Innocent

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I just wanna say this... The first random chapter I clicked on to see if I'd like to read this series...
Was two people having sex and talking about keys?... yeah... Where's the smut/ecchi tag?
 
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Sep 9, 2018
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An interesting story, but it seems to fall apart at the end, with the
complete flip of the MC's character, and the emergence of his malicious spiritual successor, his sister. Maybe Rouge makes up for it, though.

The art is nice enough to give this story a shot and the first part of the story is great, but I don't recommend the full ride.
 
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Feb 1, 2018
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I wrote a long-ass analysis about Innocent and Innocent Rouge compared and contrasted to other series that deal with innocence and guilt. Long story short, I think Innocent sets up the themes, and Innocent Rouge goes deep into them.

https://longhandhabits.com/2019/07/23/innocent-killers-azumi-enders-game-and-innocent/
 
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starts nuanced and psychological ends political and quasi-comical.
The character of Mary from a free-falling sociopath becomes some sort of analysis on gender roles, LGBT history in 18th century france, polyamory, racial discrimination all in the span of 10-20 chapters. It's so on the nose it's almost funny.
Charles had a slow transition into the character of his father that went slipping down at the speed of light as soon as the author decided to focus on Mary, all she has to do is drop random quirks about how he changed as he whines about family obligations, despite giving less than two fucks about them before.
Hell, he tortures his own son. His opposition to torture set the basis of his character from the beginning, it defined his values and worldview to the point where he was ready to topple the seemingly endless power of his grandmother. It led to his liberal sympathies. it was the central reason he didn't want to kill people violently, which was what would have led him to seek out the guilottine.
The reader is never given any reason as to why he changed, he just did. There's two comments about the world being rough and how raising kids made Charles more conscious of his family. Which could certainly be explored as a reason for him to enjoin with the system. But here it's a magical incantation that transforms him from a grey, morally tormented character one page into a saturday cartoon villain the next. Replete with last minute d'oh moments as his dastardly plan to have his sister married is befuzzled scooby-doo style.

Everybody gets simplified, flanderized, almost a caricature. At the start it was beautiful, and read almost like a novel. The father, grandmother, uncle were all "villains" but were given ample space to prove that they had a 3-dimensional personality and were acting out of selfless motives but constrained within a hierarchical system that forced them to participate in violence, which hurt them as much as the victim.

When father Sanson tortured Charles. He acted out of a belief that the firstborn must inherit the family business, and therefore has to be strong in character to take a life. Something that can only be achieved by getting one accustomed to violence. Said torture also had a secondary purpose of forcing compliance with the unreasonable demands of his family, such as the inheritance itself. He knew it was painful for the son, but justified it by claiming that his son was his flesh and blood and an extension of him. Despite voluntarily participating in child torture, he is a victim as well.
What could be done to fix this?
Removing constricting family institutions, authoritarian systems, class-based understandings of occupation, societal acceptance of child violence, patriarchal norms. For there to be no Jean, the whole political, economic and cultural landscape has to be changed from the grounds up.

When a bunch of white french aristocrats attack a half-black french noble for being mixed, then burn down his orphanage with the children still inside, provoke him to a fight, kill him and publically leave their family emblem in his body. They did it because they were assholes of comedic proportions. Even with all the discrimination present in pre-revolutionary france, burning down an entire orphanage wasn't something people laughed off.
What could be done to fix this?
"Literally, like, stop being evil. "
That's all the message there is. No compulsion from a higher system, no psychological explanation for their actions. The reason they burned kids alive was because they wanted to burn kids alive. The way to stop them from burning kids alive is for them to stop burning kids alive.

It regressed to something simple and primitive, with feel good moral messaging that handwaves any sort of nuance. Every scene of the last 20 or so chapters can be constrasted with a scene from the first 50 that expounded the same concepts but on a much deeper level, with much more nuance and realism.

It started out as il gattopardo and ended as a adult lit fanfic.
 
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masurauo brought me here from stalking the author. this is very different from that.
 
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Sakamoto Shinichi's style evolved from the rough badasserie of Masuraou to raw realism through Kokou no Hito until it hit this gothic, languid, beautiful style. I wish I had 1/100 of his talent... Motherfreaking master.
 
