Before we even get to the manga, we have to have an impromptu history lesson. There are of course the various "normal" Crusades, but there are also "Popular Crusades." These were actually unsanctioned by the church, and the manga this review is centered around one of these Popular Crusades specifically.
THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE.
There are various versions and accounts of this Crusade, but it seems like more or less the majority agrees that there it was probably not entirely just children in the Children's Crusade. Which certainly would probably without a doubt be a lot more plausible and... less horribly tragic.
I personally was not aware of the Children's Crusade and when somebody told me about it, I genuinely thought they were pulling my leg. But no yeah this actually is a story/semi-historical event that exists.
The idea is a bunch of children from either France or Germany in 1,212 set off marching to try and get to the Holy Land, aka, Jerusalem. If you know even like the tip of the iceberg of anything about the Crusades... the idea of a bunch of children marching Jerusalem in an attempt to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity is... immediately preposterous and horrible. Assuming of course you even survive the actual trip and/or make it to Jerusalem.
I'm not a history buff at all, but I will admit, of the various periods or events I've actively read about or taken an interest in, the Crusades are definitely up there. Admittedly though, the only Crusades I truly know more than a bit about are probably the first couple... and usually, the Crusaders are um... not exactly... hmm...
In any case, a manga about the Children's Crusade in fact exists!
...No, really! And while this manga takes and uses elements and bits from all of the variants of the Children's Crusade... it is in fact... actual children.
So here we go. A warning for those considering this series that certainly does not spoil the final outcome of this particular Crusade.
IF HORRIBLE STUFF HAPPENING TO CHILD/YOUNG CHARACTERS TRIGGERS YOU, THIS MANGA IS NOT FOR YOU AT ALL. THIS MANGA DISGUSTED AND MADE ME UNCOMFORTABLE AT NUMEROUS POINTS. ARGUABLY, IN A VERY GOOD WAY. BUT I'M GOING ON THE ASSUMPTION NOT EVERYONE ACTIVELY SEARCHES FOR STUFF THAT WILL MAKE THEMSELVES FEEL HORRIBLE.
I'M NOT IN ANY WAY JOKING OR EXAGGERATING.
#Introduction#
I did not find this manga by actively searching whether or not a manga about any of the Crusades existed. I probably would have assumed that it in fact would not exist. No, I sort of read a manga about a high school Nazi club that builds a robot with the express purpose of kidnapping girls, and I thought to myself:
Yeah, that was pretty fucked up. What else does this guy have to offer!
Innocents Shounen Juujigun is an action adventure drama by Usamaru Furuya about the Children's Crusade. Usamaru Furuya is... strange. He makes strange things that are weird and like he took his first step into manga while not even really knowing what manga was like resulting in I don't even know, but...Even for him, I was kind of immediately awestruck when I found this while going through his manga. A series about the fucking Children's Crusade? Like really? But good lord, this... if you were ever going to actually make a story out of this one specific and fucked up historical event that is believed to have been overly exaggerated with multiple variants, then this is how you do it.
The manga begins by introducing a bunch of various young boys going on about their days in their village. One of them witnesses a divine vision of Jesus Christ telling him that he must go to the Holy Land, Jerusalem. His hair turns entirely white as he is given a letter and a trumpet. This one event is the seed that sparks the journey of the Children's Crusade. Many other children join those who depart on this journey from this village. Some tag along for glory, some tag along in hopes of cutting down heretics...
We follow this hopeful but certainly naive journey as it very gradually begins to spin out of control as the Children's Crusade is steered off course by corruption, betrayal, faltering faith, bloodlust, temptation, greed, and more.
___They are to never make it to the Holy Land. They are never to make it to Jerusalem._ __
...You could argue that I shouldn't outright spoil that this Crusade ends in horrible failure but spoilers:
The Children's Crusade would have taken place between the 4th and 5th Crusade.
#A Journey of Tragedy#
Even if you didn't know anything about the Crusades or the Children's Crusade specifically, you'd probably very quickly assume that this journey is going to end up failing. The miracles that are delivered and surround the main child Etienne aside, it starts out as more or less just thirteen normal ordinary kids going on this journey. Even assuming they manage to survive the journey itself and actually make it to Jerusalem... what then?
A bunch of kids are gonna assault and take the city of Jerusalem? Yeah, that'll end well.
Despite thinking all this, I was fully engaged in this journey from the very start and to the very end. I wanted to see how this journey would go, and as things kept going overwhelmingly smooth, I was just waiting in anticipation for the moment that everything would go wrong. These children should not be going on this journey. Pretty much all of them except for a couple are completely unaware of what they've gotten themselves into, and the kids that are driven solely by their faith are just entirely barking up the wrong tree...
It's probably one of the most horrifically dark things I've ever read. Sure, you could make the argument that it's solely because that they're all children but... like you have genuinely devout believers either having their faith be entirely shattered or leading them to their own horrific doom. The fact that they're depicted as actual children is only the icing on the cake of this tale of human suffering.
Every step of the way, every twist and turn... it just escalates further and further. The gore isn't even really over the top except for a couple of select instances, but that I think makes the impact of it even worse. Like later on in the manga, there's a castle that has like a garbage chute coming out of the side and corpses are just chucked right out of it like it's just nothing more than additional trash.
But they're in fact some of the characters that we witness and get to know over the course of this horrible journey, and... even the one who sort of takes a turn earlier, despite hating him for his actions, I felt fucking terrible when his body came tumbling down. Additionally, there's the additional gut punch that this in fact in actuality what these adults viewed these children as. The moment their usefulness is expended, they're viewed solely as worthless rubbish to get rid of.
