Adolf is an extremely well put together thriller focused around the lives of 4 characters. The Sohei Toge who serves as the narrator and writer of this story and 3 men named Adolf.

If you’ve ever read Urasawa works before I feel like the formula here will be pretty recognizable. Everything starts when Toge goes to report on Olympics going on in Germany when his brother asks to meet him in his hotel for something extremely urgent. What Toge finds however is a ransacked room and his brother dead in a tree outside the window. Who did it? Why? What will Sohe do and where will it lead him? In very little time Tezuka establishes an intriguing mystery that smoothly transitions both reader and the main characters into a messy offer that will keep spiraling down throughout the entire story.

It’s hard to describe what follows without spoilers, while none of the individual reveals will likely affect your enjoyment too much, Adolf as a whole is still built on the excitement of following the footsteps of the characters and finding out what will happen to them. Tezuka doesn’t hold anything back when it comes stakes. Even if you know the main characters won’t die, the things they go through constantly put them under pressure to which they react in a believable human way and this pressure is near constant.

Toge constantly has to face a shadow of government hanging over him. There’s a real sense of overwhelming power watching his every step, making sure not a single thing goes his way. Torturing him mentally and physically in hopes of depleting his willpower enough to squeeze out the information they need.
Kamil’s perspective is a bit more mild until the concluding chapters but as a jew living in Japan, his side of the story serves to introduce some jewish characters and set some things up.
On the other hand, Kaufmann’s PoV might be the roughest of them all as you get to see a little kid who wouldn’t hurt a fly slowly turn into an irredeemable monster after he is forced to enroll in AHS to become a part of Hitler’s Youth at behest of his father. The things he is made to do are depressing enough but seeing him get brainwashed and become a slave to ideology is heartbreaking when you get to see the results of it.

The manga can see a little unfocused at first. At least that’s how I felt originally. While sure, it’s established early on that this will be the story about three Adolfs, we nonetheless spend a huge chunk of time with out narrator/writor - Toge. Sure it’s exciting and it connects with a lot of key characters but it makes the switch to young Kaufmann and Kamil a bit weird cause you go from intense chases, escapes and fights to kids listening in on their parents or some historical exposition about nazis, jews and other things. However everything comes together so nicely in the final chapters that it’s hard to call any part of Adolf unnecessary or unfocused. If anything I feel like maybe there could’ve been more chapters flashing out Kamil cause in the end, while he’s a very important character, he’s given the least room to breathe and develop.

However it’s worth noting, I think, that even though the characters are an important part of this manga, their development is not a selling point. None of them are deep but their believable behavior is what makes them interesting. It’s not often that you see someone go through the things they go through and having it realistically reflect on them is enough to create some curiosity and intrigue.

Despite thrillers often lacking in what people usually consider substance and focusing on emotional engagement, I think Adolf succeeds in both. As in the background a gripping adventure goes on, there’s an overarching point being being made about justice and how people can use ideology to manipulate others for the sake of achieving their personal goals. How this zealous loyalty can ruin people’s lives and lead to terrible, needless tragedies. Tezuka never beats you over the head with this but I feel like that’s intentional. It’s vague enough that people might interpret this differently but not enough to a point where you can say it’s about anything at all. This might just be a result of how impartial Adolf is for the most part. Not in a “nazis weren’t simply evil” kind of way but in the same way a history book would simply tell you about people and atrocities they did without telling you how you should feel about. History in general is treated with respect here, even though the story is entirely fictional, a lot of it is supplemented by real events without any huge rewrites or alterations.

One point that’s so-so to me is the art. I remember reading Astro Boy and being kind of put off by a chapter where some village in Asia gets bombed and a bunch of people die and it’s all done in Tezuka’s trademark cartoony art style which severely clashed with what was shown. While Adolf still have some kind of cartoony moments overall there wasn’t a moment where I felt it clashed or was inappropriate. Also Tezuka’s paneling is as always on point. Normal moments get mostly normal presentation but when Tezuka wants to add some emotional tinge to the page he knows just how to do it by arranging the panels just right.

Overall Adolf is an excellent manga. Being 36 chapters long it’s hard to not recommend it to anyone who wants a good read. Though if you’re queasy or easily upset some of the darker parts of it might affect some people.