Akame
The Red Eyes

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This is a short manga by Sanpei Shirato, and a story of brutality, feudal oppression, rebellion, and above all, revenge. The first thing the reader will notice is how utterly brutal this manga is. It's a far-cry from most manga of the time, in both how mature and violent it is. But that's because its author was part of the "Gekiga" movement, which distanced itself from the "whimsical pictures" of manga. Osamu Tezuka once gave Sanpei credit for introducing strong violence into Manga. Even today, the brutality of Akame still stands out. At its heart, Akame is a manga about the oppression of the peasant ... classes during feudal Japan. The local feudal lord and his lackeys have no sympathetic qualities, and are consistently tyrannical and cruel to the peasants, who have committed no crime. It is only avarice and greed which drive the feudal masters. This leads to many atrocities, depicted in vivid and lurid detail here. But Akame is also a story of revenge, and of transforming yourself into a monster in order to accomplish that revenge. And the type of revenge in Akame is that of the "best served cold" variety, with our protagonist taking years to accomplish his goal.

Faced with continuous atrocities performed by their feudal lord it is only a matter of time before someone decides to take justice into their own hands. Such a task befalls a peasant with no aptitude for martial arts, who instead carries out a meticulous plan for ruination of his oppressor.

This descent into merciless times of feudal Japan has an almost opera-like feel to it. With characters that lack any memorable individuality but instead represent the collective oppression. There is some parallelism between this fictional world and that of today's, albeit not to such an extreme extent, but in the author's time it was most ... likely a provocative jab to the system.

The style is a heavy reminiscence of Tezuka's idiosyncrasies. Yet Sanpei's characters have more of a realistic feel to them accompanied by unique facial expressions. Peculiarly, it feels as if it was a horror work at certain parts due to splendidly depicted dread accomplished by deliberate inkiness. There seems to be a prevalent motif of wind in this work, perhaps to be interpreted as an unstoppable force of nature determined to follow its path or an obstacle that peasants ultimately have to overcome.

This is one of many works which cemented Sanpei's status as a revolutionary, albeit it is questionable how well can it cope with the tastes of today based on its historical relevance only. Not to say that it doesn't have certain innovativeness in the way how it handles its pursuit of justice, but all in all it will sit better with a more explorative audience.