Wow. That was amazing. This series is amazing. I love Oz and Alice and Gil and everyone else. The art is gorgeous, the story wonderfully involving, the atmosphere pitch perfect. Older!Gil is absolutely unf-tastic ♥ So excited for volume three!

Also, anyone saying this is a rip off of Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler must have their head screwed in backwards; the series has practically nothing in common and they are not related except for both being fantasy series. And if you think PH is confusing, you must be used to series that spoon feed you the answers to the twists and turns automatically instead of actually developing a mystery over several arcs. Honestly, some manga fans are just lazy :| ( )

Oz has accepted his new place in the Pandora organization with a surprisingly cheery attitude. Him and Alice and Raven are given a job to investigate some occurrences in the city which end up being caused by a Chain that has escaped the Abyss. Most of this is fairly light-hearted until you get to the high action scenes with the Chain.

The second half of the book is more serious. Alice recovers another memory, which was awesome. I love how we are having to piece together all of these complex bits of story; this is a series you have to read carefully as it is becoming fairly complex.

I also really enjoyed finding out what really happened that day at Oz’s coming of age ceremony and loved finding out the fate of Oz’s faithful valet Gilbert.

The illustration throughout this manga is really well done. This series is set in Victorian times and has a very Victorian flare to it but also has a lot of supernatural elements. It does remind a bit of Black Butler. Although I don’t enjoy Pandora Hearts quite as much as Black Butler yet; I am really loving it.

Overall an excellent continuation to this series. I enjoyed the characters, the world, and the complex plot. This is a very creative and intriguing series which I am excited to continue reading. I would recommend to fans of supernatural themed manga; especially to those who enjoy Victorian settings in their manga. ( )

The second volume is crammed just as full of events and world and character info as the first. The one part with the young illegal contractor was over so fast that, if you blinked, you missed it, which makes me wonder why Mochizuki even bothered. If the point was to show that illegal contractors were not necessarily evil people right from the start, then it might have been better to incorporate that into the illegal contractor story that starts in the next volume.

Two things I liked: Gil and Oz's friendship, and Break. A portion of this volume expanded upon Gil and Oz's first meeting, Gil becoming Oz's valet, and the two of them renewing their friendship after Oz learns that Raven is Gil. It was all very sweet. Break looks potentially villainous at this point in the series. He can go from smiling and silly to sharp and a little scary in a second.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

Excellent- even better than the previous volume, and with even more references to the "Alice" books. You also get to see more of characters such as Zwei, Raven, the Intention of the Abyss, and best of all, the enigmatic Xerxes Break. ( )