Reviews

Apr 30, 2025
Wolfsmund is a manga that’s somewhat about the Swiss fighting for their freedom from Austria. That’s the backdrop to things and the final volumes focus on actual historical events, but most of the manga is directed towards events that are purely fictional. The focus of the manga is on Wolfsmund, a gate fortress in St. Gotthart Pass, and it’s sadistic bailiff Wolfram. St. Gotthard Pass did exist in reality and did have strategic importance, but as far as I am aware neither Wolfram nor Wolfsmund actually existed. The manga also incorporates some parts of the legend of William Tell, who is a Swiss folk hero, though in a pretty half assed manner.

The first quarter of the manga is about various rebels trying to sneak their way past Wolfmund, but Wolfram catching them and punishing them incredibly cruelly. This is episodic, and most of the episodes have absolutely no relevance to the eventual overarching plot. These episodes are very heavy on blood and gore with Wolfram enjoying using various means of physical and psychologic torture on his victims. The manga tries to flesh out his victim and have the reader empathize with them, so this can hit pretty hard. But beyond that these stories have no value. There’s no real message other than how Wolfram is a terrible person and the middle ages were an awful time. These parts start out interesting, but once you get over the shock value they’re pretty dull.

The middle half is about the invasion of Wolfmund by the rebels. This includes various schemes being enacted in the build up to the assault as well as the actual battle itself. But it’s mostly just both sides trying to slaughter each other in a pretty basic manner. There are special weapons and tactics used by both sides, but they’re pretty abrupt and not well developed. There are a lot of them, and they’re just kind of thrown out there when they’re needed and then never mentioned again. So, the battle itself just isn’t that interesting. Furthermore, while the manga does a good job of fleshing out Wolfram as an awful person, it doesn’t really flesh out the Swiss fighting him at all. Most of the cast beyond Wolfram is throwaway as well and only matter for the small part of the story they’re in. Thus, I found it somewhat hard to get invested in the results of the battle.

The final quarter is about other battles in the fight for Swiss independence. The focus is on the Battle of Mortgarten, which historically was actually an important battle. The battle itself is pretty interesting here, but it’s still hard to get invested in things. While Wolfram had quite a lot of time spent in making him feel worth rooting against, the attempt at doing so with the rest of the Austrian army was haphazard at best. The focus during this phase seemed to be to showcase a historic event and also convey a message of optimism by showing a small force beat a much larger one. However, both of these really don’t fit the rest of the series. I don’t have any problem with a manga accurately trying to chronicle historical events, but considering most of the manga doesn’t try to do so at all, suddenly switching to doing so is a weird shift. And the sudden message of optimism is completely out of place considering the brutality and despair throughout the earlier portions.

I also felt the art was mediocre. Obviously with the type of story this manga has the art isn’t supposed to look good per se. But the art in this also doesn’t really contribute much in terms of the tone or atmosphere. There’s a lot of blood and gore, but beyond that the art is really plain.

tl;dr: A very messy and muddled story with a heavy emphasis on extreme violence.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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