Ranked #27

Sanctuary (Manga)

Written by Sho Fumimura (aka Buronson) and drawn by Ryoichi Ikegami, Sanctuary is an engrossing epic that validates manga as a medium, it defines it; transcends it. In short it deserves the title of masterpiece.

Hojo and Asami seek to change Japan, to rock it to its very core. They share a dark past, and both have vowed to stick to the path they chose together, to keep rising up the ranks of society in order to make the changes needed to create a new Japan. One lives the life of a yakuza; the other the life of politics. What this manga follows is the path of these two extraordinary men as they machinate and manoeuvre their way up to the top of their respective fields, and it’s magnificent.

The story reads like a Takashi Miike or Takeshi Kitano film put on page. It’s a political thriller, a yakuza crime flick; it’s ambitious in every way. Its a rare breed, a mature manga. Mature for its depiction of adults making realistic choices amid difficult situations. Mature is relatable characteristics and personalities in a familiar-looking world. Mature doesn’t mean swords slicing limbs, it doesn’t mean aliens raping humans; it doesn’t mean super powers destroying puppies. Mature is dealing with topics and themes in a realistic manner, it means restraint, subtlety. Yes there is violence and nudity in this manga, but they are the result of adults with real motives, real conflicts; real human reactions to actions. Every single character in this story has a real consistent personality and reason for why they do the things they do.

The story twists and turns unpredictably as the two characters navigate their way through their respective worlds, continually coming across roadblocks and blindsides, whether it’s in the form of political scheming or yakuza thugs with attitude. Hojo and Asami continually have to figure out inspired solutions to ever-increasingly difficult problems, and their separate journeys are regularly mirrored with each other, and sometimes interweaved dramatically. Fumimura's saga is so full of depth its mind boggling. With dozens and dozens of storylines and hundreds of characters all plotting against each other, Sanctuary is addictive and compelling stuff that stays in your mind long after you've finished the last satisfying chapter.

The political issues at stake and focused on in this manga can also be of great interest to non-Japanese readers. Americans, for example, know all too well that unless you're a democrat or republican you have no chance at gaining power of the White House. More recently in the 21st century we've seen crusty old Japanese Prime Ministers resign one after another. The two main characters of Sanctuary seek to usurp the current system of Japan; that of politics being controlled by old men who oversee a system that will never allow anyone under 40 to gain any real power, and to even clean up the yakuza gangs constantly at war with each other, and their ambition is as great as everything else within these 105 chapters.

The quality of writing is at the level of novelist James Clavell in terms of handling a great number of characters and conflicts. The quality of the art is like a defiant middle finger at the state of mainstream manga plagued by cutesy crap and unending Super Deformed faces ruining every chapter. Women in this manga are actually drawn like women. Every set-up has a pay-off. Every chapter ends with you wanting more.

Sanctuary is a sanctuary from mainstream manga. If you want to be entertained from a work that never speaks down to you and demands you keep up with its pace while dealing with topics and themes that are relevant; then find this manga, read it, and spread the word. Turns out there’s a sanctuary out there for all of us. read more

This is like Hokuto no Ken, only that instead of implausible martial arts, it’s about implausible politics. Manly tears and idealistic machoness are still present though.

Story: 5

When I started reading Sanctuary I thought it would be a realistic story around politics, a much overlooked genre in anime and manga. And although I did get some, to the most part it was all so childish and ideal that it lost quickly all seriousness and became mostly lackluster. Lackluster is not bad but it’s not something I would expect in a story around politics. Anyways, besides the initial serious tone, it is nothing but a dark fairy tale around the dreams of two young men to build a strong nation where its people and leaders are not sheep. To all its basic themes and goals the scenario does a wonderful job at showing how a right politician and voter should think and act. It depicts depravity and exploitation in a very raw and almost inhuman way so at least in theory it does show how rotting the authority can get if left without a vision or goal.
The problem lies with how everything is implemented. It all happens in a very artificial way that there is no way you would believe it could really happen in real life as such. Without getting to details, I will just point out that real politicians or yakuza members are not cornered that easily. This may not seem as a problem for most but I happen to appreciate realism and in such stories the need for it is tenfold.
Another thing is the actual pacing of the story that is slow as hell and to the most part seems to repeat itself to the point of saturation. I believe that if the useless mute panels (read below) and the minor adversaries would to be taken out for the story, nothing much would change besides cutting the duration to half and exciting you double.

