I got into this because I liked Samura's work on BOTI. A bit of gratuitous sex and violence is also within my tastes. However I got a hell lot more than I bargained for. Most people have a line they draw somewhere right? Mine are: eye injuries and underaged rape. This manga has both. I was close to puking at one point. Anyway let's break it down for the rating.
The story: 6/10
There isn't really a plot. This is just a collection of short stories that revolve around a central premise, a premise that I find...a bit hard to believe, at first. To prevent prisoners from uprising, a heinous plan is put into operation involving female orphans. If this was a hentai manga, I'd be like okaaay whatever, moving on! But this story--although technically hentai (which in Japanese literally just means, "perverse")--is not meant to be taken in the same grain. Because of how detailed it is and the lack of gratuitous sex scenes (the sex is an integral part of the story, so it's not really gratuitous), it's probably meant to be taken a bit more seriously...and it's hard to do that because the logic of it is just kind of ridiculous. Could such depravity exist, and on such a scale?
Then...I remembered. I come from a country where we receive some education on the atrocities committed by the Japanese during WW2. I later on read more about it myself as an adult, and I knew...the kind of evil men are capable of. The things the Japanese military did during that time, mainly to the Chinese, were far worse than what the Germans did to the Jews during the Holocaust. Being gassed to death is merciful in comparison. You may have heard of "comfort women" -- the concept is similar to what this manga is depicting. But the Japanese did a lot more stuff than just rape; I don't even want to go into detail. So yes, such depravity--even worse than that depicted in this manga--can exist and have existed, and on an even larger scale, in real life. When I think of that, then the premise becomes more believable. BUT--to any decent person--it's still distasteful. Samura says in the afterword that he did some research, suggesting that there's a chance this story might be based on reality and that it took place somewhere in Europe...actually he can just research the Japanese themselves (although admittedly that might prove difficult to do in his country as it's a known fact that their government has censored and revised their history books on that period.)
Objectively, each story is well-written enough; there's proper setup and denouement. The last story connects to the first by sharing a character, and this provides a sort of resolution. In my original review, I remarked that this manga didn't have a proper resolution -- this is not strictly true; I just didn't get the resolution I expected or hoped for, at the time.
Subjectively, I cannot rightfully say I enjoyed myself reading this manga, and so I will dock a point for that.
The Characters: 6/10
Since these are short stories, the focus isn't on the characters. That said, each of the main characters do their part in shedding more perspective on the overall story. They are not deep characters, but that is due to the inherent constraints of the story structure and length. Can the author make a character more endearing and strong? Possibly, but that would fundamentally change the type of story he was intending to portray. This is not a Good triumphing over Evil story, this is a story about an Evil...that came to an end on its own (thankfully.) It's not "dark" either; a dark ending would be if the bad things depicted in it continued and there's not even a hint of a chance of them ever ending. I would have liked to have seen a chapter devoted mainly to Bradherley himself, to see his perpective, but he--somewhat disappointingly--remains a peripheral figure throughout, and his perspective is only suggested at through one of his "daughters."
The Art: 8/10
You can tell that Samura put effort into his drawing. There are times in BOTI where he would get lazy on certain panels, but here, every panel seems drawn with equal attention to detail. He still has this flaw where the faces sometimes look really similar (especially young girls) but that's pretty common in manga and anime and perhaps unavoidable if you're not drawing photorealistic faces.
Overall: 6.67/10
Even if you liked Samura's art or other works (e.g. Blade of the Immortal)--which I personally do--be warned that this is an entirely different kettle of fish and might not suit you if you have delicate tastes.
