Cult classic, you're probably going to either love or hate this manga.
Strengths:
[ul]- Fantastic world and atmosphere
- World is kept as mysterious to the viewer as it is to the MC through a lack of exposition/info dumping
- Most chapters are relatively easy to read, and most of the manga is entirely visual with minimal storytelling
- Most arcs are short and don't drag on too long
- Visual style and storytelling does an incredible job at selling the scale of the world and the ungodly lengths of time it takes to traverse it
- Visual storytelling done right ("show, don't tell")[/ul]
Weaknesses:
[ul]- Practically no dialogue
- Early chapters are disjointed from the remainder of the book
- Art style evolves over time and gradually improves, leaving earlier chapters looking clunky and unrefined in comparison to later chapters
- Some chapters are total cluster-fucks and require numerous re-reads to grasp[/ul]
Overall, one of my favorites of all time. It's definitely not everybody's cup of tea, but most of the chapters are easy to read through, and it's not a joke to say that the ~2,000 pages of this manga series can be read in about 6 hours. Give it a try, at least a handful of chapters. If you're not digging it, you won't like it later. If you fall in love, you'll love it all the way through.