I'm reading from the Yen Press release which collects both volumes I'm still looking at them separately. Also let's give a quick recap. Our protagonist is a kid named Sora who sets off on a journey spanning multiply worlds after his home Destiny Islands is destroyed by the Heartless to find his two best friends Riku and Kairi. He is joined by classic Disney characters Donald and Goofy who are looking for their king(Mickey), joining with Sora because he wields a weapon know as a Keyblade. The three travel many worlds battling against the Heartless and the Disney Villain Gang(again my term) lead by Maleficent, it is also revealed Riku is in lead with the gang. Eventually our hero arrive at Maleficent's base Hollow Bastion where we learn both Maleficent and Riku were being manipulated by a a man named Ansem Seeker of Darkness who plans to find the heart of all worlds located at Kingdom Hearts. Ansem is defeated however Sora is separated from his friends again;as Sora,Donald, Goofy are send to an unknown world, Riku and Mickey(who he joined up with) were trapped behind in the darkness contained in Kingdom Hearts, and Kairi who was captured along with six others know as the Princesses of Hearts by Maleficent was sent back Destiny Islands. If you want a more detail recap than go read my past two reviews. Alright NOW let's begin.
So after a recap of the previous story we begin with our heroes at a campsite where we see Jiminy actually interacted with Sora, I bring this up because Jiminy was barely a character in the the first game and manga but in Chain of Memories(both game and manga) they did try to make him a character, which you think would have been done in the first manga. Anyway we are introduced to our main villain Marluxia(who isn't stated as such or even by name but I doing here for simplicity sake) who tells Sora he needs to find something important but to claim it he will lose something dear, this leads our heroes to a mysterious castle know as Castle Oblivion. After entering Castle Oblivion Marluxia reappears and explains to our hero that in Castle Oblivion they will lose their memories the further they ascend, now you might think why would they do that, will it's because Marluxia tells them their friends(Riku and Mickey) are in the castle, which they are though I wonder if Marluxia knew that at this point. To spell out this point to our heroes Marluxia says to them "To lose is to find, and to find is to lose" four times actually. And it's at this point combine with a few other previous moments where we learn that this adaptation has a comedic, I not sure how will this point will come across seeing has this is a text review(unless I should countless panels) so I will point it out when ever I fell it's at it's worst. Anyway Marluxia scans Sora's memories and makes a world card out of his memories which specifically is Traverse Town. Worlds cards are how the player would proceed through the game and it works the here though one wonders how many our heroes receive seeing as only 4 will be seen in this adaption.
So our heroes use the World Card taking them to Traverse Town where they perceive to eat at the first restaurant they see, because that's the important thing to do.
What was he going to say there is no sand related
magic in the first game, hell how many sand related
magic are actually featured in RPGs
But oh no Heartless attack and since they forgot all their abilities they are quickly subdued, fortunately they are rescued by Leon who is also accompany by Yuffie. It is soon discovered that despite having memories of our heroes Leon and Yuffie have no idea who Sora and company are, both parties meet up with Areith and Cid trying figure out what is going.
I just love this shot that's why it's here
Seeing as most of this pointless I'll just skip it. Everyone tries to see if Riku and Mickey are in Traverse Town to no avail, however they relearn their abilities. After leaving Traverse Town they arrive back in Castle Obvilion where they meet up with Marluxia again who explains that the Traverse Town they were in was just a illusion, so does this mean those 6 levels they gain wandering around didn't count, that's worse than having your game crash before you can save.
This kinda makes the whole illusion rather
obvious
So Marluxia decided to see if our heroes are up to the task of venturing further but he is interrupted by a guy named Axel who wants to have some fun with Sora, Marluxia leaves while our heroes begin to battle Axel.
magic in the first game, hell how many sand related
magic are actually featured in RPGs
But oh no Heartless attack and since they forgot all their abilities they are quickly subdued, fortunately they are rescued by Leon who is also accompany by Yuffie. It is soon discovered that despite having memories of our heroes Leon and Yuffie have no idea who Sora and company are, both parties meet up with Areith and Cid trying figure out what is going.
Seeing as most of this pointless I'll just skip it. Everyone tries to see if Riku and Mickey are in Traverse Town to no avail, however they relearn their abilities. After leaving Traverse Town they arrive back in Castle Obvilion where they meet up with Marluxia again who explains that the Traverse Town they were in was just a illusion, so does this mean those 6 levels they gain wandering around didn't count, that's worse than having your game crash before you can save.
obvious
So Marluxia decided to see if our heroes are up to the task of venturing further but he is interrupted by a guy named Axel who wants to have some fun with Sora, Marluxia leaves while our heroes begin to battle Axel.