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The art is superb, 10/10.
The story however, like it's the beginning of something (which understandable, there's sequel).
The flip of MC is kind of confusing. Character development is a bit slow, but overall it takes a good grasp of French before revolution
 
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Main characters do 180 flips in personality in the middle of the story with no good rhyme or reason, which brings the entire second half of the manga down.
 
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why the fuck would the author take away the focus from charles henri to focus on marie vagina? why? henri was a somewhat good character with his moral compass, ideals, guilt over being an executioner and i found how he eventually comes to terms with his situation as an executioner reallistic, he cant go on chasing dreams when he now has a family to take care of, marie vagina, on the other hand, is such a cookie cutter girlboss character that it hurts, tries to emulate being a man with her clothes, her stupid hairstyle, always being unnecesarely violent and rude, and never facing repercussions for her actions,
to think she would say, outloud and among nobles, how most of them will eventually end executed, how she has a lesbian relationship with marie antoniette herself and faces no repecurssion for it

jesus christ, the manga started good but to see it going downhill so steep and so fast by introducing such an idiotic useless character, its like the mangaka ask himself "how can i make my manga far far worse"? such a disspointment, i give it a 6 out of 10.
 
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why the fuck would the author take away the focus from charles henri to focus on marie vagina? why? henri was a somewhat good character with his moral compass, ideals, guilt over being an executioner and i found how he eventually comes to terms with his situation as an executioner reallistic, he cant go on chasing dreams when he now has a family to take care of, marie vagina, on the other hand, is such a cookie cutter girlboss character that it hurts, tries to emulate being a man with her clothes, her stupid hairstyle, always being unnecesarely violent and rude, and never facing repercussions for her actions,
to think she would say, outloud and among nobles, how most of them will eventually end executed, how she has a lesbian relationship with marie antoniette herself and faces no repecurssion for it

jesus christ, the manga started good but to see it going downhill so steep and so fast by introducing such an idiotic useless character, its like the mangaka ask himself "how can i make my manga far far worse"? such a disspointment, i give it a 6 out of 10.
Agreed
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2024
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why the fuck would the author take away the focus from charles henri to focus on marie vagina? why? henri was a somewhat good character with his moral compass, ideals, guilt over being an executioner and i found how he eventually comes to terms with his situation as an executioner reallistic, he cant go on chasing dreams when he now has a family to take care of, marie vagina, on the other hand, is such a cookie cutter girlboss character that it hurts, tries to emulate being a man with her clothes, her stupid hairstyle, always being unnecesarely violent and rude, and never facing repercussions for her actions,
to think she would say, outloud and among nobles, how most of them will eventually end executed, how she has a lesbian relationship with marie antoniette herself and faces no repecurssion for it

jesus christ, the manga started good but to see it going downhill so steep and so fast by introducing such an idiotic useless character, its like the mangaka ask himself "how can i make my manga far far worse"? such a disspointment, i give it a 6 out of 10.
The story went tits up midway through because the story as well as ALL of its charachters (including Marie) became disjointed and confusing, not because the author suddenly introduced a 'shit charachter' - Marie was there from the very beginning. If you think Maries charachter wasn't planned from the get-go you weren't paying attention. Hell, she was the first charachter that we met even before Henri + not getting to know her name until later
the blood splatter over her name in the beginning when the family was all being introduced around the dinner table heavily foreshadowed the type of charachter she would be.
The charachters ideals and goals all just went off the rails, jostled along by the authors attempts to put a spin on history and make them fit into it. Innocent Rogue especially highlights this - the ending just went on and on and is only a continuation of the dissonance we saw in the last 20 - 30 chapters of Innocence. I'm assuming Marie took centerstage partway through because her charachter, while having the name of Henri's real sibling, is essentially totally made up as opposed to Henri, who they have a fair bit if historical documentation to lean back on, so they had more freedom to styelize the story through Marie instead.

Henri's change in progression was more stark in my opinion, he seemed to totally toss away his morals and ideals by the end
and its poorly explained away by 'having a family', but he dosen't get them back until the end of Innocent Rogue because... he lost a member of his family???
Marie didn't make much sense either, but she made more sense than Henri in the end because she essentially didn't chance much through both manga. She was just always that bitch.
 

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