Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Blog

Loyal Soldier, Lustful Beast

by

By Sumire Saiga and Saya Shirosaki. Released in Japan as “Gunjin wa Ai no Kemono” by Sonya Bunko. Released in North America by Steamship. Translated by M. Jean. Adapted by H. Qi.

(This book is meant for readers over the age of 18,. and the review uses a few words that are a bit naughty.)

Steamship is one of Seven Seas’ many different imprints, and specializes in what my grandmother might have called “smutty books”. Until now, they have specialized in manga titles, all under the “josei” umbrella and basically a romance-novel style manga, only with added sexual content. Now we get this stand-alone novel, which is the first light novel under the imprint. We got a sexually explicit light novel licensed a few years ago, but that one was more on the “for guys” end, and I think Amazon pulled it relatively quickly. This one is probably safe, if only as if you removed all the sex scenes from it, it would still have a coherent and interesting plotline. Well, eventually. This book is a slow starter, and does not exactly have prose that compels you to read on, so it took me a while to get into it. In addition, a word of warning, there’s as certain amount of “codependency is good if it’s romantic” here.

Giselle is a young woman of marriageable age, but unfortunately she’s seen as a bit drab, so all the potential marriage meetings she’s been to have ended in failure. Then her brother, a soldier in the royal army, brings home a colleague, who was kidnapped and enslaved as a young boy, and still has a bit of a slave mindset to him. Giselle takes pity on him and tries to teach him how to think for himself and not just do whatever anyone tells him to. In fact, she’s falling in love with him, and he with her. This is, needless to say, a bit of a problem given that he’s an ex-slave and she’s a noble. As if that weren’t enough, the King has asked for her to join his court as one of the royal concubines. This is not really an order that can be refused. What will become of her relationship with Wallace?

So, first of all, the sex is fine. There’s quite a bit of it, mostly featuring different positions and quite a bit of cunnilingus. Wallace had a tendency to put everyone before himself, so blowjobs are not really on the table, and even asking if he can do her from behind is saved till the end when they’re far more familiar with each other. The main reason to read this, though, is the intrigue. The King straight up admits that he’s using Giselle as a hostage to keep Wallace loyal to him, and the threat ends up driving the latter half of the book. As I indicated earlier, Wallace worships the ground Giselle walks on, and would happily murder anyone if she asked him to. Meanwhile, Giselle has always felt drab and unloved, except maybe by her brother, so suddenly getting someone who adores her and is also fantastic in bed is quite a cocktail. Hopefully a lack of constant danger will allow these two to mature as a couple to where they aren’t the only thing in each other’s lives.

Despite pedestrian prose (AO3 has spoiled me) and a tendency towards romance tropes (there’s a sexual assault here, though Wallace arrives in time to break it up, and he’s always a gentleman to her in bed), this got better as it went along, and I’d recommend it to those looking for a good smutty book.

My Magical Career at Court: Living the Dream After My Nightmare Boss Fired Me from the Mages’ Guild!, Vol. 2

by

By Shusui Hazuki and necomi. Released in Japan as “Black Madōgushi Guild o Tsuihō Sareta Watashi, Ōkyū Majutsushi to Shite Hirowareru: White na Kyūtei de, Shiawase na Shinseikatsu o Hajimemasu! ” by SQEX Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Mari Koch.

As with the previous volume, how much you enjoy this will depend on two things. The first is how much you care about people who are ridiculously the best at everything they do. Noelle especially, but also Luke, are both prodigies, and show it off throughout the story. This means there are multiple scenes of them being praised to the skies. I know this can annoy some readers. The bigger issue may be the romantic tension, which is using a combination of two devastating “put this off as long as possible” moves – she’s oblivious, he’s a coward. These are both also really, really emphasized throughout, and in my opinion grate far more than the OP stuff. If you can get past both of these, this remains a fun series about a woman in her dream job not realizing how incredible and loved she really is.

