Bokkou

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This is my first review hope you enjoy.

Bokku or Stratège is about the story of Kakuri a man of the Bokk clan who helps protect the village of Ryo. At first glance, knowing nothing about this manga when I started it, I thought this was going to be about martial arts but in reality it is about war strategy. The story takes place around 500 BC.

Story 7/10: It is fast paced without feeling rushed and lets Kakuri show off his prowess as a military strategist. After the first Arc the story begins to delve into the world of Bokk and the reasoning ... behind their actions. The story has good progression however towards the end things started to get rushed like they knew they were going to be canceled and hurried to ending. While this did take away from it overall the story was one of the best aspects of the manga.

Art 6/10: The art is fair and it takes a little bit getting used to Kakuri especially after you see him in the first chapter but overall its well drawn. The fights are violent and are ok. Ive seen better but since this manga concentrated more on the strategy of war rather than the pure violence i thought it did I nice job.

Character 7/10: Character development is to a minimum which I don't think is a bad thing. You learn enough about the characters to enjoy them, but the manga I think did a nice job leaving a lot of it to the imagination. This manga isn't really about the characters sob stories. When your fighting a war who the hell cares about your back story (just kidding).

Enjoyment and Overall 7/10: This was quite an enjoyable manga to read. It starts off real strong and was a nice change of pace since the story was not as I imagined. If the ending didn't feel as rushed as it did it could of gotten a better score but overall this is still a good manga.

I only found Bokko thanks to Hidden Gems of Manga club so before getting to the review I'd like to shout them out. If you want to find some good but lesser known manga to read - check them out at https://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=8776

While Bokko has some underlying messages about inevitability of war and human nature, all of it is rather just a nice supplement to the main course of action packed adventure. The story is set during the warring states period of China, perhaps the peak of military action and it's conveyed well in the manga through incessant action and mindset of side characters. Despite pretty ... much everyone's goal at the time revolving to conquer their neighbors and rule the country, the ideals of our protagonists are diametrically opposed to that goal. All Kokuri wants is for as few people to die as possible and through that, convince them to give up on futile conflict and live in peace. An impossible goal but one you could sympathize with. To accomplish such a task he, as a man of Bokk clan that originally established Kokuri's ideals, is trained in variety of defensive techniques and military tactics.

That's the groundwork of the manga. The rest concerns the personal adventure of Kokuri, the people he meets on his journey and his relationship with the new leadership and ideals of Bokk clan that strayed from what he thought was righteous. There's not a lot to say about the story in manga like that without just going over the events which I would like to avoid. Instead I'll just say that it delivers completely on things it sets out to do and despite a somewhat rushed conclusions and minor deviations from the grounded and historically authentic setting, it's an excellent read and a real page turner, I would keep opening new volumes thinking I'll read just one chapters to complete some story thread and then end up reading more and more cause I wanted to see where it would go and what would happen. Tight pacing is not something I come across all that often in both anime and manga but Bokko really nails it. There's a very acute balance between rapid fire action where you'd get several pages just observing things unfold with no unnecessary text and more contemplative moments where manga is not afraid to slow down and tell you important information.

However all of this wouldn't mean much if writing wasn't up to par. Throughout the intense journey there isn't a point where Bokko would fall into routine of repetition despite the theme seemingly lending itself for it. There's always new complications in way of our main characters and there's always a need to outwit your opponent with new solutions while having to deal with countless restrictions and obstacles. I can't say I was the biggest fan of some of the more over the top stuff like the insect squad and some sort of mutants present in both bigger arcs but aside from a few moments I don't think they too heavily impact the manga.

When it comes to characters I can't say it's a strong suit of the manga,serviceable they are but I can't call them good. Most of them are just there to serve the plot and don't even have any depth to them or go through any kind of arc. Their personalities are fleshed out and that's about it, you know who's who and what they're about which is enough to grasp their role and see where it could lead. Surprisingly enough one of the few characters that stood out to me was actually Shirou who is Kokuri's childhood friend. He's also one of the very few multifaceted characters who had any sort of internal conflict. Throughout the manga he toes the line between loyalty to his friend and loyalty to the Bokk clan and his research and it concludes beautifully in the last chapters when his choice is made and he has to reap the consequences. While it's a bit rushed it was still one of the more impactful moments.

Art is worth mentioning too, while the paneling is pretty conventional (which is not a bad thing), the art on display is outright gorgeous. There's a really strong aesthetic quality to gore in Bokko, even when things get gruesome it's a captivating watch cause it captures the weird quality of violence that makes you want to look at it in all the grotesque detail. Aside from that there's a lot of sheer technical skill on display that's rather easy to tell. The artist behind Bokko has a good grasp of fundamentals and human anatomy which is really important in an action adventure manga than at times can live or day based on visual presentation. When this technical talent is coupled with an eye for aesthetic it creates a manga that's hard to look away from.

All in all even if Bokko is not quite a masterpiece it's still an immensely enjoyable read. I'd recommend it to anyone but especially to people who are into fights that are won through wit rather than strength alone and for people who like the stories about ancient china cause it delivers on both of those.

