Ocean of Secrets, Volume 1 (Ocean of Secrets manga)

Ocean of Secrets Vol 1 was ok but not great. It's a story about a girl named Lia who falls out of a boat on the stormy seas and is rescued by two magical sailors, Moria and Al, who are on the run after Al was framed for killing the land's queen and kidnapping its princess. The art was nice, and the concept for the story was imaginative and original, and I loved the random adorable cat that was in it. However, even though the individual art panels were good there was clearly little consideration put into the way that they were constructed across the page, and it was often confusing what order I was supposed to read them in, especially when there were often long panels one-side of the page which were sometimes intended to be read as one sequence and sometimes intended to be read taking a break for the lower line on the other side. The characters were also very poorly explored, and while development was attempted, I still didn't feel like I actually knew any of them by the end of the volume since the whole story was effectively told from Lia's perspective, and all of the time they spent getting to know each other is glossed over in favour of short diary entries about how they are becoming a family (has the writer never heard of "show, don't tell"?). Speaking of Lia, her adoptive sister gets completely forgotten about after Lia falls off the boat, and Lia doesn't even mention her or suggest that Moria and her brother try to rescue her, even though she was abandoned on a small boat in a stormy sea. How am I supposed to relate to/care about a protagonist who forgets about their little sister and doesn't even try to see if she's ok or even still alive? The plot twist regarding Lia's true identity was pretty easy to see coming, and while the art is mostly really good, there is one panel in which the king's eyes look bizarrely droopy, and another in which Moria has one enormous thumb. The story also somehow managed to feel both boring and rushed at the same time, and I think that was because the first conflict happened in-universe months after Lia was rescued, but we still hadn't gotten to know any of the characters as a reader. It would have made a lot more sense to set the attack earlier on and use that as the scenario by which the characters came to trust one another, then show their development together and actually explore their personalities. In conclusion, then: The art is good apart from when it isn't, panels are poorly constructed, characters are given no exploration, the story is predictable, the conclusion anticlimactic, and too much time is wasted on infodumping. Ocean of Secrets Vol 1 was a good idea very poorly executed.

It's excellent book,my daughter loves it

Finally so good to read this manga, been waiting so long for Sophie Chan to publish this and it has been worth the wait immensely. The story is creative, the characters are interesting, the drawings are consistently great, all you could ask for in a manga. Can't wait for more, will be buying the second they come out. A long time youtube fan, keep it up Sophie!