I've waited for so long. SO LONG!!!! "Its such a good setting, WHY HAS NOBODY USED IT BY NOW!" Is what I was thinking of for years. I am a total history nerd, and an avid consumer of Japanese media, and while I love every manga with a historical setting, like Vagabond, Vinland Saga, Kingdom, and so on, I ALWAYS wanted a manga set in the Holy Roman Empire(HRE). Its just such an interesting setting, from the Protestant Wars that occurred in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, to the Investiture Controversy that caused so much fuss in the 11th century going forward, and even back to Charlemagne's conquests, everything about the HRE is so interesting and WEIRD. Its literally a league of nations, city-states, and republics that somehow stayed together for almost a thousand years, which is a ridiculous accomplishment considering how decentralized they were for a vast majority of that time. I always though it was a massively overlooked setting, and I was legitimately considering getting better at my mediocre skills at drawing just to make a one-shot or something, BUT NO LONGER MUST I WAIT!!! AT LAST!!! Shinji Makari used it, and its freaking amazing. Just from looking at the first Volume, I found what has to be one of my favorite manga of all time. Everything about it screams history nerd. The armor is historically accurate for the most part, the weapons are historically accurate, and most of all, the battles are BRUTAL, just like real medieval battles. Only nitpick I have is that sometimes, the armor does nothing, like in the first chapter when Issak uses a matchlock rifle (I think its a tanegashima, but I'm no specialist in rifles, so idk for sure) at a ridiculous range and penetrates plate armor. If he was using any matchlock rifle at that time period, his feat would literally be impossible, and would likely land nowhere near his target or if it did hit, it would simply bounce of the plate. But that is just me nit picking at whatever I can find, and otherwise, its like a Vagabond based in the HRE. Its so well drawn I have absolutely nothing to give but praise to the artist. Issak looks pretty distinct form the other characters, which makes sense because hes Japanese and they are European, and it adds a bit of flavor to his character. The characters around him are interesting, and we get a lot of information about characters from their actions, rather than simply using dialogue. The story is well written, and is simple, which I think is good. Issak is out for revenge, and that is all I'll say, because I don't want to go past the first chapter and spoil the fun for anybody reading this review. And on a side note, the author Shinji Makari also has some cool tidbits at the end of some chapters. Overall, this manga is on par with other like it, including Vinland Saga and the famed Vagabond. Honestly, it might just be me freaking out over finally having my imagined manga come to life, but this is just so good. Highly recommended for anybody who likes Seinen or history.

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What started as a masterpiece quickly started to go to ruin after chapter 6 like the calm before the storm.

The first 6 chapters were a new ray of light that had you not knowing what was coming next, nothing could be predicted and gave a strong ray of excitement chapter after chapter, unfortunately, it all tumbles downhill from chapter 7 onwards...

Initially, I wanted to rate this 10 then 6 then 3 and now 2 every chapter I read it gets ridiculous full-on nonsense.

Story: The first 6 chapters are clearly written by someone else aside from the rest of the story, it's like someone stole someone's work and then tried changing the writing not to be accused of plagiarism that how different the first 6 chapters are from the rest of the story.

The MC is introduced as someone who came from Japan to look for his enemies who killed his master and fled. we see mc fighting as a mercenary and using his brain for strategies that make him make use of his gun skills to win against huge armies in unexpected ways. Even the woman that the author has set to be with mc is someone who is not useless and is actually helpful which shies away from the norm.

Unfortunately, that is only until chapter 6 from then onwards it's all the usual cliches, every battle is predictable, the woman? She's now weak and someone who gets in way of mc at every turn in the series situations. for example, if it's against his enemies something has to go wrong or someone gets in the way etc and it's normally the girl. she is only useful in non-important situations.

Let's not even talk about how the MC and his Nemises are master riflemen who can shoot accurately from 500m+ but only against anyone else but themselves. Yes the MC and Nemises have plot armour that makes them miss if they are even 50m from each other and even if they are taken by surprise even if they don't move at all.

So the story revolves all around mc killing his enemies to end the story there's no deep story or anything past the basics. What's worse is that all the scenes and writing that would get you excited for battles are all gone. every battle or situation comes out of nowhere like a magic trick which is basically forced drama and this escalates and becomes worse and even worse every chapter.

"Girl being told her cross well get her hanged as a witch because it's a certain religion with M on the cross, the girl goes out of her way to etch the M on the said cross and makes it apparent to everyone which to no ones surprise she get in trouble about it".

A lot of forced drama that makes you be like wtf " MC watches a girl gets dragged, put in prison and doesn't act until she is burned to go save her at the last second" it's not like he even arrived late, and let's watch because you know mc doesn't want to kill the peasants who want to kill the girl for being a witch who absolutely did nothing wrong right? so peasants are good people right? wtf is the author writing, frankly I'd believe it if they told me it was a retard author.

Art: First 6 chapters are brilliant, full of blood, gore, very detailed scenes etc but once again from then on it degrades and becomes nothing out of the ordinary.

Characters: Frankly it's very shallow, we get 1 sudden flashback to explain what happened between MC and his Nemesis and that's pretty much it.

The drive behind the whole thing(minor spoiler)? is to get the stolen gun back to japan to save the Slut, the daughter of his master, who he was going to marry but got willingly cucked by his nemesis the other disciple before he killed the master with help of the master's daughter (unknowingly) and then abandoning her for her to apologise to said mc and ask for forgiveness to save her own skin...

That's all the character building, no other characters have any reasonable development or reason for their actions.

Frankly, it's a shit show, things happen at random, you can not make left from right and nothing seems to ever make sense or go as planned.

Update: Chapter 30 is now rated 1 star, it's utterly ridiculous and not enjoyable at all. Cut scenes everywhere, no strategy, no excellent gun scenes, just trash-tier garbage storytelling with plot armour for the win. Everything is utterly predictable and common sense doesn't work.

EG: Oh I shot your gun but all that happened was it went up In the air but works fine without any fault? amazing must be made out of indestructible material, oh but my armour got shot through yeah it's made out of paper, right? very idiotic.

Another example of stupidity, I cut my leg, fall in a river, fall through the waterfall and survive... as if he wouldn't already die from excessive bleeding but on the other hand, I get a scratch and I am on my death bed for days...

this shit surpasses comedy...

Like seriously, mc finds a traitor who got the whole army dead including his friend.... oh yeah let's let him live without a scratch since he told me 1 useful piece of information... doesn't really make his revenge desirable right? i wish mc dies and story gets burnt up.

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