After the events of the last book, and after reassuring the now recovered wyvern that she doesn’t really need anything right now from him, Noelle returns to the Magical Court, where she remains busy. She gets a new teacher who everyone calls the hardest teacher they’ve ever had, and while she initially struggles, she ends up being fantastic. She is invited to the Royal Invitational Tournament to fight the World’s Greatest Swordsman, a match everyone expects her to lose instantly. And she and Luke are headed off to the worst dungeon in the world, which just had a new level open after 20 years, and they must face off against a last boss. Still, can’t be worse than Noelle’s last boss, amirite?

The romance here is frustrating but understandable. Noelle is firmly in “I am a commoner” mode, helped along at times by various jerkass nobles, and never even considers a romance with Luke as she knows it’s impossible. Luke has been in love with her almost since they met, but a) has the same problem in reverse, and b) worries that he will ruin their friendship forever if he confesses and it goes wrong. and, to be fair to Luke, we even see that a bit here – after being forced by his superiors to take Noelle on a date to the theater, it turns out it’s a theater where an underground drug ring is operating, and he and Noelle are forced to step in and stop the bad guys. As a result, the present he got her joins the dozens of other presents he’s bought her over the years in a room that is basically a shrine to his failure. The only way he can really make this work is for Noelle to get so insanely powerful so fast she gets a title… but before that, she may end up being poached by the Royal Family for their guard. So yes, Luke’s a coward, but I get it.

This has 5 volumes in Japan, so don’t expect it to end soon. Next time we’ll get a tournament arc and an elf queen, so also don’t expect it to be original. But it’s fun, provided you remember my caveats.

Manga the Week of 1/3/24

by , and Leave a Comment

SEAN: It’s a new year, and this is the year we surely keep up with all the manga… right?

MICHELLE: Suuuuuuure.

ASH: Uh, yeah! No problem!

SEAN: We start with Viz, who have a new debut. Marriage Toxin is from ShonenJump+. An assassin has vowed to never settle down and get married. Then his clan declares his sister will marry a man and carry on the dynasty. But his sister is already in a happy relationship… with another woman. Now, to save her, he resolves to find a wife, even if it means dealing with a marriage swindler.

ASH: Interesting.

SEAN: Also from Viz: Blue Box 8, Kaiju No. 8 9, Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible 11, Like a Butterfly 4, Moriarty the Patriot 14, Tamon’s B-Side 2, and Wolf Girl and Black Prince 5.

MICHELLE: I should really try to read Like a Butterfly and Tamon’s B-Side.

SEAN: Udon Entertainment has the 2nd volume of Robotics;Notes.

Steamship has a 2nd volume of I Can’t Refuse S.

Seven Seas has one debut, A Cat from Our World and the Forgotten Witch (Isekai Neko to Fukigen na Majo). Running in the seinen magazine Yawaraka Spirits, it stars an old witch, once powerful but now forgotten. She summons a cat from our world to hers… and in her world, the cat is HUGE! Can they bond with each other?

ASH: Certainly a type of cat manga we’ve not seen previously.

SEAN: Also from Seven Seas: Cinderella Closet 4, The Duke of Death and His Maid 10, Kemono Jihen 9, Malevolent Spirits: Monogatari 5, MoMo -the blood taker- 7, My Room is a Dungeon Rest Stop 7 (the final volume), and This Is Screwed Up, but I Was Reincarnated as a GIRL in Another World! 10.

And they have a new danmei novel, Thousand Autumns: Qian Qiu 3.

ASH: I have so much danmei to catch up on! Which is not a bad problem to have.

SEAN: One Peace Books gives us the 19th and final volume of Hinamatsuri.

Just one print volume for Kodansha Manga: Shonen Note: Boy Soprano 6.

ASH: I’ve been making a point to pick up this series as it’s been released.

SEAN: And for digital titles we get Blue Lock 23, How to Grill Our Love 6, Life 11, My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1 12, My Wife is a Little Intimidating 6, Our Fake Marriage: Rosé 3, and Shangri-La Frontier 14.

MICHELLE: I liked what I read of Blue Lock. I should get back to it.

SEAN: Kaiten Books has a 4th print volume for Gacha Girls Corps.