I don't think I'm even truly articulating the actual depths of despair this manga sent me down into.
#Twelve Apostles#
More join the Children's Crusade as it continues onward, but we start with thirteen. The chosen child, and twelve others whom go on this journey with him as his apostles. Twelve apostles... never heard of that before! Each of these kids plays a different purpose in the Children's Crusade or represents something. Can't go into the specifics without spoiling various things that happen, but probably the most obvious are the leper and the twins.
Everyone but the chosen child Etienne shies away from the leper character in disgust and fear that his sickness will spread to them. Etienne instead goes right up to him and treats him kindly. As for the twins, some of the other kids mock the twins and expressing that they're basically the same person and the differences between them don't matter. Additionally, the twins literally share a telepathic bond between each other...
A kid among the group of bandits who attack the village in the beginning ends up joining the Children's Crusade as one of the twelve apostles, and as the bandit kid has in fact been exposed to violence all of his life... out of everyone, he is actually the most prepared for this journey because unlike all of the naive ones, he has actually spilled blood with his own hands before.
Then there's the two rich kids who essentially buy their way into the apostles by providing equipment for the Children's Crusade, even though these two were directly in conflict with essentially Etienne's right hand man, Nicholas (who is of course in contrast to the two rich kids, born of a poor family). And out all of the thirteen children, Nicholas is without a doubt one of the most naive, given his borderline hero worship of the Crusaders.
Then you have like the cheerful kid who goes around brightening things up with his puppet...
Spoiler, click to view
and he ends up getting brutally impaled by another one of the Children Crusaders when he simply just has enough and just wants to go back home.I actually really love this group of characters... even the scumbags that are of course present... but of course, that just makes the rest of this manga hurt all the more. Usamaru Furuya knew exactly what he was doing. One thing I will say is that, I feel like the twist with the
Spoiler, click to view
homosexual/transgender character could have been done better. It might be a result of me having read some of his other manga, but it felt like that was just in there because Furuya has a thing for that sort of character. Granted, I know the character himself was to be a representation of how homosexuals were viewed or treated during those times by the Church.#The Crusaders#
I love that Usamaru Furuya not only captured basically like the absolute worst stuff that's known or thrown around the Crusaders. There is more or less a walking personification of it all and he's just fucking pure evil and scum. They're a complete hypocrite to basically everything the Church and the Templars are supposed to represent and be against and on top of it all, he's
Spoiler, click to view
a complete fraud who's never actually been in a sword fight, is a sexual DEVIANT, and it's never outright called out but he's straight up a Baphomet worshiper because the infamous statue makes an appearance in his castle.But then, on top of this, we also see actual genuine Crusaders at work punishing heretics and even prior to their full appearance, we also at one point see them burning Cathars to death. However, the actual full on appearance of a full army of Crusaders is a huge turning point in the manga. Etienne more or less starts LITERALLY CRYING BLOOD when he sees true Crusaders whom he and the other children were more or less basically trying to imitate before this moment.
They essentially massacre the entirety of and burn down like the last village that actually accepted and treated the Children Crusaders with any form of kindness without actually requiring anything in return. And just a reminder of course... this particular group of Crusaders... they of course actually did in fact exist and yes, they did literally just go around genociding Cathars. The village that gets exterminated in the manga are Waldensians, though.
#The Power of Faith#
One of the more muddled aspects of this series is the extent of Etienne's power/miracles. It gets kind of a little bit silly towards the end, but I actually really like that
Spoiler, click to view
despite there are two separate instances where in fact it's revealed Etienne's power is in fact more or less entirely fake, both incidents done by separate parties,It's a stretch mind you, but the momentary solar eclipse that happens when the additional kids that join the Children's Crusade could have been entirely a coincidence. Of course, the kids see it as Etienne making the sun disappear as a result of his spirits dropping drastically as a result of everyone losing faith.
Pretty much more or less almost every other miracle that takes place can probably be taken as a coincidence.
Spoiler, click to view
And while at the end someone claims that a beam of light coming down right as Etienne dies and shining on Isabelle is Etienne performing an act of immaculate conception, they did at least briefly actually have sex before Etienne was tortured and forced to wander the wilderness.I just really like the idea of Etienne actually possessing these miracle powers, as that only further worsens the tragedy of the entire journey.
Spoiler, click to view
The child who wishes and believes with all of his heart that he is in fact the one chosen by God actually kills the child who is TRULY chosen by God before he can part the seas so he can make it to the Holy Land.The story works regardless of wherever the truth about Etienne's status as the chosen one lands, but I can respect the idea of this character who fully and truly believes in his faith with all of his heart, and these miracles happen as a result of his unwavering faith.
#Conclusion#
...The Crusades were fucked up. And while Usamaru Furuya fully admits that this story is in fact mostly a result of his own imagination, this manga in my opinion fully succeeds at what Furuya set out to create.
Again, I would have never ever have thought a manga about the Crusades actually existed. And... to do the Children's Crusade in all of its horrible glory takes a certain spark of genius that is of course JUST right outside of the borders of insanity. And for the record, one of the versions of the Children's Crusade...
Spoiler, click to view
...does in fact end the same way this manga does. With the bulk of the surviving members being sold off as slaves while thinking that they are on their way to Jerusalem.My score of this is a 9 out of 10, and I would absolutely recommend checking this out and potentially Usamaru Furuya's other manga if you're both not very squeamish and if you're in the mood for some weird and sometimes really dark stuff.
I love the Crusades! Deus Vult!
