Shoukoku no Altair

The historical genre of manga has focused (almost exclusively) on China (particularly the three kingdoms period), Japan (around the Sengoku period) and Europe up to the late renaissance (though the Japanese authors tend to insert hot springs, panties and random modern or uniquely japanese appliances into some of the more light-hearted evolutions of this genre). Shokoku no Altair departs from this traditional theatre and brings us instead to the Ottoman Empire, once the greatest power in the Mediterranean and an empire that lasted well into the 20th century. Shokoku no Altair is, at the root of it, a shounen manga, but brings a fresh face to semihistorical manga through a new setting and a promising plot.

=Story (8)=

The intentionally thinly-veiled nation of Turkeye (I will not bother typing up the accents, though I assume that it is read as Turkey anyway) represents the Ottoman Empire--but not the Ottoman Empire at its peak. A stratocracy ruled by military generals, Pashas, Turkeye is faced with the threat of the growing Baltein Empire (a reference to the Ottoman Empire`s Archrival, the Austrian Holy Roman Empire of the Hapsburgs), which is aggressively expanding and escalating tensions with Turkeye. The Stratocracy is divided between the War Hawks (led by the young Pasha Zaganos Zehir) and the Doves (led by the aged Pasha Khalil Sehir). Into this is placed Mahmut Tughril (Referred to more often as Mahmut Bey), the main character and one of the youngest Pasha to ascend to the General`s Council. Demoted from the council, Mahmut Bey travels through the nations of the Mediterranean (Phoenicia, the representation of Greece, and Venedik, the representation of the thousand-year Venetian Republic), learning more about the world outside of Turkeye and the expanding might of Baltein all the way. 19 Chapters in, we`ve seen at least one war, a few battles and a lot of political maneuvering. Shokoku no Altair so far has served to be an interesting look at politics, a look into the 17th century world of the Mediterranean and a fresh look at the Middle ages from a new perspective.

=Art (6)=

Perhaps it is the quality of the scans (which in no way I blame on the translators), but the main weakness of Shokoku no Altair is the art. At many points, the mangaka seems to take exceptional care with dra wing eyes, to the point that they seem way to delicate. While I cannot say that the art is bad, it simply isn`t to my taste. Yet, there is quite a bit of attention to detail, though there are few inconsistencies (as the translator notes, the Temple to the Water Goddess in Venedik is in fact filled with Christian Imagery when Shokoku no Altair does its utmost to keep religion outside of the story. Given, this is necessary as christianity has dominated European culture for most of the time period, and this is hardly a plot hole a casual observer would notice, so it detracts little from the story), but there is nothing bad per se about the art.

=Characters (7)=

The characterization of the characters in Shokoku no Altair vary from excellent to shallow. While some characters are implied to have far more depth (there is a suggestion that the friendly Pasha Khalil is not quite the happy santa claus he makes himself out to be, and the development of Mahmut Bey continues, there are characters that seem to have been abandoned by the author, such as the Magistros of Venedik, Constantinos, whose considerable role in the second volume ends abruptly. Overall, though, the main characters are always kept in perspective, and I do look forwards to whatever else comes up.

=Enjoyment / Overall (8)=

Overall, I really like Shokoku no Altair. As a fan of historical manga and not simply the traditional Three Kingdoms / Sengoku / castle and princess manga (that, as good as some of them are, get really repetitive really fast, something Dynasty Warriors and Koei have yet to realize), Altair brought a fresh note to the genre and provides a slightly more realistic view of historical politics. Moreover, Altair is not as uniculutural as the average historical manga, with a great deal of depth put into describing the nations already visited. Though the translation is slow, I would say that Shokoku no Altair is more than well worth the read.

This story is based on actual historical facts and even some characters are based in historical figures. The art is breathtaking and the character development is very consistent and through out the story most characters have quite a large impact on the main charcter or the other way around.
What I find a little bit hard to deal with in these series is the large amount of characters that come along the story. Althought most characters will catch your atention, I still find it a bit hard to remenber every single one of them.
Since it's an historical manga, people tend to think that it will tedious in every single way. Shoukoku no Altair is more than history. It's packed action, comical and dramatic scenes. The characters really catch your eye and and it's easy to take a liking to them.
I promise you that you won't be disappointed if you give a try.

(this review may be subject to edits depending on how it goes)

Okay, unpopular opinion time.

From what I've heard, this series was written by an actual historian, which shows. The story is in many respects an alternate history of the Hapsburg Wars (a part of history I imagine few Japanese readers are familiar with). However, whereas the Hapsburg Wars was a conflict driven by the egos of big men and was filled with acts of cruelty and bravery on both sides, this manga is just a run of the mill "Evil Empire vs Good Alliance" story, that seems to think it's a realistic take on the way war works.