J-Novel Club has new volumes for the 11th manga volume of The Faraway Paladin, Knight’s & Magic 2, Sweet Reincarnation 9, The Tales of Marielle Clarac 10, Tearmoon Empire 11, and the 8th Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf! manga volume.

From Ghost Ship we see Ayakashi Triangle 7 and Please Go Home, Miss Akutsu! 4.

And from Airship, in print (and same-day digital, must be contractual), we get Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! 17.

And for early digital we have Sword of the Demon Hunter: Kijin Gentōshō 4.

Seems like everyone’s in holiday mode still. What are you reading?

Spy x Family: Family Portrait

by

By Aya Yajima, based on the series by Tatsuya Endo. Released in Japan as “SPY×FAMILY: Kazoku no Shōzō” by Jump Books. Released in North America by Viz Media. Translated by Casey Loe.

It’s always difficult to review these spinoff/tie-in novels. By their very definition, they cannot affect the main series in any way. There can’t be plot progression, or significant character development. Usually, there also can’t be a dramatic plotline or cool action scenes either. The novel is not here to provide anything that can’t be done better in the parent manga. Instead, it’s here to give us fun stories using the series’ sandbox to play around in. The author thinks of cute ideas, gets approval from the creator and the Jump editorial staff, and then writes them down. Then Tatsuya Endo reads the stories and gives us an illustration for each of them. If you want to call it a success or failure, then as a product it’s a definite success. This feels very Spy x Family-esque. As something a fan of the series can read and think “I think the world of the manga is better for these short stories”, it’s probably a failure. These are very basic.

The book consists of four “main” stories and one very short story. In the first story, Anya, Damian, and the class go on a “Nature’s Classroom” expedition, and an overconfident Anya causes her and Damian to get lost in the woods. In the rain. In the second story, Yuri is asked to babysit Anya, and ends up taking her to a children’s career fair, where kids can pretend to be any number of things, from a police officer to a jewelry maker. In the third short story, Franky meets a blind singer in the hospital when recovering from an injury, and consoles her about an upcoming operation, while also bemoaning his appearance. The fourth story is the “title” story, as our family, on an outing, is seen by a painter, who wants to paint them. Unfortunately, he’s incredibly famous, and Yor is worried that if her portrait is seen everywhere, it will jeopardize her assassin job. In the final short, two waitresses moan about the lack of good men and gush over regular patrons the Forgers being the “perfect” loving family.

The best story in the book is easily the one with Yuri and Anya, and Endo agrees with me. It’s a clever idea, makes good use of the characters, and is funny. Its only problem is it stars Yuri, and I hate Yuri, so I did not enjoy it. But that’s on me. Aside from that, the stories suffer from having the most obvious resolution there is. Anya and Damian find a cave, and both get closer when the rainstorm brings lightning. Franky’s story would be touching if it had not already been done eighty times before, and the family portrait story, while fun, also has a punchline that I predicted the moment the painter said “can I paint you?”. In addition, Loid and Yor really don’t get much to do here except in that one story, and the book feels a bit empty without them – Anya can’t carry everything on her own, much less Yuri or Frankly.

This is, as I said, perfectly good product, but it’s also the definition of inessential.

Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools, Vol. 8

by

By Hisaya Amagishi and Kei. Released in Japan as “Madougushi Dahlia wa Utsumukanai” by MF Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Osman Wong.

It’s bad enough when Dahlia deliberately invents something that will revolutionize the world (no, not like that), but it’s even worse when Dahlia does it accidentally. The theme to this book is “Dahlia invents ______ but doesn’t immediately see the commercial application for it”, and while we’ve seen that plot before it’s never been hammered home quite as much as it is here. Dahlia invents memory foam. Dahlia invents beanbag chairs. Dahlia invents better breast pads. Dahlia invents… well, no one is quite sure what it’s good for, but we’ll think of something later. It’s that last one that gets her in trouble, as “what it’s good for” is magical fodder for magical horses, meaning that expeditions need far less room for hay/etc. Dahlia and Volf both think this is really cool. Guido thinks this is really terrifying, as the nation next door who hates them has a LOT of magical horses, and would kill to have this new invention. Or, more accurately, kidnap. Dahlia needs better protection.

