Innocent Rouge

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Just finishing. For god's sake, this manga is f*cking good. One of the best thing I've read in my life. Thanks for the great adventure, Sakamoto-sensei.
Overall: 10 :))

I think everybody should read this manga, not only because it's about huge historical events, but also because talks about human nature. A brutal way to reflect that "All the talk about Revolution is nothing but a pack of lies". Your miserable life is not going to change into a heaven just after a "Revolution". It takes hundreds of years to achieve the goal of that revolution.

My fav quote:
"The blood of the king will pour down on this ... corrupt land of France. And before long, we will make a new era sprout from it. That is our dream! What form will that era take? I do not know, but I can say this much for certain... The towns will be full of food, the stomachs of the children will always be full, people will go to school with smiles on their faces, and lovers will speak of love without regard to social class. Man will be able to choose their occupations regardless of birth and protect their families..."
"Sounds sucky."
"Wha...?!"
"Are men the only ones in the future you're imagining? So ya eat till yer bloated, fuck whatever woman you wanna fuck, and get whatever job ya want, sounds like a pretty sweet world ta live if you're a man. The future Marie sees is one where no matter if you're man or woman you can take the staring role!!!"

After reading Innocent i felt really happy with the work that Shinici Sakamoto handed down to us. It was a complete and cohesive work of art that was both faithful to its source material (that beeing Mémoires de Sanson) and creative enough to build an engaging plot while creating characters that were complex and realistic to the bone.
Unfortunately that changed with Rouge

Rouge focusses on the one thing i disliked from the 1st Innocent: Marie.
Now, let me explaing why.
First of all, i find Marie character just really flat and boring. Its THE MOST predictable character in the entire manga. Whenever Charles-Henri faces a new obstacle ... or a change of setting, he is influenced by it and changes accordingly to the events that take place, while still following his dream. Marie doesn't do that. She is just "me free me do what i want" to every situation she faces, and thus her actions are always predictable, like she was a caricature. Expect when she's not, and it's not even justified.
Marie joining the revolutionary forces is so out of character i feel like icouldn't understand her completly. If her character was written to always seek freedom and remove every possible bind that would affect her negatively, joining a "righteous" group that is trying to impose new rules to a society is just out of character. And that should be because she's following the dream of her dead lover? When Marie was supposed not to be tied by anything? No. Just no.

Another thing that i particularly didn't enjoy in this manga was the amount of time skips and how they were implemented into the story.
In a work of fiction that tries to be as hystorically accurate as possible, and that describes event with a straight-forwarded narrative up until this point, i can't understand why putting that much numerous timeskips and flashbacks was necessary.
Also i feel like some events were too flashed out.
The assault to the Bastille, the Diamond Necklace scandal and the figure of Napoleone felt a bit rushed. Or at least they'd have needed more time to be poured in to feel more cohesive to the narrative

Also can we talk about Marie Antoniette? She has some really good chapters that make her feel like a complex and mature character, and then she goes back to beeing a whiny immature teenager girl who really feels out of place in Versailles

That beein said, there are some things i enjoyed
The art is gorgeous, no need to say it.
Charles Henry and his relationships with his relatives is really likeable, as he's the most complex and heavly developed character in the whole manga, and seeing him from his position as the head of the family, to his 67ish years old figure is heart breaking
Marie has SOME decent moments, but they were mostly because Charles was there
Really enjoyed the Marat chapters and watching Luis spending some time with his children


The manga is definetly worth a read, don't get me wrong, But i can't bring myself to call it Amazing or Very Good, even if i deeply love some characters. The focus on the caricature Marie becomes is really burdening the manga, and some parts were really tough to read through because of characters beeing really boring and not interesing.
If it was for the art and Charles alone, this manga'd get an easy 9.
But as it is, it's just "7- Good" for me

Honestly, as much as I loved the first part, this one was a whole ass mess until the last volume.

The biggest issue is feeling as if Sakamoto-sensei decided to appeal to a different part of audience whilst the manga progressed.

The so well developed symbolism and (despite of the plot) visible delicacy regarding some topics in the previous part, now got reduced to references of modern times and infantile, over-exaggerated p*rnography.
Instead of keeping the visualization on the same level, to fit those mentioned topics - going forward the chapters were just a bunch of naked women, as if there was a race how many ... naked chests we can put in there, without reason and clue.

By the end the manga started going back on its tracks, unfortunately to fall again during the very ending alone.

Still, I decided to score it positively despite the afore mentioned parts.
The reason partly being the big improvement of the plot. It was much more coherent than the first part and the uptaken topics more or less got their conclusion.

Also the story got my full attention. I was looking forward to how the characters would act, how specific things would be portrayed.
With that I could simply not bring myself to say more bad words.