Before I start this review, there are several disclaimers I need to get out of the way. The first is that there will be unmarked spoilers throughout pretty much throughout this entire review. Talking about this manga in any sort of depth would be kind of impossible without them, considering that it's a companion piece to a video game and it's premise is inherently linked to a massive spoiler from said video game. So if you want to play Tales of Vesperia blind, steer clear of this review (It's a great game, highly recommended, it and Abyss are neck-in-neck for my fav Tales of.).

Tales of Vesperia: Kokuu no Kamen (Commonly fan-translated as Tales of Vesperia: The Empty Mask) is about the backstory of party member Raven from before we meet him in-game to around the end of the game's second act. It depicts his time as the young nobleman Damuron Atomais in the knights a decade before the game, when he was brought back to life as Schwann Oltorain by Alexei, him meeting Don Whitehorse and becoming his right-hand man as Raven, his double life as both Raven and Schwann, up to the events of the game where he meets Yuri Lowell and ending when he finally no longer has to live a double life.

The core of this manga is Raven and his search for his identity and who it is he wants to become. This was something he struggled with even as Damuron, before he was split into two. Damuron was mostly a playboy who spent his life messing around, and his father sent him to join the knights to straighten him out. There he meets Casey, an idealistic knight who wishes to become like the knight who saved her family when she was young. Casey is mentioned in TOV during a personal sidequest of Raven's, plus one other scene that I'll talk about later. Seeing her inspires Damuron to also strive to be an ideal knight, until their time with their brigade is tragically cut short by the Great War, which there were almost no survivors.

Damuron would have been counted among the dead-had commandant Alexei Dinoa not revived him with a Blastia heart. Damuron is dead, as he is now Schwann Oltorain, the commoner who rose through the ranks to become a captain, the exact kind of story Alexei needs to support his policy of inter-class brigades. Schwann deliberately suppresses his memories from his time as Damuron, as that is not who Alexei wants him to be. Schwann's screentime in TOV is limited, but from the few scenes we see of him in game we can tell he doesn't have much of a will of his own and views himself as a tool. Here in the manga we see more of that, with the added dimension of seeing how Alexei was before TOV. Alexei had always been ambitious, but his experiences with the people in power who opposed him hardened him into who he is in the game, and he began to view Schwann as his puppet that he could use however he pleases.

One day Schwann gets sent to kill guild leader Don Whitehorse, who hands his ass to him and names him his messenger, giving him the name Raven. This is the basis for the Raven that is playable in TOV, the goofy "fishy old man" who Yuri Lowell meets in prison. While Raven presents himself as laid back, it's clear that he's a pretty insecure man whose lack of will is just as prominent as it is when he's Schwann. He's sweet, but he's also closed off and cagey, barely letting anyone in. He gets attached to Yuri and his party, something Don comments on as he thinks Raven might have finally found someone he can confide in. While Raven is a second-in-command much like Schwann, Don actually values Raven as a person and wants the best for him. This makes his death devastating for Raven's psyche, as it effectively means that his time as Raven is dead and he must return to being only Schwann.

The final few chapters focus on Yuri's party meeting Schwann after he and Alexei kidnap Estelle, their defeat of him and his supposed death and subsequent rescue by his brigade. The Schwann brigade are largely used as incompetent comic relief in TOV, although there are a few scenes showing their admiration of their captain. Here, they are used to show how Raven's time as Schwann did have some meaning outside of being a puppet, as the technique Raven taught them are what allowed them to save him. After getting punched out by Yuri and his crew for his betrayal, Raven finally gets the chance to live his own life, to decide what he wants.

Raven is my favorite character in TOV and probably my fav character in the Tales series (There's a reason he's my profile pic lol), so seeing him explored like this made me immensely happy. However, I do wish this series had been a little longer, both to elaborate on some more things and to show how some of the scenes later in the game would have looked in manga form. The main thing is Yeager, Casey's lover from the war days who was also revived with a Blastia heart by Alexei. The fact that he features in the manga so little is honestly kind of perplexing to me, considering his importance to Casey + the final confrontation with him in the game is the most Casey is mentioned in the game's main story. I personally think the manga should have ended at the final fight with Alexei, as it would have made a lot of sense to show Raven confronting the man who turned him into a puppet. Would have provided a good conclusion to his journey to think for himself.

The art in this manga is pretty good, I particularly love the way the artist draws Raven in all of his forms. The other characters from the game also look great, and make me wish we got more scenes with them. I don't know if Casey already had a design decided before this manga was published, bit that fact that she resembles Yuri kind of has me curious. During my second readthrough, I got the idea that maybe the resemblance was intentional. Casey and Yuri are both people who helped Raven when he was unsure of who he was (Although it was more extreme during Yuri's time), so maybe that was supposed to drive the point home.

I really love this manga, although it's not something I would just recommend to people not familiar with the game since they'd probably be pretty confused (Especially with the later chapters that draw heavily from the game). If you are a Vesperia fan however, you have to read this. It provides a look into Raven in a depth that the game itself does not, adding a lot more dimension to his actions. I can only hope that it gets an official English release one day, even though that's probably a pipe dream.