I pretty much summed up the bulk of the plot above, though we do get one other major arc. Dahlia goes on an expedition with Volf and company to watch them take down Giant Monster Crabs (they hit its weak point for massive damage, trust me), and while there she meets the old vice-captain of the group, now retired. Bernigi is rather grumpy at first, as he’s unsatisfied with how “soft” the unit is with all Dahlia’s new inventions. As we learn more about him we see that he’s also still grieving for his son, who had the standard “I will get into a fight with my dad and then go fight monsters and get killed and so leave everything unresolved” plot. He also has a wooden prosthesis as he lost a leg in battle, and it’s not a great one. Fortunately, it breaks in front of Dahlia, and she (for once) deliberately invents something fantastic. Oh yes, and it turns out Bernigi’s got a grandson who’s very familiar to the readers.

Fans of the Dahlia/Volf relationship will once again be pleased but also frustrated. Dahlia is told that loved ones frequently embroider designs onto a man’s undershirt to give some blessing and protection. She decides to do this for Volf, and ends up embroidering a design that is a flower (dahlia) and a wolf (Volf) intertwined. It’s so good she ends up using it as the Emblem of her company. But she remains 100% oblivious to the meaning of this, even when told point blank. They’re pals! As for Volf, Guido tells him point blank to marry Dahlia in order to protect her from foreign infiltrators kidnapping her and forcing her to invent, and his first thought is “what else could we do?”. They’re buddies! Volf remains SLIGHTLY ahead of Dahlia in terms of self-awareness, as when Guido suggests adopting Dahlia instead, making her and Volf siblings, he feels vaguely uncomfortable but is not sure why. They’re so cute. I want to strangle them.

The 9th volume just came out in Japan (with a new artist), so we should see that soon. I’m 100% sure it won’t end with Dahlia and Volf hooking up, though,. The slowest of slow burns.

I Could Never Be a Succubus!, Vol. 1

by

By Nora Kohigashi and Wasabi. Released in Japan as “Watashi wa Succubus Ja Arimasen” by Hero Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Roy Nukia.

Sure, it’s always nice when a book that you have high expectations for manages to justify them, but I’ve always been even more fond of books I expected to be utter trash being… well, slightly better than utter trash. I’m not about to say that I Could Never Be a Succubus! should take its place alongside Ascendance of a Bookworm or The Apothecary Diaries. It has consent issues and sometimes suspends disbelief more than I’d like. But I mean, the premise of this series, so I’d heard, was that a noble girl, on seeing the hero who is supposed to defeat the demon lord, arrive at her academy, asks if she can have his underpants. My expectations were THROUGH THE FLOOR. I only read this as I thought it would be amusingly bad. Instead I found it amusing but very readable, and it even has a bit of depth to it. And a great deal of this is due to my completely misreading how this premise was going to go.

A year before the main events in this book, the hero’s party battled the demon lord, and only survived due to the sacrifice of one of their members. A year later, Lisalinde is a student at the national academy. Gorgeous, polite, with great academics and strong magical powers, she’s loved by (almost) all of the student body. Then the hero’s party arrives. They’re still recovering from the battle, so are temporarily enrolling as students. And yes, as I stated above, Lisalinde, on seeing the hero, impulsively asks for his underpants. She’s appalled at herself. She has no idea why it happened. And what’s more, the more she gets to know the hero and his party members, the more perverse thoughts she starts to have. Has she REALLY not met them before? What’s going on?

So, sorry to spoil (it’s on Page 3), but Liselinde, aka Liz, is the party member who sacrificed herself to save the hero and the others. As a result, she’s lost her last two years of memories. Which means she has no idea that she is, in fact, a succubus. Who has already seduced the hero. And the lady knight who is his fiancee. And the adorable cleric who is his other fiance. This book goes back and forth between the present and the past, and that’s why it’s so funny, because Liz in the present is a seemingly normal girl struggling with terrifying impulses, while the Liz of the past, well aware she’s a succubus, will seduce anything that moves, and does so. (There’s no explicit sex in this, but there is a giant pile of IMPLICIT sex.) Liz can be a lot – she’s been known to drug food and drink with aphrodisiacs – but she clearly loves her fellow party members, and it’s obvious that they all miss her and want to get her memories back. I am assuming that there is a very good reason they can’t just tell her – but we don’t get it in this book.

