Well here's a fun little gem of a manga that has those off personality characters that I love. Black Guard is about a zombie-like virus infecting humanity, and humanity in turn fleeing to the skies in surprisingly high tech cities, though in this universe that tech doesn't translate to destructive power, as the main weapon is still just guns.

So with that summary out of the way what makes this manga special. Well it has some nice theming going on through out the whole story which is that is semi-post apocalyptic universe where you get turned right when you get injured, many people have become emotionless, and the very best 'guards' as they call them are the ones with essentially no emotion. In comes in our main character who starts as a weirdly suicidal, emotionless swordsman whose job it is to come in when a operation goes wrong and kills everybody turning.

But here's the special thing about this manga. He is not the only special off-character in this story, in fact most of the main reoccurring cast have something off our interesting about them. I would personally say their are 3 main characters and its honestly is a great surprise to see every one of them develop and show off their quirks. Most characters who are initially introduced as maybe troupe-y become surprising competent throughout the story and its fun to see these characters work together/play off each other.

Which brings me to my next point in that the dialogue and especially the comedy of this story hit surprisingly hard even though some moments come a bit to fast paced for my taste. With the theme of discovering yourself and your own feelings of 'love', there are definitely some cheesy moments throughout the manga but I think the serious tone is surprisingly well kept through out the whole story never letting up but making sure to give some breathing room to characters to develop as people.

Finally lets take about the art, which is nothing too special but is definitely nothing to scoff at. The art style gives of that clean simple vibe which may throw some people off but I think works for the setting and tone of the story. It's supposed to be kinda future-y with very white plain buildings and costumes, which luckily also have the affect of making the MC stand out even more with his black cloak. And there are plenty of panels that later on in the story will give you that sense of emotion and taking your breath away, not over complex but enough to build emotion. Plus I think they do most of the faces right which is always a must in a emotional story.

Overall 8: This is definitely not a story for everyone, but if you can stand the overall theming of the story and if the premise sounds interesting to you then I think you should definitely give this a read. A manga filled with good action, a interesting mystery, plenty of interesting characters (which as a last note I will also add their aren't to many misses with characters in general either), overall it comes to a very satisfying package. I don't think its perfect but I was happily reading all the way through.

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