The Tarot Cafe, Volume 2: Volume 2

It's pretty easy to find meaningless, boring pretty manga in any bookstore now. And to tell you the truth, they're a dime a dozen. Yawn. Boring. But, Tarot Cafe actually held my attention. It's wonderful. The illustration quality is unbeatable. I'm so sick of all these cheap quality comics with scratchy pen style doodles that a grade schooler with a How To Draw Manga book could turn out. I require both beauty and plot in a manga and this title is one of the few that can deliver. The depth of screentoning is amazing, the characters are well rendered and over all, quite unique. They're pretty, sure, but not because they've simply got big eyes and weird hair. The story starts out all over the place and eventually begins to get pieced together. This series is to be read in order and be prepared to read them all. I'm always more impressed with the last issue after I've finished the latest.

Picking up where the first volume left off and resolving the tragic story of the alchemist and the jester, the second volume of the Tarot Café provides a comfortable segue into the rest of the chapters, which are a bit different than the ones in the first volume. They begin to deal more with the mysterious Pamela, as well as her friend Belus. My only problem with this volume was that the parts about Pamela's past seemed to be a bit rushed and sloppy. I would've loved for the usual straightforward style of this manhwa (which I love about it) to slow down a bit and delve deeper into Pamela's character, seeing as she is the main character. But the characters introduced in this volume seem to be more than just fleeting characters, like most in volume one, which I like because Park's characters are unique and likeable. This is my favorite series, and for a good reason. :)

The first volume of "Tarot Cafe" was a worthy buy, being beautiful, intriguing, and charismatically enigmatic...but a instead of having a solid plot, there was a collection of mini-stories. These short tales centered around troubled supernatural creatures, such as a form-shifting cat, a vampire, and a fairy. Due to thier time in the angsty spotlight, Pamela, the main character,was shunted to the side. The first half of the second book follows this formula, somewhat. The story on the Alchemist and his jester is finished up most satisfactorily, and from there the actual continual storyline is approached. You hear the story of a werewolf boy who is wandering aimlessly, and how his personal heartbreak lead him to the Tarot Cafe to be Pamela's assistent; Aaron is the new permanent character in addition to Pamela and Belius, it seems. Then the really big stuff happens; after you meet Ash, a young man fleeing murderous religious fanatics,the book makes a sharp turn and delves into Pamela's past.The conclusions to each "episode" spark more questions than they answer; there's much more to Belius and Ash than what is first implied. There were a few things that I noticed and didn't like so much.The part on Pamela's past, while able to raise an eyebrow, can be a bit confusing and overlapped at times, and needs to be read over to be understood. There's a big chunk of it that's generalized in two pages, although it appears as if it will gone over in detail in a later book. Also, the tarot cards' meanings are always explained in a way that allows the reader to make inferences, but as there are many cards you have to slow down and read all of them, thus making you depart from the story. The new characters are even more lovely than the ones before. Ash, Aaron, and Nebiros (the big three newbies) are all males, but you get that impression that Pamela is more masculine than two of them. (I'll let you find out which two.) Not only are they very, very pretty (which is actually kind of sweet.) but they're victimized- a lot. And they're all involved in some shounen-ai, which isn't bad, but it'd be nice to see some masculinity in the guys-other than the alchemist, there are a lot of femme guys in the series. I like that most of the time, but there can always be too much of anything. The departure from the Les Bijoux style is as obvious as ever-but you see a little bit of Sang's earlier style (which is far more realistic) in Ash. Also, the stories definitely branch into more depth with a number of metaphors and references to mythology and fairytales. All in all, Tarot cafe is dark, stylish fun, and you'll definitely want to pick up number 3 after reading 2.