There are six volumes of this to date in Japan, and I’m not sure how long it can sustain its premise. But if you enjoy ecchi comedies with a lovable sex maniac girl doing the cast… or if you love ecchi comedies with a pure young maiden horrified at her dirty mind… well, Liz gives you both.

Pick of the Year: Anime, Publishers, and Podcasts

by , , , and Leave a Comment

SEAN: As always, there’s been so much this year that it’s hard to choose. Honestly, my pick of the year is an anime, and one that ran in 2022 as well: Birdie Wing: Golf Girls Story. The perfect sports anime, the perfect (almost) yuri anime, and totally, one hundred percent gonzo and ridiculous. I hope it gets a series of light novels, manga, and a sequel.

MICHELLE: For various reasons, I haven’t read much of *anything* this year, so instead of picking a title, I will pick a publisher. Seven Seas keeps licensing things I *want* to read, like Guardian and Don’t Call It Mystery, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

KATE: My vote goes to the Mangasplainers, both for their awesome podcast and for their publishing efforts. Okinawa was a terrific first project, and bodes well for the other titles they have in the pipeline for 2024.

ASH: Like Michelle, I haven’t had the chance this year to read nearly as much as I would have liked, but I am still very grateful for the variety publishers releasing such a wide range of materials that I will have plenty to keep me busy for a very long time. That being said, I have managed to follow Drawn & Quarterly pretty closely this year and have been very pleased with its 2023 catalog, from the new and improved edition of the previously out-of-print Kitaro anthology, to contemporary indie comics by Woshibai, to alternative works by Japanese women, to classics of avant-garde manga, there’s been so much to appreciate and enjoy.

ANNA: I’m terribly behind in my manga reading as well, but for this year I want to highlight two titles that I thought would never be licensed – Don’t Call it a Mystery and Neighborhood Story. It is great that I can still be pleasantly surprised by licensing decisions! I also want to give a shout out to March comes in Like a Lion which I was eagerly anticipating.

The Crown of Rutile Quartz, Vol. 1

by

By Surume Enoki and ttl. Released in Japan as “Rutile Quartz no Taikan: Ō no Tanjō” by DRE Novels. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Alice Camp.

This is another book that I enjoyed, but was not wowed by. It’s always hard to review those titles. “This was pretty good, all things considered” is not exactly a blurb you can put on a back cover. This is a good coming of age royal fantasy series. If isekai are about the hero gaining cool powers and a harem of hot babes, then the small but notable genre of “military/royal fantasy” usually involves the hero being either royalty or the close advisor to royalty, and instead of a harem there’s a relationship between the royal and their advisor. Also, redheads feature heavily. I’m not sure why. In any case, this is squarely in that genre. Slain, the new king, is a decent guy, proves a quick study, has some military ideas that no one there has considered, and gets the girl. It’s a feel good sort of book. That said, nothing here is surprising, except maybe one thing that I’ll get to later. It’s “pretty good”, but not in a bad way. If that helps.

Slaine is a young man whose mother has just passed away. He never knew his father, so is rather surprised when suddenly a royal escort appears in his small village. It turns out that his mother had once been a servant in the royal palace, and left after a dalliance with the King. What’s more, the entire royal family has just been killed in a fire, leaving Slaine as the heir apparent. Needless to say, he feels he is not remotely ready. But his mother was a scribe, meaning he can read and write due to her teachings, and he has read history books. He also has nobles who are willing to be patient with him, and a talented aide, Monica, at his side. He’s actually getting the hang of things faster than expected. So provided another neighboring country doesn’t declare war and invade them, they should be fine. Oh dear.