Art: 8

The art is fantastically realistic on first looks, as the mangaka literally used photographic realism to depict character body language and Japanese landmarks. Most large panels are like pictures you could hang on your wall and just stare at their beauty.
Unfortunately, relying too much on photographs does have its set-back.
For starters, it ain’t hard to find out that the mangaka uses around twenty photographs as reference to body stance and just recycles them throughout the story. It’s like people in the story can only take a few specific poses to the most part and act as if they carbon copy each other’s movements. That looks fake after awhile.
Also, the mangaka uses a huge amount of mute panels where a character will just stand frozen in an identical pose. At some points this works nice as tension building but most of the time it’s just wasted space.
Another minus is the over the top reaction when someone suddenly is shocked. To the most part, characters will look cynical and almost uncaring but when they get shocked, it looks so fake and fades away in just two frames before they revert to cynicism again that it ends up being plain laughable.
I could also add the dialogues themselves which end up being too silly, as characters will be stating the obvious all the time in a most immature way that does not fit their intelligence or status.
All that unfortunately take out a rather big chunk out of the fun and a work that could easily be a perfect 10 drops for simply being too repetitive and a waste of useful space.

Characters: 7

Mostly cool that likable, the cast is made up of a huge number of selfish, arrogant, violent, and horny adults and old men who’s only goal in life is power, money and lots of pu**y. And yes, fitting the setting of the story you get lots of muscular yakuzas shooting each other by day and raping women in toilets by night, or lots of 80 year old politicians who scheme amongst each other by day and do deviant stuff to prostitutes by night. Yes, sex, drugs and… not rock and roll is what the cast is all about. And I must say that as far as attitude goes, they are all a very interesting bunch.
Their downfall actually is their behavior. It just doesn’t make any sense. I know it has a lot to do with honor and respect to the superiors but eventually the characters act in such retarded ways that even elite assassins and seasoned politicians seem to fall for the easiest tricks in the book. Not to mention the gasps they all make, lol, it’s ridiculous. It’s like they are told they have cancer when in reality it’s just someone famous passing by.
But motives aside, there are hundreds of characters in the story, most of which have a very minor part, despite all appearances that they are important. So the story ends up being about 5 people and an army of cannon fodder. Makes it all feel like a waste of time getting to know them after awhile.
A thing that reall annoyed me is the complete absence of active female characters. All women in the story exist only to be raped or fall in love and have their brains scr*ed over by some bijin dude. Not even one is able to have a voice or an opinion of her own. And even if theat is supposed to reflect the tremendous sexism found in Japanese society, it still does not excuse it when the same thing happens to the female American representative, who had balls of steel yet in half an hour of chatting yearned for the cock of the protagonist and became his underling. Same thing for all the rest of the women who are to the most part exploited for their talents through the reward of sex rather than being cherished as human beings. Got too annoying after awhile.

Enjoyment: 6

Although the first few volumes were very exciting, the story began to drag more and more thereafter, repeating events or prolonging them before finally resolving them in a most simple manner. It started to get to my nerves. Although there is a likable cast and a complete storyline present, everything feels like they overstayed their welcome. So it felt almost like I was forcing myself to continue after the first half and very relieved when I finally finished reading it.

Overall: 7

Politics are indeed rare in anime or manga and this work takes a rather realistic, albeit superficial, approach to a world full of crime and degenerated politicians. Still, the whole mess is mostly cheese and manly tears with a lot of sexism and macho men comparing who has the bigger cock. So be warned that it’s more about show than about substance and you will have a better chance of liking it more. read more