ティスタ

TISTA

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
2
RELEASE
August 4, 2008
CHAPTERS
9

DESCRIPTION

Tista leads a dual life as the grim reaper of New York City and a university student studying to be a teacher. With extraordinary eyesight allowing her to make long-range shots with unrivaled accuracy, she has come to be feared by the criminal underground. Tista knows she’s doomed, but can her feelings for a young man she just met bring her back from the abyss? And what will she do if he finds out who she really is?

(Source: VIZ)

CAST

Tista Lone
Arty Drowa
Suzy Suzine
Father Petrus
Charlie
Brother Proko
Macky
Snow Ruethart
Mother Superior
Scar Bandaid
Nina Holyvor
Brother Lone

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Mangosh
70/100
We stumble our way from a confusing start, to land on a beautifully intense finish.
With a rather generic premise, we find our way through a story that doesn't start off really strong. Thankfully the lenght of this manga makes it far more easily digestible to just power through it, giving us a crescendo of emotions and intensity in the end. The biggest problem with the story might be the confusing character motivations as we basically learn nothing about them from the start. The few bits that are shown, feel more like peaces of a puzzle, which do have a payoff in the end, but don't give much of a reason to empathise with the main character who is particularly not very relatable. Trusting that the author has something in store for us, we learn only little until the very end, where everything is dropped onto us. This has several benefits, but also serves some problems. The biggest problem is that we don't understand why Tista is doing anything throughout the story, even when presented with the ghost of her subconsciousness, her real motivations are basically hidden in the end of the story. This however, serves as a great culmination of her emotions as we are finally presented with a concise backstory, explaining her character fully and allowing us to be anxious about the outcome of the final battle.

There are no classical bad guys in the story, except for the ones that Tista has to kill to keep her story moving forward. The real battle is between Tista's self, her subconscious and the reality of what the organisation is putting her through. The romance being the spark that ignites this war within herself is very tasteful, even if, by the end, the connections that all the characters have are revealed to us in a rather convoluted way, with Arty just accidentally seeing the old Mother with the picture that he drew. Convoluted accidents aside, the romance reminds of a sort of point of life, what do we wish to be, and because of it we start cheering for Tista in the final moments, cheering for her just to smile, while in that very moment she might very well die. It is the perfect moment to start showing us the point of the story, but it wouldn't have hurt to know all of the information from the orphanage from the beginning, as we could've avoided the unnecessary asspull of seeing Arty just accidentally stumbling upon it. The final confusing part might be the main villain, who is introduced only at the very end of the story. He does serve his purpose, serving as Tista's connection to the past and present (and later the future). While nothing can be said about him as a character, his battle is the highlight of the manga. While Endou could've avoided just dropping exposition about their powers in the middle of the most important fight, the point of the fight is much more important than the choreography.

The story may have its ups and downs, but in a way, so does the storytelling. While the art is beautiful and it is to be expected of Tatsuya Endou and his charming style, the paneling and the flow of the pages is a hit or miss. The misses are usually pages that are far too detailed, with little breathing room and plastered in unnecessary text, making some parts of the story a bit jarring. This however is actually juxtaposed by the amazing action scenes and some great and clear choreography that is sprinkled throughout the manga. Adding just a dash of well drawn impact scenes and charming character design, Tatsuya Endo presents us with this somehow messy yet simple story, that actually sticks the landing when it needed to.
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