Story: 9. The story centers around a group of high school students who are drafted into the army, given some extremely basic infantry training and then sent off to fight in the ongoing war. As far as realism goes, it goes about as well as you might expect from a random group of students with next to no training. The story is thrilling, psychological, and successfully relates the struggles of these teenagers.

Art:10. I really liked the art, the facial expressions are on point, the action sequences all have lines and blur in the right places, the art is good. This smart use of blur that you see here is like a budget version of Miura's woodcut-like insane line count and it totally works, it's really well done.

Characters: 8. While their personalities and relationships are unique and enjoyable, they can be difficult to tell apart at times.

Enjoyment: 9. I love stories that keep it realistic and damn, that basic training arc hit close to home... It's all true and much worse in reality.

For someone on the thinner and/or smaller side, this is what it's like: a cold war era battle rifle (new ones aren't that much lighter) is ridiculously heavy and essentially impossible to fire accurately, the combat gear is painfully heavy in standard configuration (it's heavy and uncomfortable even when you leave most stuff in your locker), the main pack simply contains too much stuff to reasonably carry all at once (you're looking at like 30 kg strapped to your back on top of the 15kg combat gear and 4-5 kg gun; every time I had to hike in full gear, I made it about 2 km before the pack managed to collapse my lungs to 20% capacity for the rest of the hike; the final hike was about 10 with full gear and 20 in combat gear, my knees were permanently damaged and I'd say I'm lucky not be limping). These kids get a taste of that as well.

What I would have liked is more emphasis on how horrific conscription, what kind of depressing, dark torture it is for some. It's no secret that many young men in countries where conscription is in effect either avoid it, kill themselves or go on a rampage, not to mention those who suffer in silence and leave traumatized and broken. I'm not even referring to a war here, wars are even worse than peace-time indentured servitude such as this. It's no joke when you're waking up up to 5 times a night in some delirious panic mode, totally convinced, for example, that the drill sergeant really wants to inspect your mess kit at 2:30 in the morning or that you really need to go on patrol even though the previous shift hasn't alerted you, only to realize half way through getting your pack out of your locker or half way through putting your boots on that it's the middle of the night and everyone else is asleep and that you just exited an acute state of insanity. You're actually losing it, for real, and the next day, your whole platoon is off to the firing range.

As for the later parts where they go to war, as I said before, it's a thrill.

Overall: 9. I'd totally recommend this to anyone who is into a war story, a psychological story, a bit of sci-fi, etc.