The thing that interested me most in this was the way magic was used. At the start of the book I wondered if it wouldn’t have any magic at all, and just be an alternate-world royal book, but that was unlikely to sell to a light novel publisher. So yes, there is magic, but it’s not a constant in this world. Only about one in 30 people have magic at all, and even then it’s not super powerful. Neither Slaine nor Monica have any magic. We see water magicians around the castle, and they use their magic powers to do things like fill barrels, or clean. This of course also leads to Slaine’s idea on how to win the battle against the foreign country invading them, which works well enough, though everyone’s praise of his idea reminds me of those isekai books where people are stunned at the idea of crop rotation. I also wish we’d gotten a bit more with Monica, Slaine’s aide, who has a chapter or two at the back that quickly shows why she went from “uncaring and emotionless baron’s daughter” to “please take me”, but you get the sense it was written after the fact when someone pointed out we knew next to nothing about her.

So, this wasn’t great, it wasn’t terrible. It was pretty good. It passed the time. If there’s another volume (it’s a Drecom book, so this is it for the moment) I’ll read more.

Fake Saint of the Year: You Wanted the Perfect Saint? Too Bad!, Vol. 3

by

By kabedondaikou and Yunohito. Released in Japan as “Risō no Seijo? Zannen, Nise Seijo Deshita! Kuso of the Year to Yobareta Akuyaku ni Tensei Shitanda ga” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Rymane Tsouria.

There have been a LOT of series recently with a guy who dies and is reincarnated as a woman, or is isekai’d into a woman’s body, etc. So many that we’re even seeing a few that are explicitly (at least according to the author) a “transsexual fantasy” (see I Guess This Dragon Who Lost Her Egg to Disaster Is My Mom Now). That said, Ellize is here to nip all that in the bud. She makes several things clear over the course of this volume, and the ones that do not have anything to do with her baffling and depressing death wish have to do with her sexuality. She’s a guy. She’s attracted to girls. She has absolutely no desire to admit that lesbians exist. And so therefore she plans on rejecting Verner no matter how high his “affection score” is with her. That said, the ending of this book seemingly makes all that irrelevant.

After the events of the last book, it’s clear that it’s time to take care of the Witch once and for all. Especially as the Witch – or rather, her most intelligent monster minion – is starting to make moves like “let’s kidnap someone and make them a patsy for Ellize to kill”. Which also involves kidnapping several students, and leads to… Eterna awakening as the Saint. OK, not a problem, Ellize can gloss over this. Things get a bit trickier when they journey to an island nation and find the grave of the First Saint… which turns out to have the first saint in suspended animation, and Ellize can free her. Now they have TWO real Saints and ONE fake Saint, and need to work out how to defeat the Witch without starting the cycle all over again. Oh yes, and Verner has figured it out: Ellize is not the Saint.

I’ll be honest, I thought this was the last book, and when the fourth volume in the series appeared on the JNC streaming site it startled me. Everything was set up for things to finish here. The trouble is… everything was set up for things to finish here tragically. Indeed, that’s the ending we get. The book ends with Ellize dying in order to prevent the Witch from taking over the next Saint, and the tragedy is that she mistakenly thinks that this will make everyone happy (because the world is saved) rather than destroy everyone around her (because they all love her). If this were the ending, it would be bitter indeed. I’m not sure what happens in the fourth book, which we are told *is* the final one, but I assume Ellize is not going to spend the whole book dead. Something will have to be done. And I sincerely hope that something will also fix Ellize’s “nothing matters because I’ll be dead soon” attitude.

This series has its flaws, mostly from when Ellize remembers to be skeezy, but it’s still more interesting than I expected. It’s worth sticking around for the finale next time.

Innocent, Vol. 1

by

Innocent is hard to pin down. On the one hand, it’s a meticulously researched period drama starring real-life figures such as Charles-Henri Sanson, Casanova, Robert-François Damiens, and Jeanne Bécu, the sort of thing you might see on Masterpiece Theater or HBO. On the other, it’s a lurid portrayal of a young man’s corruption, filled with over-the-top scenes of torture and debauchery that, intentionally or not, recall Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue. The tonal mismatch between its historical aspirations and its treatment of the principal character never gel into a coherent story, however, resulting in a handsome but repellant mess that isn’t serious enough to move the reader or ridiculous enough to be enjoyed as camp.

