Yet, the only maddening thing to me, is how this series starts. Over the years, going through piles of crappy comics, especially web ones, I have found certain template that authors like to use to guide their story. I think this is one of those cases where the template was taken a look at and tossed aside. That's a little too far into the story part, so let's pull it back.
Hametsu no Oukoku is a comic written and illustrated by Yoruhashi. I am pretty sure there's a web comic series made by him floating around online. That one was very webcomicky, quite rough yet extremely competently made. There's something that web comic artist struggle to do. Stringing frames together, especially action ones. Most do not have formal training at making comics. They are mostly illustrator turns comic artist. This person webcomic is in between. The frames are clearly very web comic, which means a lot of wide angle shot, more emphasise on the computer graphics, whether it's background or shining stars and such. People are not easy to draw, so the less people in frame, the better. It also creates a feeling of "grandeur", which can impress and intrigued young readers. This is why adventure games usually start with rich environment, to draw in the viewer's curiosity. In normal comics, it is much more like a movie, which usually is framed through a storyboard. Perhaps it is the opposite, movie makers start making movies according to comic artist layout. You have different shots to emphasise different element, depending on where the author wants the story to go. If a character is going through an emotional ride, it should start with close ups, emphasising their facial expression, then moving slowly out to their posture, body language, then to the person comforting them, then to a wide shot with all the characters around them to show that they are not alone. It is very simple, but often web comic don't really do this, or doing it subconsciously because they were imitating what they see rather than being educated on the experience that 50 to 100 years of comics have been through. In any case, this is to emphasise that the author is probably an unpolished gem, picked up by some editor, sent to work under someone tutelage and now able to publish their own work.
The first thing to start should be the art, I want to avoid discussing the story for now, but I will try to segue into it as smoothly as possible. If I have to find a word to describe the art, it would be astoundingly competent. Normally, you would look through an artist body of work and observe them refine their style. The author seems to be a very competent illustrator that turns to comics, yet still be able to draw environment pretty well, and very detailed. I have to admit I was shocked all the way as the story rolls, with frames after frames of very well done art. It's almost unique as well, because it carried a ton of that rough web comic framing. Big, bold wide frames, continue to roll in. I was not used to seeing such detail, competent illustration on such an unprofessional and unpolished framing, especially the action scenes. The story might have influenced that, but I do think that the art deserves high praises, if nothing else, just for being very pretty. It's similar to Obata, but Obata shading is just unique and magnificent, while this is merely pretty. Yet, I do see signs of framing being used. The author do break, drawing characters across frames to show them and the scenery at the same time. Such techniques never show up in webcomics, and could have been taught during their training period. The feeling of webcomic never cease to hang around, probably due to the way shading, shadowing is done. I don't hate it, but the lingering unpolished webcomic-ness makes me confused, but that's much better than annoyed or repulse. Isekai trash adaption could learn from the author on how to adapt those works, rather than drawing many empty background frames, masked with speech bubbles so they don't have to draw anything else. That being said, I am pretty sure it took a lot of effort and time to finish, hopefully the author can learn how to use their time better by reducing details and works on parts that do not need so much work on. I do have to add that the main problem with modern comics and webcomic illustration to me had always been the lack of style and artistical expression. I don't know how to describe it until I attend a fine art class, but that gap in the art really pops, especially one as nicely drawn as this.
Speaking of Isekai trash, I thought this was one of them initially. The story, described in a few word, is a speed run of the usual revenge is bad plotline from seinen. That is to say, it isn't very good. It is not original, intriguing, gripping nor exciting. It falls flat in everything it is doing, whether it's context, lore, character, dialogues or emotion, it does badly everywhere. To me, I think this might be the opposite of a webcomic issue. This might be the editor telling the author to condense the story or the "prologue", and get right into the action. I feel some sort of story template was consulted when the idea was pitched, but was quickly canned after a few rounds with the editor. Let's go into spoiler territory here, though this is the spoiler for the review that you would want to read, I don't recommend this comic.
