This is my most pseudohistorical icon
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Lately I was in the mood for historical manga. I picked one of these two out of recommendations at free_manga, and the other because I had heard it was epic. But mostly, I picked these because you rarely see the civilizations where they take place in Eastern comics. Most historical manga set in the West is like... in France. Or Victorian Britain. Which isn't bad, but variety is good.
They both have something in common: The main character is a boy with the blood of warriors in his veins. Their life gives a huge turn when their father gets killed in an awful way that was indirectly the kid's fault. Even though the boy must undergo through a trip in faraway lands and perhaps never see the rest of his family again, here's where the coincidence ends. Eumedes uses his mind to get out of the situations he gets into, while Thorfinn grows up to be a violent, hot-headed killing machine (think shounen retard, but ANGRIER). It's not really because of the upbringing, even if the former was raised by a smart culture and the latter's has a bad fame; no, it's more of the circunstances and personality of the characters.
Also, if you want to read either manga, you gotta know that they have a good share of gore. Nothing extremely horrible, but there's blood and corpses and organs and heads disembodied going around. And if slavery squicks you too much, then you might have a couple of issues as it was normal in those time periods. The solid stories and great art make up to it, though, so I'd still rec them even if you dislike any of the above. You can find both manga in Onemanga.
Historie:
The story is about the boyhood of Eumenes, who would later become Alexander the Great's secretarial officer. One night he dreamed of a mysterious lady and the story begins.
Don't really wait to find Alexander the Great popping in it, though (however, we got a cameo from Aristotle at the beginning!) as the story's focus is Eumenes' tale. Raised as the second son of a wealthy man in the Greek city of Cardia, he used to be a bookworm as a kid and it shows. He's so amazingly clever I was fangirling him through the story. The title comes from the fact he really liked Herodotus' scrolls the most, although he admits to admire Odysseus when it comes to fictional heroes. His story gets more tragic soon as he had to become a slave later on for reasons I'll leave you to find out. It's not for long, lucky him, and ends up in a barbarian village for the rest of his childhood/puberty giving classes on world history and Greek culture to the locals.
There's not a lot of this manga -just four volumes- but the story is pretty good. I did like it a lot, and the art style reminds me of Naoki Urasawa a bit. It's a pity the only fleshed out character so far is Eumenes, though, even if some secondary characters had potential but not nearly enough screentime. I still have hopes for the lady who was chasing Aristotle to stay because she was cool, now that the author brought her back.
Vinland Saga:
Set in Northern Europe at the start of the 11th century, the story is about a Viking.
VIKINGS! PILLAGE! BATTLES! VIKINGS!
At the beginning there wasn't that much of a plot going on, although the characters were interesting. Thorfinn is a young man from a village in Iceland. When he was little, his family and neighbors discover in a bad way that his father Thors was a deserter of an army, and so he was forced to go back. Little Thorfinn sneaks out in their ship and unfortunately gets to witness the ambush from some mercenaries to assassinate Thors, who dies for Thorfinn's sake. Ever since, our main character becomes a bundle of hate and vengeance, and joins those same mercenaries so he could kill the responsible, their magnificent bastard of a boss Askeladd. Not that Askeladd is worried, because he can pretty much use Thorfinn at will and bribe him with duels he always wins anyway.
So it wasn't a lot at the start, although I adored the flashbacks and Thors and his family. But then Askeladd and company join the war between Denmark and England. And here's where everything changes when they set out to rescue shy, trap-alicious Prince Canute who was kidnapped by the enemy. We get to know that Askeladd did have a larger goal in life, to begin with. Then, everyone and their mother -from those who survive and are important- get in the middle of the conflicts for succession to the Danish crown, even if our protagonists just tags along because he won't leave Askeladd alone until he kills him. So right now the story is looking more political, but there's still the usual badassery and fights.
I like how the characters are handled in this manga, even if our main kid is a bit in the shallow department. There's character development and rarely for the good (unless you're Thors ♥), which is refreshing. And even if most characters get to be such sons of a bitch most times, I still can't dislike them because they're amusing and/or badass. This is odd because in other mangas I probably wouldn't stand them. Maybe here it's different because they're VIKINGS.
But yeah, the art is great (and I love how the mangaka does facial expressions XD), the fights are epic, the plot is starting to get interesting, and it's tons of fun because VIKINGS. The only thing is that there's a lack of a strong female presence (Ylfa is made of win, but besides an extra story she's not on the plot anymore). I feel extremely guilty for thinking that Canute should be an actual girl pretending to be a dude so the story could be even more awesome, but I doubt this is even possible.
