Jas Reviews: Aniture

Hello, my name is Jas. I read a comic in Webkomph and today, I will give you my review and my thoughts and opinions on Aniture: Recollection of the Past by Jamaica “Jhamycka” Sobrenilla. I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but for those who haven’t read the comic, please be warned that there are spoilers ahead. With that, let’s begin.

Aniture opens with a prologue of the world’s creation lore. It explains the existence of gods and goddesses, their conflict, and their importance in the story. Strong start! Then halfway through the prologue, the comic jumps to a guy getting tortured. It takes you at the edge of your seat. Who is he? Why is he getting tortured? Good stuff!

Then, chapter 1 follows up on the scene where the guy is being tortured. It sets up a story thread of gods and goddesses living in mortal vessels, and that there are certain ways to free them off their mortal coil. This chapter also mentioned a prophecy. This chapter maintains a high level of tension. There are some huge characters being introduced, a lot of things happening at the same time, and the plot is progressing at a fast pace.

Chapter 2 then starts with a different tone. The dark and gloomy mood the chapter established was replaced by warm and soothing colors. Chapter 2 starts with a dream sequence, a “2 years later” narration, and we got introduced to the main character, Anne Xyzah. We follow through her life in the quiet snowy mountains of Winterwolf Mountain. We then follow her adventure to become a Handler. We get an exposition to the world’s lore and we learn some of the world’s customs.

We move on to Chapter 3 and we get to follow Anne’s adventure of crossing the Colonial Forest. We get to see what’s it like being a Handler by watching Anne do some incredible stuff along with her Aniture, Artiny the fox.

Chapter 4 is still in the works, so I won’t cover it here.

Here are my thoughts and opinions to the comic. First, let’s assess the comic in terms of story. And after that, let’s assess its art.

I consider a comic having a “good” story if they follow the five (5) elements of a story. These are Character, Setting, Plot, Conflict, and Theme. Using these metrics, we get to a bind. Aniture did a 180^O  turn. The story in the first chapter is almost completely different in the subsequent chapters.

Chapter 1	Chapter 2 and beyond
Character - unnamed guy	Character - Anne
Setting - in an unnamed city	Setting - in a snowy mountain and forest
Plot - high tension and heavy action	Plot - light hearted and adventurous
Conflict - avatar of god vs. humans	Conflict - girl vs. nature and her journey
Theme - gods are assholes	Themes - there is much more you need to learn

Also, much of the problems that I saw in the first chapter was absent in the previous chapter. This shows that the author, Jhamycka, is improving as she progresses with her story. This means that most of my issues regarding to the story are isolated in the first chapter, which was corrected in a recap chapter before reading chapter 2. With that, let’s discuss some of the things that I take issues of.

The nameless character.

The vessel of the god of death and darkness was unnamed. There are also a lot of characters that goes unnamed until the last part of the chapter. I also get the feeling that the author is cramming a lot of character in the story, but wants to give them all a sense of mystery. Because of that, some of the characters were not properly characterized. Sure, the recap chapter explained a lot, however I think that the first chapter must properly present the characters it wants to present. Also, it is hard to empathize and have a connection to to a nameless character.

The magic system.

Reading the 1^st chapter, I am introduced to magic. However, as the story progressed, the world is shown to have a fairly high technological advancement. There is also a scene where one of the characters was surprised to learn that magic exists in their world. This is called Urban Fantasy. This is a genre where fantasy-like story elements like magic is placed in a more realistic setting like a city. The story has magic and high technology in it. Going back to the surprised character, this is a bit jarring because there is no stated strategy or desire to keep magic hidden in the story. If magic is not necessarily hidden in the story, then why did the extra character found its existence surprising? Huh…

The unexplained prophecy.

The 1^st chapter alluded to a prophecy. A lot of people are really concerned to that prophecy. But… what is the prophecy? I dunno. It was not explained, and I feel that it needs to be explained. However, it was not explained and I’m mad about it. It may be intentional to the part of the author, though, I don’t know.

Again, let me point out that all these issues only appeared in chapter 1. The subsequent chapters do not have these problems.

With all of that, the story is good and it has all the basic elements in it. Let’s move on.

I consider a comic having a “good” art if they follow these four (4) aspects of a comic. These are Art Style, Character Design, Composition, and Flow. However, I won’t be as harsh in judging the art as I am judging the story part of the comic. Using these metric, let’s look at the comic.

In terms of art style, the comic is presented in a webtoon style of paneling using a stylized illustration reminiscent to Japanese manga. Since the comic is following the webtoon approach, each illustration is colored, therefore, each panel is beautifully made and a lot of detail is presented.

In terms of character design, the main character, Anne, is drawn quite well and her design stands out. She has a good and unique silhouette that helps her stand out to other characters in the story. Each creature, or Aniture, is also well designed and drawn. The design of the creatures does not deviate to the general aesthetic that the comic had set, which is good and consistent.

In terms of composition, the word bubble, sound effects, and the characters all stand out. They take up the space of each panel quite well. There are some instances where a wall of text makes certain expositions hard to read, but it happened early on. In the end, I feel that since the comic is presented as a webtoon, it has a lot of space to draw and compose a panel.

In terms of flow, since the comic is a webtoon, the flow of the panel and word bubble is a moot point. Call-outs always exists above the panel, panels are given way more space than normal, and the flow always go down, simulating a mouse scrolling down a page. Since the story is easy to understand, I attribute it to the good flow of the comic.

To wrap it all up… Aniture: Recollection of the Past is a good comic with a good story and an exquisite art. It has a well-written story. Despite having a prologue about gods and prophecy, it is a story about a girl and her adventure to become a Handler. Her relation to the gods and prophecy is still unknown and I am sure as heck would like to know more. I recommend you read Aniture at Webkomph, now.

And that concludes my review. Did you like what you read? Do you have any comments? Suggestions? Recommendations? Please tell us more about it on the comments below.

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