Demographic: Shoujo
Age: Young Teen+
[xrr rating=2/5]
Summary: Olympos by Aki is a manga about a beautiful young man who was plucked from Earth by Apollo. Apollo makes
him spend his days in Zeuse’s garden. It’s always night, there are no shelters, and the ground is made up of white flowers. Every time Ganymede tries to run and leave the garden, he discovers that he moves nowhere.
Story Line: I don’t know if it was just me but, I felt like the manga didn’t have a direct story. It mainly follows the Greek god Apollo (It does switch to Ganymede every once in a while) and his slowly growing fascination with human beings and what gods really are. I found myself bored and confused through most of this book. I usually enjoy walls of texts in manga, but it was choppy and didn’t make sense half of the time.
Art: The art was simply amazing. I can’t even imagine how long it took the author to draw up each character. Every little thing on each page is so detailed and beautiful. The art is the main part of why I kept reading. My two favorite character designs were Zeus and Hades. Both are starkly different but amazingly lovely.
Characters: To me, Ganymede was whiny and boring. Sure, I would be bored and whiny if I was trapped in a garden for all eternity, but why even put that in a story if it’s not interesting? I think the focus was to see if he could ever come to peace with the idea of being immortal and never leaving the space. I hated Apollo at the beginning and loved him by the end. There was something about who he “really was” that interested me.
Overall: When I finished this manga, I looked over at Kevin and said “MEH”. There was just nothing to it and at times I had to force myself to read it, hoping it would magically get better. If you do want to check out this manga, do it for the art. You will not be disappointed.
Olympos by Aki is out on June 26, 2012. If you’re interested in buying it, you can do so here: