Note: I went into reading this blind. Never touched the original light novels. I jumped on this manga from J-Novel's lineup because it looked decent and finally not an isekai or reincarnation or some variant of these. Read the first two volumes. As the header indicates, I was left with mixed feelings. The art is pretty nice. Not groundbreaking, a bit shojou-esque, but decently done and also pleasant to look at. The panels flow a bit oddly, from left to right in some places (despite these being traditional manga volumes otherwise), but there's nothing that really breaks immersion. The mythology of the world is kinda interesting. Somethings, like the shades are kinda poorly explained (more on this later), but there's little in the way of info dumps and by the end of the first story arc you'll have a good understanding of who's who and what is going on. The main characters are not especially deep, but they're sympathetic enough for the story to work and have pretty good chemistry. The pace of the story is also fine; it doesn't rush anywhere, but things are moving forward at a solid pace, with big, 50-page chapters.

So what is my problem, exactly? A couple of small things that still add up and slightly sour my enjoyment of the whole. Chief among them being how this story is a perfect example of the manga industry's (or Japan's) weird relationship with the concept of purity and sex.

As proclaimed by the manga's description, the story takes place in a "pleasure town" where wine, music and carnal bliss await those who can afford it. The silver-haired female lead in fact runs a brothel. You'd think that would have some kind of effect on the story or on the characters. It doesn't. In fact, and I don't think this counts as a spoiler, while the female lead is indeed a "holy courtesan", by tradition she will only choose one single "guest" in her lifetime, and eventually even the characters admit that it's pretty much the same as getting married. Every single named character who works in the brothel abides by the same rule (though technically they wouldn't have to). The male lead is offered to spend a night in the brothel, but he declines, because, well, he's a male lead in a manga, so of course he wouldn't accept. At the risk of sounding mean-spirited, it's almost as if the author came up with the setting to lure in a certain demographic and then backpedaled as quickly as possible. This is not the only story to do that, heck, as I mentioned male leads in such Japanese media are notorious for their "chivalry" and chastity. But here it is so blatant that it earned a facepalm from me. Want to portray a town selling sex? Great. Want to portray an innocent love story between two young people? That can be great as well. But you can't have your cake and eat it too.

The way the story unfolds is also a bit wonky at times. The female lead survives conditions that would kill ordinary people, and does so for three whole days before she is found, yet the male lead, who, like the reader, has no idea about the town's mysteries, never bothers asking how she managed to do that. We do get an explanation much later, but it's still rather forced. Also, the shades, despite being present in the story a lot, are given frustratingly little focus. This is especially problematic because they look like humans, the main characters are supposed to kill them on sight, yet not all of them appear bloodthirsty, with many simply fleeing for their lives. Is that on purpose? Well, hopefully we'll find out later.

If the above doesn't seem to bother you, then by all means, take a look. Make no mistake, "A Pale Moon Reverie" is still above a whole lot of more "mainstream" content available today on J-Novel or elsewhere. Just be careful with your expectations.