I'm not particularly sure where to start with this review as I feel like there's no real good place I can start but I guess I'll go with this:

Sanctuary is one the most 90's Yakuza/Political dramas I've ever seen, and is much in the vein of films like Branded to Kill or Tokyo Drifter. The reality of Sanctuary is punctuated with edge of your seat tense moments and crazy table cloth pulling moments, at least in their presentation. If you're not into incredibly the kind of manly/macho kinds of media that take themselves a little too seriously this manga is not for you. Granted at only 108 chapters long if that's the kind of shit you're into you'll have a great time with this.

Issues:

Now despite me having a fantastic time with this manga, there's some problems. First and foremost the women in this manga are only there to facilitate sex scenes with the main characters. Yes most of the time you see a character having sex it's with a prostitute so I find that to be excusable in that regard, but the female leads 9/10 times in the manga are fawning over Hojo and Asami to a ridiculous extent. "B-but they're in love with them!" No shit, they say that in every other sentence. It really throws you out of it when the only reasons the women in the manga act is because they're so head over heals for our two MCs that it becomes their entire personality; which is a shame because the relationship between Ishihara and Hojo could've been far more interesting than "I'll risk it all just to be with him!", and at least Bisset had some level of interest when it came to the end of the manga.

I also want to mention the side characters very briefly. They are either mildly interesting or relatively weak and sit on the backboards not really doing anything. Most of them are set up to really important and have a major impact but very quickly get relegated to either the grave or the main characters posse. This applies to everyone but Tokai. Tokai is great albeit a bit repetitive, but him being this mix of comic relief/serious Yakuza really works well in his favor. He's also responsible for like, 70% of all the sex scenes some of which are a bit... risque.

Aside from that I don't have very many qualms with the manga itself.

Pros:

I have to address how phenomenal the art is in this manga. It's a blend of style and realism that Ikegaki-san nailed perfectly. Characters displayed raw emotion without ever looking goofy, the fight scenes were always gripping, the character designs were too suave for their own good. each character had a memorable design and style that felt uniquely them even if it was formal suit and tie.

The story is solid, the antagonist Isaoka in the aboveground and the numerous roadblocks in uniting the underground were always interesting enough to keep me reading; along with the well placed twists and turns that I was taken on.



Before going into the ending itself, I do recommend this manga with the knowledge that it's a bit of a mixed bag and leans far more heavily into your opinions on Yakuza political dramas that really suspend the limits of reality. It was a good read and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this manga.


Spoilers for the ending ahead









The ending itself was also quite good in my opinion. While it heavily alludes to Asamis death I feel like it's left just open enough that there's the possibility that Asami lives but only as an inference that the reader themselves can make. I don't feel like it was too rushed and ended when it needed to.