Innocent Omnibus vol. 1
What we have here is something that is still rarer than I’d like to see from Dark Horse. That would be a new manga with no prior connection to other media. It’s not based on an anime or live-action series, nor is it spun off from a videogame or light novel. “Innocent’s” only basis is in the life of Charles-Henri Sanson, an executioner in Pre-Revolution France who sent more than three-thousand people to their deaths before, during, and after the Revolution. While a life that led to that many deaths may seem monstrous to behold, mangaka Shin’ichi Sakamoto asks us to put aside our preconceptions. To believe that someone like Charles was more concerned with doing right by the condemned than reveling in their suffering.
Was that actually the case in real life? Damned if I know. Despite its basis in characters that existed and events that actually happened, this comes off as historical fiction more than anything else. Which is really for the best given how melodramatic some of its storytelling can get. Was Charles’ grandmother such a villainous schemer who took gleeful pride in abusing her children to ensure her family’s status? Did Charles meet Jean de Chartois before putting him to death? Did he also meet and provide aid to a man who would go on to stab the King? The answer to all of these is certainly, “Probably not, but it makes for a better story.”
As for whether or not allowing fact and fiction to intermingle actually makes for a better story, the jury’s still out on that. Sakamoto’s main goal with this series is his idea that Charles’ compassion and empathy towards the condemned is something that should be admired if not downright venerated. We first meet him as a teenager forced into the role as his upper-class society has no other place for him. He’s remarkably ill-suited to this kind of work as well, presenting as a timid, frail child who looks like he’d be incapable of squashing a bug rather than taking someone’s head clean off.
Yet he shows himself to be surprisingly resilient to his circumstances as the story goes on. Never quite wallowing in the unfairness of his circumstances, we see Charles cling to his faith and try to be as humane as possible when carrying out executions. Sometimes that just means he finds a way to kill the condemned as quickly and painlessly as possible. Other times, and these are the more interesting moments, he tries to find some loophole that will prevent him from carrying out the execution in the first place.
There’s also a lot of family drama to take in as well. Seeing Charles’ father’s sympathy be revealed as wholehearted disappointment as his mind and body rot away is certainly something. As is youngest daughter Marie’s budding serial killer nature. Grandmother Anne-Marthe takes the cake here as she comes off so transparently villainous in all manner of her presentation that it honestly feels hard to hate her as a result. Better to sit back and enjoy how committed Sakamoto is to making her so one-dimensional.
Or better still, sit back and enjoy how amazing the mangaka makes his story look. Sakamoto revels in giving us a Pre-Revolution France that’s dripping with all manner of salacious details. From the unbridled celebration of the Fire Festival, where people let EVERYTHING hang out, to the boisterous crowds at executions who are clearly eager to be thrilled and repulsed in equal measure. Yet there are also scenes of calm and sinister effect as we see the Sanson family practice the art of dissection to learn their craft, and see Charles practice his swordplay in an empty field. Sakamoto is clearly invested in this setting and he shows it off with every single panel.
He’s also very enamored of pale, young, wiry men with long flowing hair and the minute details of executions as they explode into blood before exploding into metaphor. There are also the times when he finds a middle ground between the two as we see Charles himself abused at a couple points during this volume. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with the mangaka drawing what he’s clearly interested in; but, it’s something that people should be aware of before they start reading this since these things come up over and over again here.
I wasn’t put off by these elements, yet I’m still questioning whether the story has a strong enough narrative hook to keep me invested through the next two omnibi (this omnibus collects the first three volumes of the series, in case you didn’t know). It’s hard to get invested in things at first, but Charles’ struggles do get more interesting as the volume goes on. Particularly in the third volume as his desire to be just finds a new way to clash with his family, by way of his uncle, and the spectacle of the execution he’s asked to oversee threatens to overwhelm him.
Still, I’d find it a lot easier to sympathize with the protagonist’s struggles if Sakamoto wasn’t banging the drum so hard for his saintliness. We get lots of single-and-double-page spreads showing his agony, while just about every person he meets either has it in for him, or has utter contempt for him as a result of his job. YET HE STILL PREVAILS! Through all the hardship he maintains his innocence and that he is only trying to do right by God and himself. This would be utterly insufferable if it wasn’t for the fact that Sakamoto wasn’t such a damned good artist and actually manages to sell a lot of this through his art alone.
So is “Innocent” worth reading? It’s different and it gets better as it goes along, even though there’s a real danger that it might stumble over its own righteousness before it reaches the finish line. This omnibus is also a good value for your money, giving you over 600 pages of manga for $30. Yet, if we’re judging this by my oft-repeated yardstick for buying manga from Dark Horse, I’m content so far with picking up future volumes to show the publisher that I want more manga that’s different from what’s in the mainstream. I feel a lot better about doing that for “Innocent” so far than I ever have for “Emanon,” at least.