Unlike in the last manga where the majority of battles where either offscreen or non-existent the battles here actually happen. Which is kinda of ironic this manga has a comedic tone yet does take the battles somewhat serious, sure with the comedic tone it's still not what we'll see in other adaptions but it is a sign of things to come.
Ah the ultimate attack
oh never mind
After our heroes fail to defeat Axel with a Trinity Power(which despite being a thing in the first game was not a thing in the last manga), he leaves giving Sora another World Card and offering to tell him what he'll find in the castle, however Sora declines. After his exit Axel warps to another area in Castle Oblivion where we are introduce a woman named Larxene who is part of the same group as Axel and Marluxia, and unlike the game where there is suspense as to who our villains the manga flat out says. The three are part of a group simply know as the Organization here,the actually name isn't said till the next manga though fans will know it as Organization XIII, with Axel, Marluxia, and Larxene ranks being No.8,No.11,and No.12 respectively. We also lose more suspense as early on in the game there were quick shots of a girl drawing but the manga just states here name as Naminè, oh what does it matter you already play the game or several if you missed the Tokyo Pop release. Meanwhile when our start to realize they're forgetting stuff when they can't remember the name of Hollow Bastion, however when they check Jiminy's journal to see Hollow Bastion's name they find the journal blank. This is something from the game I really don't get, as we'll see people's perception can be affected so I don't get why it just didn't appear that the journal was blank because really this doesn't effect much in the grand scheme of things, sure the journal needs to blank for the start of Coded but that could have been changed to it just happen at the start of Coded and there you go same effect. Anyway that's a story for another time.
Meanwhile while Sora and company are having their memory crisis we see that Riku is in an empty void. After some flashbacks of what happen to Riku at the end of Kingdom Riku is greeted by a voice who tells Riku he can just forever in this void however he can also take a the path of truth giving Riku a World Card to Hollow Bastion, Riku takes the card and enters Hollow Bastion. While wondering around battling Heartless Riku comes across Maleficent who encourages Riku to embrace the darkness, she is promptly defeated by Riku who soon learns the voice is Ansem, who is no longer pitch black like last time now having the same skin colour from the games. Ansem attempts to control Riku but thanks to a timely arrive by Mickey Riku is saved(offscreen surprise surprise,though he is offscreen so whatever), Ansem leaves giving Riku another World Card as well as enhancing the power of darkness in him. After this encounter Riku meets up with Mickey who while being in Castle Oblivion is further up so he can't interact in person buy he encourages Riku not to give in the darkness and the two promise to meet up in person as soon as possible.
The most evil villain plan you will ever lay eyes on
Meanwhile we are introduce to more members of the Organization; No.4 Vexen,No.5 Lexaeus and No.6 Zexion. Zexion informs the other two about Riku appearing in the basement but for whatever reason he seems similar to their superior(Organization's No.1), there is a reason for this but not the reason they give so we'll skip and leave it for whenever I get to the Kingdom Hearts 2 manga, the important part is that Vexen plans control Riku the same as Marluxia plans to control Sora.
The rest of volume 1 is rather pointless. It involves Sora and company heading to the next World Card which is Agarbah. In the overall story this just gets in the way so we'll skip it, it's not like we see another Disney worlds in this adaption so who cares. The one thing I will point out which is a nice twist that is after Aladdin wishes for Genie to make him a prince to impress Jasmine he uses his second wish to wish for Genie's freedom, which leads to our heroes trying to trick Jafar into thinking Sora,Donald,and Goofy are genies.
Of course their disguises are flawless
Anyway our manga ends with our heroes still counting their accession up Castle Oblivion despite the loss of memories and when Sora thinks about how he will find Riku and return home where Kairi is...but wait he also thinks about an unknown girl. Who could it be oh wait we already know it's Naminè and we already know she has something to do with our villains, thanks for that worthless cliffhanger.
Ok so like last time I'll wait till I finish volume 2 to go over the story and how well it works as a adaption. However lets go over the comedic tone. So yes the games as well other adaption have humorous parts to them but they never let the humor get in the way serious moments or villain moments(except for Pete but's that's a different story). It is kinda hard to take a villains serious when you add stupid little things like in Marluxia's case with repeating the same line over and over, if it's a minor villain or who doesn't take things seriously or one where we're not suppose to take them seriously OK, but it shouldn't be done with the main villain. Another big problem with this comedic tone is that unlike other Kingdom Hearts game Chain of Memories does take itself pretty seriously(not counting Disney worlds) throughout, so the tone feels really out of place.
