Ad Astra: Scipio to Hannibal

The lack of popularity surrounding Ad Astra has always surprised me. Even after 11 years, the community for this great manga is almost non-existent, which is a pity to be honest. Revolving around the Punic Wars (264-146 BC) fought between the two ancient Mediterranean powers, Rome and Carthage (present day Tunisia), Ad Astra specifically tells us the magnificent story of the 2nd Punic War of all the three wars fought between them, the first being ended with The Treaty of Lutatius and Rome's victory. Since the source of historical information for this manga is Polybius's "The Histories", the general flow of events and fate ofcharacters can be considered to be completely true. The story is facile to follow through even without having prior knowledge about anything related to the Punic wars. In the case of a historical manga, the lack of information regarding events often leads to the mangaka to rely on complete asspulls for the story to move on, but thankfully there are no such issues with Ad Astra and almost every event and decisions made by the characters makes complete sense. The manga covers both the political and military sides of the warfare really well. Due to the same complexity, the time taken for completing a chapter takes longer than reading an average manga chapter. Plus points for the adequate usage of maps to get a better understanding of the events. The Punic wars introduced us to two of the greatest military tacticians of all time, Scipio of Rome and Hannibal of Carthage, and as the main characters of this manga, the author does justice to both of them, even though the focus largely lies with Scipio. The manga really well demonstrates the monster that Hannibal is, who racked up victory after victory through cunning tactics and left the Romans shaking in their boots. It is estimated that during the battle of Cannae, Rome lost 20% of its entire adult male population to Hannibal. One of the few issues I have with this manga is the lack of focus on Hannibal's personal life. Unlike Scipio, Hannibal is presented to us mostly during the battles only and his value as a character comes from his wisdom and strategies. There is almost nothing presented on his personal life and I wish the author had given some focus to it. This could have been brought about through flashbacks of his past or even mentioning events through other characters. This manga is one of those rare ones where I prefer its side characters over its main ones. Each of them has their own unique traits, flaws, motivations and backgrounds that perfectly fit into the puzzle, making this manga truly a diamond in the rough. The art is good and stays consistent throughout the manga with occasional screenshotable great panels that portray the full scope of battles or the battles itself. It does have its fair share of comedic relief and nudity, neither being too focused or completely absent. Overall, I really enjoyed this manga and my issues with it are very minimal. The chemistry between Hannibal and Scipio was fantastic and I wish that it had been a little slower paced. Nevertheless, this manga is a must read and I will highly recommend this to every historical manga fans out there.

It really did feel like I was reading Polybius. This isn't just a manga, it's a full-on illustrated narrative history of the Second Punic War (itself perhaps the greatest epic of Rome, at the very least a story up there with those of Caesar and Atilla) combining beautiful art with an impressive level of attention to detail and more than one quote taken straight from antiquity. I do quibble with Archimedes' treatment - he's merged with another figure in a way which is not justified by the sources, and while it fit the whole scheming geniuses aspect of the story I don't think it was flatteringto that great Syracusean patriot. The rest, from the crossing of the Alps to Zama, is simply outstanding - two great minds constantly scheming against one another, an existential war that gripped the whole of the Western Mediterranean, battle scenes and elephants galore. If you at all like the period - or just historical epics in general - you won't be disappointed.

Ad Astra does not start very well because it presents Hannibal with an almost supernatural fated image and aura about him, a manifestation of the spirit of his country of sorts that can even intimidate a way older war general and although the raw GAR energy of it can be very appealing, in terms of writing is kind of too much to take. Thankfully that is only for its first chapter and from the second and until the end there is no element nor moment like that ever again, and the manga becomes 100% a political war epic full of on field, tactical and mental battlesand debates, political struggle both between the two enemy countries as well as for each one on their own, as the manga bothers to also cover the internal issues they had at the time both in their political systems and societal classes and even between the generals themselves. And unlike other political war epics, Ad Astra does not really suffers from rule of cool, there are a lot of very strong and imposing manly characters but it never feels like what they are able to do defies the rules of their world, like Huo in The Ravages of Time. Plus there are explanations for everything to at least make it seem like everything makes sense, and the setups are explained before the plans and tactics are put on motion in battle, they are not thrown in nor explained as they are happening, thus they do not feel ass-pulled at any time. The manga is also fair for both sides in the sense that every major character has a moment to shine and even when defeated and during their last moments they can give the winners a hard time or have a badass and cool end. Unlike other series like it, Ad Astra is also not hard nor very heavy to follow, the dialogue is about complex topics and well-constructed, but never really to the point that is hard to grasp and need a second read, nor becomes tiring for the mind. The length and pacing are also really good, just look at the number of chapters, and the plot moves forward at every moment. In terms of characterization, it feels like the manga does something similar to LOGH with its own Yang and Reinhard. It is true that after the first chapter and a big time skip, Hannibal is presented mostly as serious and focused on the war without relaxing moments nor flashbacks to flesh him out more, but he is explored through his relationships with other characters and all the difficulties he had to face. Plus the realization of the consequences that his attitude leads to and the way it comes to bite his ass at the end is a great moment to behold, you feel like everything up to that point was made deliberately that way just for that catharsis. Scipio on the other hand gets most of the focus, as he learns and grows mostly from his number one enemy and uses his own strategies and tactics against him, you can even say that there is point in that, in how they were not very different in the end and that eventually, in a sense, Hannibal was his own downfall. Scipio’s sad ending is also really something to behold. Other secondary characters are also fleshed out in the same way, whether by getting the right amount of spotlight, or through flashbacks, or by getting their own development through gains and hardships in battles. It is also interesting to see how even when they are sworn enemies, the characters from the different countries show respect for the others exactly because of the things that make them stand out. The artwork is solid all the time, with good backgrounds, movements and special effects, and the only issue for me are the designs, which by going for realism (mostly), ended up becoming kind of repetitive and hard to tell apart, even more when they are in the battlefield. As for the negatives, there are some minor secondary characters that are plain one dimensional rapists and murderers that are an unnecessary edgy addition that takes away from the overall seriousness and level of the manga, but luckily they disappear from the story almost as quickly as they are introduced. The manga also has some comedy and just like is the usual case in anime and manga, it sucks. To its defense, at the very least it is not present at all during serious moments. Honestly, at the end of the day there are very few things I can complain about it, the exaggerated supernatural elements and the inferior minor characters disappear completely from the story and the comedy, although awful, is never used in a way that ruins the tone. Thus I find just a few and very little issues in the manga, which is why I reflect that in the rating.

This title deserves more recognition. It's like the occidental (and clearly shorter) version of Kingdom. It makes me sad that this is the only work from its author, both his drawing and narrative skills are worthy of praise. The characters' anatomy is accurate, and the page/panel composition provides a smooth reading flow. I'm not an expert in history, but from what I've read, the historical events depicted in this manga respect their real-world counterparts. You can feel empathy and interest towards the character, from both sides. The cruelty of the war touches you thanks to the drawings, and some characters' deaths are really emotional. It consists of only 13volumes that are totally worth reading.