The series opens in 1793, then jumps back in time to reveal how Sanson evolved from a sensitive young man into the Royal Executioner of France. In making Sanson his protagonist, author Shin’ichi Sakamoto has a major hurdle to overcome: Sanson executed almost 3,000 people and championed the guillotine as a more efficient, humane tool for dispatching convicts. To ensure the reader’s sympathy lies firmly with Charles-Henri, therefore, Sakamoto commingles fact and fiction, depicting Sanson as a beautiful, raven-haired teen with flowing locks and trembling lips, the epitome of a guileless young man. Everything makes Charles-Henri’s enormous eyes glisten with tears: the cruel comments of boarding school classmates, the sound of a flute, the sight of a beautiful young aristocrat. He’s also prone to outbursts of teenage indignation and fits of nausea, unable to stomach his father’s lessons on how to decapitate a person with a single blow.

For all the feverish dialogue and graphic violence, there’s almost no meaningful character development, as Sakamoto seems more intent on demonstrating Charles-Henri’s capacity for suffering than in depicting a flesh-and-blood person’s efforts to resist his destiny. In one of the most egregious examples of this tendency, Père Sanson tortures his son with techniques cribbed from the Book of Martyrs: he shackles Charles-Henri to a chair, deprives him of food and water, pierces his skin, and pulverizes his legs with a sledgehammer in an effort to bend Charles-Henri to his will. The true horror of the scene, however, is undercut by the way in which Sakamoto luxuriates in Charles-Henri’s wounded body with same fervid zeal as Titian painted the Crucifixion; Charles-Henri is stripped to waist and strapped to a pole, his hands tied above his head as he cries out in bewilderment. And if those Baroque flourishes aren’t enough to ruin the scene’s emotional authenticity, the cartoonishly evil Père Sanson is; he’s less a fully-realized character than a foil for Charles-Henri’s innocence, prone to making over-the-top pronouncements that would be right at home in a Nicholas Cage flick.

If the narrative disappoints, the artwork does not. Sakamoto draws sumptuous costumes and grand estates, lavishing considerable attention on small but historically meaningful details—a china pattern, the buckle of a shoe—in a meticulous effort to evoke the material culture of eighteenth century France. His real gift, though, is making obscure historical figures come to life on the page. Anne-Marthe Sanson, the matriarch of the Sanson clan, is a prime example: she looks like a bird of prey with a piercing stare and sharp nose, an impression reinforced by the way her fichu drapes across her chest like a ruff. In several key scenes, Sakamoto illuminates her from below, casting her face into shadowy relief to reveal the full extent of her hawkish vigilance:

Sakamoto also has a flair for using abstraction, fantasy, and non-sequiturs to reveal his characters’ innermost thoughts. Not all of these gambits work; in one visually jarring moment, for example, Sakamoto depicts Charles-Henri in modern streetwear, an image that serves no obvious dramatic purpose. Other scenes, however, are devastatingly effective in conveying the full extent of Charles-Henri’s paranoia and loneliness. After botching the execution of an acquaintance, Sanson looks out at the crowd and sees a motley assortment of faces staring at him:Sakamoto then repeats this motif, adding more and more faces:It’s a simple but powerful sequence: we feel the collective weight of the crowd’s revulsion and the individual opprobrium of everyone who witnessed Sanson’s orgiastic display of violence. At the same time, however, we feel Sanson’s growing sense of terror and confinement, imprisoned in a role he loathes and unable to escape the scrutiny of commoners and noblemen alike.

These kind of emotionally resonant scenes are few and far between, however, as Sakamoto is more interested in showing Charles-Henri’s martyrdom than making him into a real person; you’d be forgiven for thinking that Sanson was a real-life saint and not someone who’s remembered today for his enthusiastic embrace of the guillotine. Not recommended.

INNOCENT, VOL. 1 • STORY AND ART BY SHIN’ICHI SAKAMOTO • TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL GOMBOS • LETTERING AND RETOUCH BY SUSIE LEE AND STUDIO CUTIE • DARK HORSE • 632 pp. • RATED 18+ (Violence, nudity, language)