-S-
The first major issue is with the core emotional drive of the story. It's not that it isn't clear nor not communicated properly, it was just that its delivery was weak. The author sets up the emotional core through mostly flashback, which is a terrible way to introduce the characters. I am not going to say the main characters weren't introduced properly, but their core emotional struggle is just done out of the blue, more than anything else. The usual template would be to start with the main character struggle to survive, then his mentor picked him up. He would initially be fearful and distant from his foreign mentor, but then eventually warm up to her as they journey together. That entire set up, which usually takes up the first 1-2 volume of a story, was done in a small series of flashback. This is a lot worse than that time when SAO TV series sets up the main character entire motivation and emotional drive by establishing those characters in 1 episode then killing them in that episode. I know some people say it's entirely possible, and that many have done it before. You need to remember that most series that did that had to push the main character to the wall first, before using the dead in this episode to pull them out, only for them to die, motivating the main character to fight on, or into despair. A good example would be Kaworu. Not only did Eva spend 5 previous episodes dragging Shinji through the mud, it blew everyone into depression before adding Kaworu, who seems to be the only one who knows everything yet still enjoy the situation and provided the main character with the intimacy and life line he had wished for the entire time, only to have it yanked away cruelly. That's how it should be done, not in the SAO TV series way of casually introducing the character, adding some fast forward, then killing them off. This is far worse, because when the main character gets angsty at everyone, I don't feel pain in my soul nor sympathy, because I feel nothing. There's not context to their relationship, nothing for the reader to latch onto. The thing that the author chose to anchor the story on, is the edge. That's right, this is the edgiest pile of garbage of a story since Akame ga Kill. That series death easily beats Hametsu no Oukoku's weak, uninteresting characters at every corner. The main connection that you have with the mentor in the beginning is basically how she's hot, yet was brutally executed in gory details. Gore can be fun, and I have found them to be fun in the past, but it needs to have context to be fun and interesting. Badly done, random gore in comics are often very uninteresting. I would only bring up one small gore example to demonstrate why gore works and why this doesn't. The gore in the famous bathroom gore that's probably originated in Japan suggested sexual, emotional abuse, self-harm or suicide. It is thought invoking, intriguing, and the imagery is deliberately vague yet exposed in very gory way. That works because it subtly provides the context and is photographed in interesting way. This is not, the character is just butchered, and then done, we move on to the next chapter. This is as if the author has zero interest in anyone other than the main characters, the chosen ones. This is beyond silly. Side characters, even villains, should represent an aspect of the main character, if the author decide to write a story revolving around protagonists rather than event. This is a revenge story, so obviously it will be about the characters. Yet, these side characters were introduced, a twist about them is revealed, they are eliminated and then the main characters move on. This was done about 3 times over the course of 20 chapters. It contradicts the revenge premise. Revenge is always about the value of life. It comes from an eye for an eye mentality, and standing opposite of that is the circle of violence argument. Yet, if the story keeps on chugging along, treating lives like trash, who's going to care about his grief, which is the main character's main driving force.
There's more to the trashy story other than the basic premise and execution being complete nonsense. The plot itself is full of predictable twists, coming from a template, that fails to impress because the story seems uninterested in them, almost. I wonder what's the point of those twists, if they are just introduced, then twisted within the span of 10 pages? I am not sure why the author is speed running the "prologue", because they basically started the story a few times over. The first start they could have went with was the one I mentioned above. The second is how the story actually started, with the mentor being executed. The third would have been the secondary main character backstory with her friend who didn't want her to join the mission. Then, she could have been shown to think about her friend despite being stuck in jail. I also thought the fan of the terrorist could have been an entire storyline on its own as well. The last one would be when they reach their first town, after 20 chapters. Stories starting in the middle have worked multiple times before. Berserk's flashback took up a huge chunk of the story. This could have been done exactly like Berserk, which coincidentally is almost a revenge story as well, eventually becoming a story about redemption. I don't understand why the author went through so many story inception templates. It is almost for no apparent reason. Further adding to the mess is the various touch and go subplots. If the author wants these details added to add weight to the fight, they have to properly introduced them, letting the journey soak those characters into the reader's mind before introducing the twist and the end of the subplot. Those characters are just killed, mostly arbitrarily, which is a huge disappointment. Akame ga Kill had the courtesy to set up those characters shallowly before cutting off their heads. This is a big pile of mess.
I also noticed some inconsistencies, such as the secondary main character being fearful of the protagonist despite her being sent in to get him out. There are more nonsense such as the teleportation tracking thing etc... Issues with the stories and characters are just endless.
-s-
Overall, the story is not good. It is not set up well, not well told, and have basically no payoff. All of the subplot beginning and end abruptly, like someone change the channel. It's not something worthy of emotional investment, precisely because it is lacking in that.
Do I enjoy this professionally done webcomic. I would say, a little. I find it refreshing after slogging through piles of Isekai trash, but it really does belong with them. It is so badly conceived, I wonder how it got through editorial, or perhaps editorial is where it was butchered. In any case, decent art, shit story. I would recommend this to Isekai trash artists to shame them about webcomic artist being able to produce this level of work, and to webcomic artist to show them how they can use traditional comic techniques rather than the awful webcomic format. For comics fan who are curious about a middle ground between proper comics and webcomic, this is a good sample. I think that was the only thing that kept me going.
