From the Red Fog

the big plus point is the art, its just perfect, blended perfectly. the time in which the story was set is also very interesting... visually speaking, it gave a nice aesthetic to the work. but in short, i expected much more from this work for what happened in the first 5 chapters...had a LOT potential. its not a BAD work, but it could have been infinitely better developed, definitely. hated how things happened VERY quickly, unnecessary...if there is no time to dedicate to the work, simply take a break and come back when you can to continue the work calmly and attentively. the ending left something to be desired, butleft an air of "to be continued"... disappointing, i would say.

Akai Kiri no Naka kara is a gory psychological manga that starts out pretty average and suffers an extremely bad second half. Our main character is a boy named Rwanda. His mother is a murderer who kept him locked in her basement for all of his childhood. He manages to escape and realizes that he quite likes killing people as well. Rwanda's character is obnoxiously edgy, but he has an inner conflict that he himself doesn't seem to understand, which makes him occasionally interesting. Unfortunately, seeing as the manga is only 25 chapters long and has tons of other stupid bullshit going on, his characteris never fleshed out beyond vague hints at his underlying loneliness. Some other characters are: Macalo, a girl who was introduced as a kindred spirit to Rwanda and ended up being so underutilized that it made me want to throw my phone at the wall, Ivan, an annoying kid whose rivalry with the MC was so cliche, it reminded me I was reading a shonen manga, a very forgettable villain, and some forgettable side characters. Plot-wise, the first 3 or so volumes were pretty average. The dialogue was the same cringe pretentious "is it bad to kill people?" drivel that you've read in every other psychological shonen horror manga (though, this one isn't actually horror, it's just gory). It has some weird battle shonen chapters, some almost-horror chapters, some drama chapters, all crammed into around 15 chapters to make an incohesive edgy hodgepodge. But, it wasn't horrible. The villain reveal is when it gets good - the pacing is turned up to the max, resolving the whole conflict of the first arc in like 3 ultra rushed chapters of pure confusion, poor Rwanda's backstory gets retconned to high hell, and I was just sitting there wondering why they were rushing the ending so badly when there were still 2 more volumes left. And then I found out...with the remaining 2 volumes, they just had to start an entirely new arc with only a strenuous connection to the first, introduce several new characters for absolutely no reason, and throw the already shaky characterization of the existing characters out of the window with no explanation. If I haven't made it clear enough, this manga is bad. Regardless of whether or not it got axed (and believe me, it reads like it was), it is unjustifiably bad. It is not worth your time. I was honestly wondering if the mangaka kept getting bored when writing Akai Kiri no Naka kara and just decided to start new plot threads every 3 chapters.

I feel duped. The Victorian horror vibes from the cover made me begin From the Red Fog believing that it would be at least somewhat intelligent. But no, it is not. It is a hodgepodge of messy, clashing ideas and an even worse execution rushed into a nonsensical train wreck of a finale, and in spite of only being 25 chapters long, you'll feel awash with the sense that you should've wasted your time on something less pretentious. Every character is either a grimdark edgelord or a forgettable shounen Power-of-Friendship-Speech machine. Though I cringed a little at the protagonist's incredibly gory murder exploits, excessively traumatic backstory, andedgy worldview, I was willing to read through it. I thought that From the Red Fog might be a gorefest with a villain protagonist who outsmarts everyone. I was baffled by the subsequent twists and turns. Some plot twists practically retconned the protagonist's backstory. One major character was so underutilized that their entire plotline got ignored even through the final chapter. The atmosphere at the start of the story implies that the protagonist will remain an axe-crazy loner who wants connection and gets revenge in fucked up ways, but then there's a jarring shift into everyone making cliche, preachy shounen-esque speeches about friendship and family and love. There's a timeskip that leads effectively to nowhere. There is no plot resolution. The characterization is half-assed and inconsistent throughout. I realized, much to my misery, that this manga is an edgy, juvenile foray into exploring philosophy and human connection. The stereotypical "this serial killer is actually just lonely and doesn't understand feeeeelliiiiiings" type of story. So if you want to read that, go ahead! But if you're anything like me, I recommend that you don't.

The 19th century England town setting and the art style are luring. It starts-off pretty solid, the mc had a vivid personality, unfaltering in any situation. The way he moves from place to place giving us these short arcs was also interesting. Then things got bigger and busier, past intertwined with the present and possible future, little plot twists, and curious events occur. The last arc was to be honest a bit laggy but still doesn't change the fact it was overall a really fine read. Lots of my questions remained unanswered but I feel like the ending left a safe place for asequel,If the writer ever decides that...I hope they do... I wanna read more.