I had read well over 100 manga by the time I got around to reading Bokkou, and I had not and still haven't seen a series lose the plot as much as this series has. (The Promised Neverland comes the closest)

Had the series stayed and solely focused on the siege, then I personally feel it would have been much more enjoyable. But instead it goes off on some adventure that made little sense to me and just felt like a cop out at the fact the author lost interest in his original vision for the series.

The only reason I read this series to completion is ... because it is set during the Warring States Period of China. As both a history buff and fan of the series Kingdom, I simply wanted to see how the series would handle the time period.

If you want a manga about ancient chinese warfare, don't bother reading Bokkou, go read Kingdom instead.

TL:DR
Generic characters and a muddled plot that feels like the author couldn't decide what the manga was supposed to be about. Not recommended.

Story: 4/10
The story starts off pretty strong with the mysterious Kakuri showing up alone declaring he will defend a city. While the characters are pretty generic, this continues with Kakuri using smart tactics to lead a group of dramatically outnumbered and untrained peasants and a small number soldiers to defend a city against the Shin Empire. He cleverly roots out spies, shores up the defences and bolsters morale while fending off the superior shin soldiers in a battle of wits against the enemy ... general, even working in the background when he loses the favour of the cities elite. It even seems like the author is making a point about the horror of war. Not super gripping so far, but entertaining and I definitely wanted to know what would come next.

The author had different ideas. Abruptly, the focus of the manga changes and Kakuri goes on a journey and the manga becomes a generic shounen battle manga, making friends and complete with a squad of gimmicky enemies (well we're shown several but there's only one that actually does anything). They don't actually matter all that much other than inexplicably helping at some point - it's literally just left at “we'll never know why he did this”, as a bad deus ex machina. Oh and the ‘horrors of war’ thing doesn't really come up a lot despite the fact that Kakuri's whole backstory is about being in a clan that wants to end war.

After Kakuri goes and plays at guerrilla war for a while, the author decides to go back to the original premise of the manga. Which is a shame as the guerrilla was arc was pretty good until we discover that Kakuri just happens to have access to gunpowder due to a friend from his past who was never mentioned before or after. Another deus ex machina, wonderful.

In the final arc, the group goes to defend a city at the request of the enemy who plans to invade it. The evil mastermind who's supposed to be the overarching villain literally frustrates their own plans for no apparent reason other than the author needs Kakuri to be in a certain place. If I haven't mentioned an overarching villain previously it's because the author thinks he matters so little that he's defeated off-screen by a character we've seen maybe three times. Why even bother at this point? The second city isn't as interesting as the first and we've lost all the characters from the first one, as generic as they were, so now it's doing much the same thing over just with different faces and worse motivations.

The final chapters of the manga are terribly rushed going through events in a few panels where each really should have been plot arc of its own. Then there's supposed to be a dramatic and heartfelt ending but these characters barely feel like friends so it just falls flat.

City defender, wandering warrior, guerrilla war and finally city defence again. Each of these ideas could make for entertaining manga in their own right. Instead the author meanders across different ideas with none reaching their potential as they're all dropped as soon as something else strikes the author's fancy. This is exemplified by the fact that the author sometimes chucks in random self-contained plots in a chapter, like Griffin the weird perverted monster child who shows up and disappears just as promptly (it is as weird as it sounds). The author needs to pick a lane and stick to it.

Characters: 4/10
All the characters are generic archetypes, they’re shallow and essentially have one defining trait.

Kakuri is just a Mary Sue. He's never defeated and if it is, it somehow ends up in his benefit or because he chooses to be in this position. He always has the answers and can solve every problem.

Yujin… I have no idea who this guy is. He just sort of comes along and decides to risk his life repeatedly for this guy he barely knows for no apparent reason.

Kobu has better reasons to follow Kakuri but he also doesn't have much personality beyond being friendly and being fond of kids.

Nimae, the only important female character, immediately likes Kakuri and I could feel the terrible romance subplot coming a mile away. I was fortunately wrong about this, it's unobtrusive until… a truly surreal event occurs. The climax of this romance 'subplot' came out of nowhere and is so forced but also completely hilarious. I cannot believe the author drew it and thought it was a good idea.

The main villain of the manga is a generic cackling supervillain complete with an evil masterplan to take over all of china. He has no motivations, it's actually never said if he just likes power - his character is never explored at all.

There are some other minor characters but they don't really matter.

Art
The art is, fighting is appropriately gory. I like the way the artist draws faces. There is a little problem with characters looking similar but usually they're easy to recognise.

Overall: 4/10
The manga has no idea what it wants to be, never sticking with an idea long enough for it to reach its full potential and rushing through everything with shallow characters who lack sensible motivations. Not a recipe for a masterpiece to say the least.

I don't recommend this, the only redeeming factor is that the tactics Kakuri uses are actually pretty clever and interesting. However, there's too much pulling stuff out of nowhere and he's too much of a Mary Sue for there to really be any tension.