Great ideas, a strong premise and beautiful artwork but heavily flawed. After having also read the beginning of "The Climber" I'd say Shinichi Sakamoto is a mangaka who has a great story in his head but not the experience or perhaps skill to transform said ideas into a well-written cohesive whole.

Innocent certainly has a main character with an arc that on paper could be one of the best in the medium. But unfortunately the vital moments of change in Charles-Henri's life are not fluid enough. Due to a thematic shift, the ending of the manga also simply leaves him in the cold.

This thematic shift is the decision by the author to put more focus on Charles-Henri's younger sister and turn Innocent into a story with feminist themes. Something which I'm certainly not opposed to, but ends up making Innocent into a very messy whole. Marie Sanson is just far less interesting than her brother and this shift in focus ends up being very underwhelming and disappointing.