Lately I was in the mood for historical manga. I picked one of these two out of recommendations at free_manga, and the other because I had heard it was epic. But mostly, I picked these because you rarely see the civilizations where they take place in Eastern comics. Most historical manga set in the West is like... in France. Or Victorian Britain. Which isn't bad, but variety is good.
They both have something in common: The main character is a boy with the blood of warriors in his veins. Their life gives a huge turn when their father gets killed in an awful way that was indirectly the kid's fault. Even though the boy must undergo through a trip in faraway lands and perhaps never see the rest of his family again, here's where the coincidence ends. Eumedes uses his mind to get out of the situations he gets into, while Thorfinn grows up to be a violent, hot-headed killing machine (think shounen retard, but ANGRIER). It's not really because of the upbringing, even if the former was raised by a smart culture and the latter's has a bad fame; no, it's more of the circunstances and personality of the characters.
Also, if you want to read either manga, you gotta know that they have a good share of gore. Nothing extremely horrible, but there's blood and corpses and organs and heads disembodied going around. And if slavery squicks you too much, then you might have a couple of issues as it was normal in those time periods. The solid stories and great art make up to it, though, so I'd still rec them even if you dislike any of the above. You can find both manga in Onemanga.
Historie:
The story is about the boyhood of Eumenes, who would later become Alexander the Great's secretarial officer. One night he dreamed of a mysterious lady and the story begins.
Don't really wait to find Alexander the Great popping in it, though (however, we got a cameo from Aristotle at the beginning!) as the story's focus is Eumenes' tale. Raised as the second son of a wealthy man in the Greek city of Cardia, he used to be a bookworm as a kid and it shows. He's so amazingly clever I was fangirling him through the story. The title comes from the fact he really liked Herodotus' scrolls the most, although he admits to admire Odysseus when it comes to fictional heroes. His story gets more tragic soon as he had to become a slave later on for reasons I'll leave you to find out. It's not for long, lucky him, and ends up in a barbarian village for the rest of his childhood/puberty giving classes on world history and Greek culture to the locals.
There's not a lot of this manga -just four volumes- but the story is pretty good. I did like it a lot, and the art style reminds me of Naoki Urasawa a bit. It's a pity the only fleshed out character so far is Eumenes, though, even if some secondary characters had potential but not nearly enough screentime. I still have hopes for the lady who was chasing Aristotle to stay because she was cool, now that the author brought her back.
Vinland Saga:
Set in Northern Europe at the start of the 11th century, the story is about a Viking.
VIKINGS! PILLAGE! BATTLES! VIKINGS!
At the beginning there wasn't that much of a plot going on, although the characters were interesting. Thorfinn is a young man from a village in Iceland. When he was little, his family and neighbors discover in a bad way that his father Thors was a deserter of an army, and so he was forced to go back. Little Thorfinn sneaks out in their ship and unfortunately gets to witness the ambush from some mercenaries to assassinate Thors, who dies for Thorfinn's sake. Ever since, our main character becomes a bundle of hate and vengeance, and joins those same mercenaries so he could kill the responsible, their magnificent bastard of a boss Askeladd. Not that Askeladd is worried, because he can pretty much use Thorfinn at will and bribe him with duels he always wins anyway.
So it wasn't a lot at the start, although I adored the flashbacks and Thors and his family. But then Askeladd and company join the war between Denmark and England. And here's where everything changes when they set out to rescue shy, trap-alicious Prince Canute who was kidnapped by the enemy. We get to know that Askeladd did have a larger goal in life, to begin with. Then, everyone and their mother -from those who survive and are important- get in the middle of the conflicts for succession to the Danish crown, even if our protagonists just tags along because he won't leave Askeladd alone until he kills him. So right now the story is looking more political, but there's still the usual badassery and fights.
I like how the characters are handled in this manga, even if our main kid is a bit in the shallow department. There's character development and rarely for the good (unless you're Thors ♥), which is refreshing. And even if most characters get to be such sons of a bitch most times, I still can't dislike them because they're amusing and/or badass. This is odd because in other mangas I probably wouldn't stand them. Maybe here it's different because they're VIKINGS.
But yeah, the art is great (and I love how the mangaka does facial expressions XD), the fights are epic, the plot is starting to get interesting, and it's tons of fun because VIKINGS. The only thing is that there's a lack of a strong female presence (Ylfa is made of win, but besides an extra story she's not on the plot anymore). I feel extremely guilty for thinking that Canute should be an actual girl pretending to be a dude so the story could be even more awesome, but I doubt this is even possible.