Introduction
"Mystican Dreams" is a manga set in a fantasy universe populated by separate races of elves. The "Golds" - magic-users with tawny skin - fight constantly with the "Silvers" - grey-skinned elves who seem to be more proficient at actual physical combat. Against this backdrop, the story follows the adventures of Echo, princess of the Golds, and her bonded companion Atlah, a general among the Silvers. The two must overcome both the prejudices of their own people as well as personal doubts and demons and work together to bring peace to their war-torn world. The comic is flavored with hints of yuri (non-explicit lesbianism), but the role of sexuality and gender identity in the comic seems to take a back seat to the greater issue of racial prejudice.
The Positive Aspects
Weighing in at over 300 pages so far and with no end in sight, this comic is definitely serious about getting its story told. The pacing of the story is comfortable and interesting, and the plot, while not resoundingly unique, is realized in a way that keeps readers entertained and coming back for more. Themes such as prejudice, racism, duty, isolation and self-esteem are all handled competently; the serious points of the story, however, are very often interspersed or even infused with light humor.
The lesbian relationship between the two female leads does not take a prominent role in the story even though it is fairly obvious from the start; gender doesn't seem to be as important as character development and race. It also helps make the story palatable to any audience, even those who would normally not read "shounen-ai" or "shoujo-ai" stories. Almost every character is well-thought out; though the story focuses around the two main protagonists, minor characters are certainly not ignored, helping to give the world a more three-dimensional, fleshed-out feeling. The art, while starting off sloppily, does improve drastically with time, especially when rukiaprincess takes the time to ink her pages. Once inking becomes the norm rather than the exception to the comic pages, the black and white pages are very crisp and cleanly scanned, allowing the art to shine. Even from the beginning of the comic in the messier sketch pages, it's clear that the artist has no qualms about taking chances with angles and perspectives. Most panels are constructed carefully, from time to time with interesting and extreme perspectives and angles that many online comic makers are too timid to attempt. Spelling, for the most part, is relatively good; story dialogue and flow are also fairly easy to follow and naturally paced. Though readers have no danger of being confused by the story, neither is it overly simplistic. "Mystican Dreams" seems to hit a nice, steady balance that could appeal to a wide audience of many age groups. The comic is mostly black and white, but color is used sparingly and very effectively on some of the pages. The limitation of color pages to representations of strong magic is both a unique and effective way of getting the basic point across - this scene is special. It also helps that the color pages are also fairly well done; while shading is kept to a minimum, colors aren't too garish and flow smoothly with the art style.
Where this comic really shines, however, is neither in the story nor the artwork. What is most striking about "Mystican Dreams" is, ultimately, and perhaps surprisingly, its comic page layout. This is not something which would catch a normal reader's eye unless one was looking for it, and it is subtle enough that it could go mostly unnoticed. However, the page layout in this comic is fantastic. Angles, irregular boxes, cross-mixing of borders and styles all flow together smoothly to keep each page design interesting and intriguing in very subtle ways. Even if a panel is drawn poorly, readers can often forgive the mistakes simply because the panel layout of the page keeps the eye moving, infusing pictures with an energy and motion and allowing readers to follow the flow of dialogue very easily.
The Criticisms
For all of its strong points, "Mystican Dreams" is not without its flaws. The biggest and most difficult problem the comic faces is its own artwork. As said, the art really does drastically improve, and actually looks quite good for the most recent chapters. The first few chapters, however, are pretty much exercises in carelessness. While hand-lettering can be an art form in its own right, early pages in this comic are so sloppily hand-lettered that the dialogue is almost impossible to read. Early pages are also not inked, nor are they carefully drawn, giving readers the impression that they might be reading out of a sketchbook. Even more problematic are the rules through some of the artwork - early pages were drawn on blue-lined notebook paper, and the author, though obviously having some experience with image editing programs, didn't bother to remove the blue lines for a clean screen. Early pages also suffer severely from the lack of shading and/or color; characters, especially female ones, don't become easy to tell apart until around the 250th page. A crucial plot point in the story is that the coloring of the elves determines their race and relationship to one another; this is impossible to understand until much later in the story, when character design and coloring becomes clearly distinguishable between characters. A very few early drawings even have anatomical errors in them; altogether, if a reader isn't willing to sit through a few chapters of bad artwork, then they won't be able to enjoy the story when it finally achieves a state of good artwork.
There is a very painful, but simple solution to all of these problems - a redraw of the first chapter of the story. Personally, I tend to consider redrawing the kiss of death for any web comic; once an artist begins to second-guess artwork and try to 'improve' earlier chapters, a vicious cycle begins in which stories tend to stop being updated, permanently. For 'Mystican Dreams' however, it seems almost crucial, particularly for new readers to the story. A redraw of just the first chapter at the current artist's level would not only help not turn off new readers, but also allow the story to develop more clearly. Use of shading, better page layout, better lettering and corrections of the occasional spelling errors could all go a long way to boost this comic's popularity.
This improvement could also be linked hand-in-hand with another problem of the comic, which is its site design. While the design itself is not bad, it doesn't necessarily fit with the comic size, either. Here and there, randomly, some pages of the comic are too big for the design, distending it and making it look odd. Also, on at least one page of the comic, guest commentary distends the page design so much that the comic page itself is almost impossible to find. A more carefully thought-out site design, hand-in-hand with a comic summary as well as explanation of a redrawn first chapter would help new readers make sense of a comic this long and in-depth. Very bluntly, any comic that is more than 200 pages long should have a story summary briefly outlining major characters and the comic style or genre posted somewhere, so that new readers can get a feel as to whether or not they want to invest their time to read this comic.
The Conclusion
"Mystican Dreams" is certainly an interesting work worth further study. Those who enjoy fantasy manga comics will find this one to be right up their alley; interesting characters, a unique world and an engaging plot all combine to make this an enjoyable read. While the artwork could be better, particularly in earlier chapters, the drastic improvement in style and layout are both enjoyable to observe developing, and inspiring to other web-comic artists as a living example of how practice and dedication really can help artists improve. If you're looking for a good story, Mystican Dreams will satisfy your desires; if you can bear with a few chapters of questionable artistic quality, character designs and renders will also grow on you.
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Enkida
