Innocent

Innocent is a completed post 2010 manga based on the French Revolution and the events leading up to it from the perspective of the executioner of Paris, Charles Henri Sanson written and drawn by the critically accaimed mangaka, Shinichi Sakamoto who's other work included "The Climber". French Revolution isnt an original setting in anime/manga. Its been done before by a better author but this work has a lot of value to offer in its perspective, tone and art which we'll look at this review.

Art, Atmosphere and Visual Symbolism

I'd like to start of with the art and visual symbolism first because this where I believe Shinichi Sakamoto shines the best. His art is really gorgeous and has a photographic realism to it. It does a fantastic job in setting the dark, gritty and mature tone and atmosphere of the entire manga. Every page looks beautiful and from a purely artistic point of view it might be among the other great Historical manga such as Vagabond and Vinland Saga. Whats more impressive about his art is how he does his visual symbolism. They're all done in an amazing, nuanced and at times disturbing and creepy ways that you cannot help but be awed by Sakamoto-sensei's visual prose.

However, the art in my honest opinion the art can become a double edged sword at times. While its aesthetic and shiny, sometimes it feels like his art is dead. The characters feel like dolls with four different expressions. But overall the art is fantastic and adds a lot of value to the series in presenting its tone, atmosphere and beauty of the manga.

Setting, Story and Characters

Its based on the first major and regarded by historians as the greatest revolution in history - The French Revolution and the events leading up to it. Its a setting that has various interpretations by historians and Historical fiction authors alike, even in the medium of anime and manga alike. There have been other manga such as Rose of Versailles (A masterpiece) and Marie Antoinette. Innocent stands itself apart from the rest of these manga in how it portrays its events. Its a dark, brutal, negative and a harsh representation of 1970s France and Paris. The story follows a kind hearted boy born into the family of executioners of Paris and its his journey of being this coldblooded executioner who has to do his job of killing men, women and chidren alike with impartiality.

The story does a pretty good job both telling a good story about the journey of young executioners while also paralleling actual historical events fairly faithfully. However its not perfect. The story loses its coherence in the middle of its narrative, it becomes unnatural at times and it feels like we've missed something important that the narrative needed. Moreover, the series at times is too hell bent on pushing sex and the mature part into the story just for the sake of being edgy. Some aspects of it tie really well with the characters and their development but by the time a dildo came up I couldn't take a lot of it seriously.

The character development of the protagonist is all over the place as well. The character development in the first half is amazing and starts off super strong but it then loses its direction mid way through the story in the manga. The protagonist changes in a very disappointing way. It's like the author tried making this sweet character into his harsh historical counterpart without the actual care & nuance needed for development. We aren't given a proper nuanced look into how his values change but a few tropey ones. Which is a legit criticism but the positive that comes with it is that it focuses on a different character in the second half of the story for the most part who's really well written and a great foil to the MC but it comes with the cost of mediocre off screen character development of the protagonist.

Conclusion

Innocent is very good and enjoyable manga with really strong highs with breathtaking art and visual imagery, and an interesting journey for the protagonist that falls of after the mid portion of the story. Its a manga with very high highs, and very low lows. Its a must read for people looking for a manga that can never get a proper anime adaptation and people looking for a mature historical manga without weeb-ey tropes that insult a reader's intelligence. Its not a perfect series, it has multiple flaws but its still a great manga reading experience.

75/100