Pandora Hearts ~odds and ends~

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Pandora Hearts ~odds and ends~ by Jun Mochizuki came out last month and it’s a huge, 168-page collection of Pandora Hearts art work, with a little extra. The book has an excellent design with cut outs and colors to best present each illustration.

The book comes in a black slip cover box with the title text. When you pull out the book, it has an additional slip cover, with no text and a new illustration of Oz.

The majority of the book is Pandora Hearts, with most of the illustrations getting a page all to themselves. There are also several spreads with plenty of illustrations of Alice, Oz, and Gilbert.

Some pages don’t feature an illustration and are there to create an ambiance for how you look at the art work. See the pictures above for an example. It’s kind of like in a gallery exhibition, where the lighting or the background color of a wall affects the presentation. Most art books don’t take this kind of thing in to consideration. There are about 20 of these “ambiance” pages, so it may feel like wasted space to some people.

A lot of these illustrations appeared in G Fantasy. Of course, in the magazine, they have text titles. Plus, the paper quality isn’t the greatest. For most of these, it’s the first time you get to see the art as it was originally.

Here’s another example of the kind of artistic presentation this book has: page cut-outs. This one is shaped like a cross, but there are two others: a wing and a circle. It’s a neat visual effect when you’re browsing through because in forces you to focus on one part of the illustration.

Although the slip cover only had the Oz part of the new illustration, in the book you can see the other half, which features Jack. I’d like to mention that I’ve never actually watched Pandora Hearts or read the manga. I’m just a fan of the art.

There’s also a section for all the cover art from the manga volumes up to volume nine.

The rest of the Pandora Hearts section is dedicated to a more casual style of illustrations by Jun Mochizuki, several of which are done in a chibi style.

And now, 32 pages of black and white rough sketches. The section is titled “Laugh x Rough” but it’s mostly just rough. The sketches are nice though.

The book ends with art work primarily from Crimson Shell. At first, I didn’t even notice the difference between those characters and the ones from Pandora Hearts. There is also one picture from Tales of the Abyss. Pandora Hearts ~odds and ends~ has a cover price of ￥2,800, but it’s a great price for this well-presented and large volume of art work.