Arslan Senki
The Heroic Legend of Arslan

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The Heroic Legend of Arslan is set in a fictional version of the Middle East. This is a refreshing change.

Arslan is sensitive and wants his parent's affections, he’s kind but also can’t turn his eyes away from the war. He’s not a typical hot-blooded hero. He’s not overly strong or confident but not horrible weak either, and that’s what makes his journey appealing.

Arakawa’s artwork is clearly laid-out and easy to follow. She uses a mix of small and large panels to add visual variety. Lots of greytones are used, making this look more like a black, white, and grey manga rather than a black and ... white manga. The shading is pretty impressive.

I started reading it because I'm a big fan of Full metal alchemist and I'm really loving it.

I really love Arslan Senki, since it was my first Anime and also my first Manga. Now that I have reread and caught up with it, I can't wait for the story to continue. This series will always have a special place in my heart, so I might not be competely objective, but I strongly advise you to check it out.

Story
The story is great! The actions of the characters, always feel like they do, what they would do in their situation and it rarely feels like something happens just for the plot. There are some fantasy elements, which I honestly think the series would be ... better off without, but they don't ruin the story for me.

Characters
Every character is a person and acts independent from another, they have their own targets and work towards those and sometimes their interrest clashes with the one of someone else. Silver Mask is also a great antagonist, with believable motives and is someone who is genuinly menancing, as he is able to hold is own in an sword fight with two of the best sword fighters in the country and he isn't dumb either. Another positive is Alfreed whose setup, would make her an annoying brat, but she is actually one of the most likeable characters in the series. Espacially her chemistry with Elam is great.
But, I have to crititcise something, aswell: most characters feel very stagnant. The character development is almost monopolized by Arslan and Etoile, which somethimes is a bit disapointing.

Art
Hiromu Arakawa has made the art, which is basically everything you need to know. Admittingly the first few chapters are a bit of a let-down, but the Art gets better and better as the series progresses.

Finally, I can only apologize for any mistakes, as english isn't my first language and tell you that you should defenitly read Arslan Senki!
Thank you for reading

Do NOT read this manga AT ALL. It is A
COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME, and the series is home to:

●Horrible writing
●Horrible Characters
●Incompetent Antagonists/No Stakes
●Horrible Worldbuilding
●just a horrible everything overall.

Characters:
...
-You have Arslan who is literally just a beta male femboy. He has no agency to the point where it's just his servants doing all the work for him when realistically no one would serve him due to how incompetent and weak he is. This doesn't change in the slightest throughout the story, the only development he gets is the homosexual tension between him and Daryun

-You have Andragoras who is Profoundly Retarded (capital R for further emphasis), he is supposed to be a competent ruler, and conqeuror, but everything he does paints the opposite picture.

He neglects the warnings from his generals which leads to the demise of his kingdom, and later down the line he tries to disband Arslan's group although they are the entire reason the Kingdom of Pars was saved.


-You have Narsus who is one of the worst aspects of the story. He is a master strategist, and one who drags the story down by taking out every stake there could've been in a conflict.

This shithead has a solution for every single problem, there is never a time where he runs out of wits, and has to adapt to the problem. It ends up hurting the story by making the antagonists look incredibly incompetent leading to my next point

-The Kingdom of Lusitania, is a rival to the Kingdom of Pars, and one of the main antagonists of the series.

The only time they are threatening is at the start of the series, they do nothing but job for the remainder of the series.

The kingdom of Lusitania is split into 3 factions:
-1 that sides with King Innocentis
-1 that sides with Guiscard (brother of Innocentis)
-1 that sides with the Church of Yaldabaoth


Innocentis is nothing more than a fatass who rather belongs in a manga adaption of My 300 Pound Life, he is absolutely incompetent leading to Guiscard plotting to assassinate him.

The assassination was successfully carried out, until its revealed Innocentis survived because "the fat protected him from the knife wound".

You really can't make this shit up, all that build up in the previous chapters for ZERO payoff.


Guiscard could have been a great antagonist, and rival to Narsus, but he is simply never given the chance just like Duke Silvermask, and all the other villains in the story.


Worldbuilding/Story:

Just awful all around, all the countries, and groups are just reskins of ones that exist in our world

Pars for Persia, some reskins of the Mauryans, some reskins of the Mongols, you have the Church of Yaldabaoth which is just a reskin of Catholicism, and Orthodox Christianity

The author tries to discuss religion by having Arslan debate Etoile, who is the poster girl of the Church.


Arslan argues that the church is ran by warmongers, but Etoile is too retarded to self introspect, to realize that all his fighting has done nothing but drag the reputation of her religion down in the mud, and that she is nothing but a pawn.

Etoile barely reacts to when her sect of Yaldabaoth attacks the Eastern sect who were peaceful, and did absolutely nothing towards the Western sect.


I could go on all day, but this manga is an absolute waste of time.

Go read something like Altair or Magi instead