Category: Manga

Under the Rose is a rather uninspiring manga by Funato Akira. It’s the story of a young boy in Victorian England named Lloyd King whose mother Grace dies suddenly, leaving him and his young brother Lawrence at the mercy of their angry grandfather. Luckily the boys’ father, a wealthy count, decides to take them in. However Lloyd is filled with bitterness, believing that their “father” had something to with their mother’s death. Lloyd’s lonely battle for the truth begins!

Well, that’s kind of how they describe the manga. It sounded really interesting, and I liked the cover so I gave it a shot. And the result was…decidedly average. The art wasn’t bad, wasn’t good either. The storytelling was okay, more slice-of-life than average murder mystery. The author does a decent job of setting up the atmosphere and easing the readers into it, but it isn’t nearly as engrossing as, say, Kaori Mori’s Emma, mostly due to the less accomplished art.

The real failing of this manga, though, was the characters. They’re very inconsistent, sometimes likeable, sometimes not, so it’s hard to tell whether the author wants you to like or dislike them. Before long you start detesting them completely. Lloyd is the main culprit here. In the beginning you side with him, then he acts like a complete monster so you’re like uhhh…then he gets a little better (and his brothers get worse) so you’re like “he’s not all bad”, then he dissolves into a childish, ignorant, indecisive, weak, easily-swayed kid and in the end you throw your hands up in despair. Several other characters make similar swings from good to bad to good to bad again, all over the span of one volume, so before you know it you don’t care about anybody.

In any case the mystery about Lloyd and Lawrence’s mother’s death is solved in volume 1, and I don’t like the other characters much, so there’s no real point in reading any more of this series, is there? If I do so I may write other reviews, otherwise forget it. Score? 4/10.