“When the Wischtech threatened to invade the fiefs of Szaalanden, the Emperor dispatched fourteen youths. Of these, the Seven Heroes halted the invasion to herald a time of prosperity while the four Lances of Betrayal were supposedly defeated.

Two decades later, the Lances of Betrayal have reappeared and formed a bandit militia near the frontier fief Gormbark. A man with a black sword and a scar over his left eye slays an entire troop of that militia. He is identified as the boy, Koinzell, and becomes as much an object of fear as of hope even as his own past, motivations, and purpose are a mystery to those he meets on his journey.” -mangaupdates.com

This is a very unique manga and I love everything about it. Everything from the characters to the plot I love.  In fact, I can’t name anything I don’t like about this manga off the top of my head.  Of course just like everything else, no manga is perfect.  This manga has some cons but they are small and negligible and will not distract you from enjoying the series. I already explained that I love the characters in this manga, to attempt to explain why I love the characters I will tell you why I love the main character, Koinzell. Koinzell may be small but don’t let his small stature fool you, he is all man. He carries a past heavy with death, betrayal and violence, and the way he carries on and tries to correct the past even at the cost of making the entire empire his enemy is awe-inspiring. Koinzell has so much depth that you can feel the emotion he must be feeling.  When he kills the people who used to be his friends in the past, you can feel his pain and suffering without the mangaka needing to do much.

Another thing I love about the manga are the small things that the mangaka added. I don’t know if you noticed but the title of the manga isn’t in Japanese, rather it is in German and means Evil Blade. Throughout the manga the manga uses names in German.  Of course this has no real effect on the plot but I enjoy the change in pace. I mean, everything in German sounds so much cooler than its English equivalent, right?

The last topic I will touch on is the drawing.  I love the drawing here a lot; I would put it just under the level of Berserk’s drawings. I highly doubt I will see a manga that will match Berserk’s drawing but this manga nicely fits in second place.  The drawings are on the same level as the creativity used in the monsters and machines that are common in this series. I believe this is a great manga but be warned this manga is soaked in blood and gore and nudity also appears often. But know this is not an ecchi manga, there is no sex and the nudity is not demeaning to the women and men who are partially or fully nude. As far as blood and gore goes, you don’t see any organs when someone gets cut in half, any cut is “clean”. The image below is as bad as it gets.

Available here

GO Rating: 5/5

Sources:  [mangaupdates.com][renders-graphiques.fr][thatanimeblog.com]