Alright we'll get back to this next week with volume 2 which will actually be my last Kingdom Hearts manga review for a while, I know I said I wanted to do all of them but I'll move onto to something else after next week, I will get back to Kingdom Hearts someday but when is a different story. Until then this is WinterDeathPeach saying peace out.
After our heroes fail to defeat Axel with a Trinity Power(which despite being a thing in the first game was not a thing in the last manga), he leaves giving Sora another World Card and offering to tell him what he'll find in the castle, however Sora declines. After his exit Axel warps to another area in Castle Oblivion where we are introduce a woman named Larxene who is part of the same group as Axel and Marluxia, and unlike the game where there is suspense as to who our villains the manga flat out says. The three are part of a group simply know as the Organization here,the actually name isn't said till the next manga though fans will know it as Organization XIII, with Axel, Marluxia, and Larxene ranks being No.8,No.11,and No.12 respectively. We also lose more suspense as early on in the game there were quick shots of a girl drawing but the manga just states here name as Naminè, oh what does it matter you already play the game or several if you missed the Tokyo Pop release. Meanwhile when our start to realize they're forgetting stuff when they can't remember the name of Hollow Bastion, however when they check Jiminy's journal to see Hollow Bastion's name they find the journal blank. This is something from the game I really don't get, as we'll see people's perception can be affected so I don't get why it just didn't appear that the journal was blank because really this doesn't effect much in the grand scheme of things, sure the journal needs to blank for the start of Coded but that could have been changed to it just happen at the start of Coded and there you go same effect. Anyway that's a story for another time.
Meanwhile while Sora and company are having their memory crisis we see that Riku is in an empty void. After some flashbacks of what happen to Riku at the end of Kingdom Riku is greeted by a voice who tells Riku he can just forever in this void however he can also take a the path of truth giving Riku a World Card to Hollow Bastion, Riku takes the card and enters Hollow Bastion. While wondering around battling Heartless Riku comes across Maleficent who encourages Riku to embrace the darkness, she is promptly defeated by Riku who soon learns the voice is Ansem, who is no longer pitch black like last time now having the same skin colour from the games. Ansem attempts to control Riku but thanks to a timely arrive by Mickey Riku is saved(offscreen surprise surprise,though he is offscreen so whatever), Ansem leaves giving Riku another World Card as well as enhancing the power of darkness in him. After this encounter Riku meets up with Mickey who while being in Castle Oblivion is further up so he can't interact in person buy he encourages Riku not to give in the darkness and the two promise to meet up in person as soon as possible.
Meanwhile we are introduce to more members of the Organization; No.4 Vexen,No.5 Lexaeus and No.6 Zexion. Zexion informs the other two about Riku appearing in the basement but for whatever reason he seems similar to their superior(Organization's No.1), there is a reason for this but not the reason they give so we'll skip and leave it for whenever I get to the Kingdom Hearts 2 manga, the important part is that Vexen plans control Riku the same as Marluxia plans to control Sora.
The rest of volume 1 is rather pointless. It involves Sora and company heading to the next World Card which is Agarbah. In the overall story this just gets in the way so we'll skip it, it's not like we see another Disney worlds in this adaption so who cares. The one thing I will point out which is a nice twist that is after Aladdin wishes for Genie to make him a prince to impress Jasmine he uses his second wish to wish for Genie's freedom, which leads to our heroes trying to trick Jafar into thinking Sora,Donald,and Goofy are genies.
Anyway our manga ends with our heroes still counting their accession up Castle Oblivion despite the loss of memories and when Sora thinks about how he will find Riku and return home where Kairi is...but wait he also thinks about an unknown girl. Who could it be oh wait we already know it's Naminè and we already know she has something to do with our villains, thanks for that worthless cliffhanger.
Ok so like last time I'll wait till I finish volume 2 to go over the story and how well it works as a adaption. However lets go over the comedic tone. So yes the games as well other adaption have humorous parts to them but they never let the humor get in the way serious moments or villain moments(except for Pete but's that's a different story). It is kinda hard to take a villains serious when you add stupid little things like in Marluxia's case with repeating the same line over and over, if it's a minor villain or who doesn't take things seriously or one where we're not suppose to take them seriously OK, but it shouldn't be done with the main villain. Another big problem with this comedic tone is that unlike other Kingdom Hearts game Chain of Memories does take itself pretty seriously(not counting Disney worlds) throughout, so the tone feels really out of place.
Alright we'll get back to this next week with volume 2 which will actually be my last Kingdom Hearts manga review for a while, I know I said I wanted to do all of them but I'll move onto to something else after next week, I will get back to Kingdom Hearts someday but when is a different story. Until then this is WinterDeathPeach saying peace out.
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