Story 5/10
If you've read (even in passing) any "Evil Empire vs Good Alliance" plot, you've probably got a good idea where this story is heading. The Empire invades the good, peaceful countries burning, pillaging and raping; the story gives some paper thin reasons why the Empire is doing it, but that's about it. The prodigy decides to save the world, by forming an alliance of the free people and destroying the Empire. There's nothing new in that regard, and the morality is completely black and white; the Turks are good and the Imperials are bad (the series sometimes goes out of its way to demonstrate the latter). Anytime it gets a chance to show some moral ambiguity (showing the Empire doing some good or the Turks doing evil), it backs out at the last second. Don't let anyone tell you its gray morality, because it's not, it's as black and white as it come. Gray morality is when both sides are shown having an equal number of vices and virtues, and there are no clear good guys AND no clear bad guys, NOT when there are somewhat flawed good guys and obvious bad guys. There is no doubt who the good guys in this story are, and the story makes it absolutely sure that's clear, but then will try and go around and claim it's a "realistic" take on war and politics.
Where the story really shines though is in its battles. Writing large battles is never easy, especially if you have to do artwork to accompany it. But these are some damn impressive pieces and seem to be what the writer was really interested in. There is a little a lot of strategy and politicking throughout the plot, and while some might find that boring, I think it does the story a great service. I will take this as a moment to note it can get a little talky at times, but I think that's just the nature of the premise.
Sidenote: Though the genre tags classifies this series as "fantasy", there really aren't any fantastical elements in it, aside from the fact that story takes place in a fictional world. Just maybe keep that in mind going in

Art 8/10
I'll freely admit, I am not a fan of the artwork style, the expressions can get a little strange and extreme at times, and I have some difficulty at times gathering a sense of space and distance in the setting. That said, it is still very good artwork, allowing for a lot of emotion, and character designs that always look distinct from each other. It not for me personally, but I'm sure plenty more will like it.
For what is worth though, this story includes some of the least Turkish looking "Turks" I've ever seen (Mahmut in particularly doesn't even looking remotely Turkish). But I think's that it's more attributable to Japanese styles and idea of beauty and handsomeness, and I suppose there's no point in complaining about it.

Character 5/10
If I'm being really honest, the only words off the top of my head I can think about for Mahmut is "prodigy" and "idealist", that's about it. He fills the role of the intelligent youth whose pondering the "why can't we all just get along" questions of the world, while the brutal reality sets in, and he matures. Not much new to him. His inner circle are essentially the inner circle that serves as his supporters, backing him up as need be. Again, nothing new. Now for me, that's not much of a problem, if not for the fact that the story doesn't let the characters grow beyond it, nor does it seem to have any fun with it.
The rest of the characters are essentially meant to be personifications of their respective factions (the militarist faction, the pacifist faction, the ambitious faction, etc.). The Imperials get some of their own multi-faceted characters, with their own dreams and hope for peace (noble ones at that), but they only exist really to be told their wrong, and killed by the heroes. If the series wanted to have some real dynamism to it's conflict, it would show the Imperial characters affecting good in the Empire, but they don't; if anything, they let the atrocities happen, and just complain about them after the fact. It's such a waste of potential, and so crassly simplifies war; yes, I know there have been cases in real life where war was like that, but that wasn't the case in the Hapsburg Wars, which this series seems to model itself after.

Enjoyment 5/10
I was never a fan of the Alliance vs. Empire story in any concept, with a few exceptions ("Avatar: TLA" or "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" come to mind); the idea of amounting war (especially ones ostensibly based in reality) to the simple matter of Good vs Evil really get's under my skin. If the story didn't try so hard to set up the good guys and the bad guys, maybe I'd enjoy it more, but it simply doesn't do that.
Now, is that the story's fault for me not enjoying it? No, I suppose not. I'm not the only person in the world, and unlike some, I don't demand everyone constantly please ME. I know other's like it, so I suppose it's in a minority.

Overall 5/10
If you don't mind the problems I presented (I'll admit, many of these problems are subjective), you might get more out of this series than I have. Not a personal favorite.

I'v read the first five volumes and found this series one that I want to keep reading but at the same time pains me to read. It's benefits are the gorgeous art and realistic yet fantastical historical fiction world its set in. Its flaws are its characters and lack of depth in exploration of topics and unrealistic characters.

To illustrate the points, keeping spoilers to a minimum, in the first volume or two our Main Character who is hailed by the narrative as a prodigy and genius attains the role of (for pretension purposes) a High General who governs land, the youngest one in history. But the first thing he does is immediately forgets he has an army and runs off by himself without a word to his men (whom we never see), and after the events that caused this he is stripped of his position for not acting in accordance of his office. But were told that he was the genius prep student in his military academy, etc. why would he do something that he should have known would end in a likewise way instead of something more logical for him and his position. For me this was the first sign of logical constancy problems, which persist through all the volumes.

Several arcs latter, it's a story about war, so should be little spoiler to say that a nation becomes conquered while its ruler was waiting for reinforcements that they 'knew would show up without a doubt', that never did end up arriving. But when our main character asks said reinforcements why they didn't come to help the response was something like 'we sent the men as per the treaty, but the treaty didn't say they had to arrive', with the reinforcement army being extremely honest on their foreign policy of themselves first and everyone else second. But if they're that open about it then wouldn't everyone already know that their unreliable, and why would the conquered nation be so sure the reinforcements would arrive if their this open about their stance.

Writing aside, the places in the book are nearly historical replicas of real world locations, depicted in art and atmosphere in great detail, which bring the world to life on the page. The character designs are all distinct and memorable. The whole of the story tries to stay political focused, around a growing empire were it's young power hungry administrators want to expand, and the smaller states around it are on the brink of losing to the empires European like cultural hegemony. The empire is already too large and powerful and no one nation is strong enough to stop it- will they band together or will they fall under the weight of a superior nation? That is the question of Shoukoku no Altair.