Pandora Hearts. Now I see...

I read Pandora Hearts when it first came out, and even though I'm not much of a crier, it made me cry every chapter, long, hard and anguishedly. It felt as if I had a string crossing my neck and throat, and tied across my ribs, and Pandora Hearts alone had ever been able to play it a certain way, some sort of way that reminded me a lot of a long passed time in which people talked about the harmony of the spheres and how with musical sympathy it influenced even human lives. When I arrived to this panel, and the panel after it, when Jack himself is crying, I felt myself break because it felt like the perfect ending, like he had reached what unknowingly he had been seeking all along; no, it felt better than that, deeper than that, but I find it as difficult to describe as the abyss had been for Lacie. And I hoped to see it too, like Jack. And I hoped so much, so deeply, to see this panel in color.

After Pandora Hearts I've never read a manga again. Nothing compared for me, nothing filled  the way Pandora Hearts had filled me, filling me in a way of filling that felt a lot like emptying me. Nothing played the string across my throat and ribs the way it did. I read books before Pandora Hearts, and I read them after it, and some of them were able to play for me a similar tune. When books do that, I think it feels as if the authors were in silence with you, maybe reaching for your hand, quietly making you feel less lonely, less alone in the world, as if they were in the room with you, even though actually they might be long dead, too long for them to be even ghosts, centuries or even millenials ago. Which feels comforting, which feels understanding; which also breaks my ribs a little bit. And still nothing was quite the same as Pandora Hearts. For all these past years I've reread some parts of the manga, but never again had I read it from the beginning, until a few nights ago. I think I was afraid it would let me down, that maybe what had surprised me and moved me the first time wouldn't have the same effect on me. That maybe memory would have caused its magic of turning things better than they were, the way past things sometimes seem to be covered in some golden glowing dust. I thought I'd love it again, but I was quite sure after knowing already the story, and having had it very present through the years, it couldn't cause the same impresion on me it once did. But it did. And I cried as much as I cried the first time, maybe more, with the same broken heart, with the same anguish, with the same feeling of the string across my throat and ribs being touched to the point of breaking. I spent several nights crying just by the memory of it afterwards, with the bittersweet sense those melancholic sad nights leave, full of love and heartbreak, with a hint of a twisted satisfaction.

As consequence, I looked again for some coloured panels, like I had been doing years ago, when I first read the manga. In fact, I was already aquainted with your work, and I deeply loved it. I love the way you paint Rufus Barma, Levi, Ada, Break and Vincent. And Lacie and Jack are two of my favourite characters ever in all literature, in all media, in all History, in any story, and you made them so much justice. I loved the panel of Jack and the B-Rabbit, and the one of Jack sitting with his watch in his hand, smiling, and I adore the one of the thoughtful melancholic Lacie when she realised her own loneliness and feelings for Jack. I adore the two pictures of Jack with a sad twisted smile, surrounded by a glowing dust (though I adore all of the pieces you coloured of Jack), and the one of that spotless whiteness that is Alyss. I love love love the way you paint Lacie, and all the scenes you coloured of Oswald and Jack, some gleeful, some tender, all of them heartbreaking. Your coloured picture of the three of them, Oswald and Jack with Lacie behind them, is one of my favourite pictures in all the Pandora Hearts fandom. I've used it so many times as wallpaper for my computer and lockscreen for my phone. I've had a lot of your pictures as lockscreen. But even when I didn't, I usually carried some with me at all times in all the phones I've had. In truth, it was about time I thanked you.

But I hadn't seen this picture until a few nights ago. The very moment I saw it, I felt dizzy. I felt my heart clench, and I started crying. I've always wanted to see the abyss, it was so important for me for so many reasons, and this panel was the most important one for me in all the manga, for the abyss, clean and beautiful again, for Lacie, for Jack; it was really the end of the journey, and the end of Jack, in so many levels. I've always wanted to see this panel alight, in colour. And you made it so much justice. It sounds like the music of the harmonies reverberating inside my lungs, in the vacuum of my chest. 

I don't even know what to say, in spite of having written so much. Maybe that's why I've written so much. You made it better than I could have imagined was possible without actually seeing the abyss. You made me feel even more for the abyss, for Lacie, and especially for Jack. I adore this panel so much, too much. I've wanted to see this so much, too long. I've loved it too long, had meant too much. And now I see it. Just saying "thank you" didn't feel enough, it felt flat, so sorry for the long comment. And thank you, a "thank you" beyond words.