Dark Mortal

I don't know if it entirely works. It's the story of this one kid whose family died in a fire accident, and after being blinded, he can only manage to see a little dark blob that keeps him company. He, somehow, manages to let the kid recover his sight, with a steep price for it. Maybe it's just me, but this feels like a remnant of edgy superpowered teen stories. You've got the tragic past protagonist, the edgy, crazy smile, the amnesia, bigger purpose, weird romance, “I can't feel anything”, “I cut off my emotions”, what people call “aura-farming”, but failing. The bullying, organizations, underestimating characters,mentors die, whatever. It's a mystery, but even after the cool reveals, and the interesting character dynamics, it feels hollow. It's one of the best of the worst, if that makes sense. Like, among the bad quality of the things mentioned, this one is good, but it only uses overused elements in an intriguing story. It's a hard balance to achieve that. I don't know if more time was needed for this story, or something. Maybe it's that there was never really a theme to this whole thing. There's not judging a book by its cover, right? Our main character was blind, now he isn't, so people don't judge him. Right, but then it changes to revenge, and how it drags people you love into problems. Yes, but the main character doesn't have much to do with this until the end of the first season, which is way past any establishing theme at that point. It's not the main one. There's other three, however, none stand on their own. The story doesn't work as a whole, even if it has some good moments. That's what's missing. A strong base to hold everything together. There should always be one when creating a story that isn't just filler for the brain. A story about vengeance, that's about school and making friends, that's about a supernatural, sci-fi being, with greed, and capitalism, and the rich ruining everything, and about a bad upbringing, and being a good person afterward. It's about finding happiness after your own mistakes, but then it's about making the mistakes again, and having the protagonist correct them, or make them worse. I can't really say any of these, is a main idea, it doesn't stick. The art is a little bad, but I don't blame the author for that, it's nice to see a story that needed to be told, and apparently it is the writer-artist's debut. It's a story, definitely one with a plot, and characters, and ideas, but none of them hold within each other from a main one, at least from which I can tell. At least it's a fast one, and the dialogue and character conversations are pretty good, and realistic for the context, save the stupid romantic moments which seem a little forced. The cool moments are there, but, the story really doesn't seem to be wanting to be cool, if that makes sense. 5.7/10. The little Dark Mortal is the best thing in this whole story, believe me. I can slightly recommend it, but not entirely.