Aoki Ookami: Chihate Umi Tsukiru Made
Genghis Khan: To The Ends Of The Earth And The Sea

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Genghis Khan: To The Ends of the Earth and the Sea tells the story of Chinggis Khan’s early life and rise to power. (I use the preferred Mongolian spelling of Temujin’s title both out of respect and because it’s easier for English speakers to tell how it’s pronounced this way. It starts with a soft G like in ‘general’, not a hard G like in ‘get’.) So how does it do?

Honestly, not well. Chinggis Khan had a long and storied career, and even focusing just on his early life, it’s far beyond the scope of a single-volume manga. To the Ends of the Earth and ... Sky is centered on his relationship with his anda, his sworn blood brother, Jamuka, but in an extremely disjointed way. The manga hits the major events, more or less, but without any real attempt to connect them to each other in a cohesive narrative. If i hadn’t spent several years studying the Mongol Empire out of my own interest, i would have had trouble following the story.

In a similar vein, the characters are left undeveloped – there’s no sense of who they are as people, except perhaps for Temujin himself, and certainly no explanation of why they’re fighting. The idea to show their feud through the eyes of Temujin’s firstborn son Jochi and Jamuka’s son was an interesting one, and one i would have loved to see done well, but the way it was written is clumsy at best. The author’s note at the end of the series says that this was their first manga, and it shows.

Overall, this manga is one of those stories that was beyond its author’s ability to write. While the art was excellent and well-suited to the subject matter, i wanted to like this manga a lot more than i actually did. It’s worth checking out if you have an interest in the Mongol Empire, as i do, but i wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read at least one biography of the real Chinggis Khan. (Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford is a good place to start.) Those who are familiar with the history behind To the Ends of the Earth and the Sea might find Jochi’s perspective interesting, or they might be frustrated by the large gaps in the narrative. I felt both, so i’ll leave it up to your discretion.