Le Chevalier D'Eon

I decided to read this manga after watching most of the anime adaptation. I eventually lost interest in the anime, so I wondered if the manga might be more engaging. And indeed, it is. The manga presents a completely different experience from the anime, which I'll elaborate on for those who are curious.

In a highly fantastical and gothic version of 18th-century France, a mysterious woman prowls the streets of Paris by night. Known as "Sphinx," she wields a sword to destroy demonic creatures. Interestingly, she's actually dead. Her true identity is Lea, a murdered young woman whose restless spirit inhabits her brother, D'Eon. Most of the time, D'Eon lives his own life, working directly under the king. His day job as a policeman serves as a cover for his secret mission to root out the occult ring responsible for Lea's murder. Occasionally, however, he must dress up as his sister and allow her spirit to take over his body to carry out her part of their shared mission.

The story features a heavy supernatural and occult element, drawing from various religions and cults to create a unique blend of mysticism. This mystical mix is predominantly used by the antagonists but also exploited by Lea and others. It can be quite confusing to follow at times. The criminal organization seems bent on taking over France, which is why the king is particularly invested in stopping them. People with poetic gifts, which are portrayed as supernatural abilities, are recruited by the group and eventually transform into bloodthirsty monsters wreaking havoc. That’s where Lea steps in to eliminate them.

D'Eon often feels weak and timid compared to his ruthless sister. Even Robin, his young and faithful assistant armed with pistols, appears more capable in combat. D'Eon is devastated by seeing ordinary people turned into monsters after receiving the gift of poetry.

The manga contains a noticeable amount of horror elements. People transform into dragon-like monsters, demonic rats attack, and creatures morph. We encounter bodies of sacrificed and beheaded women along with other gruesome acts of violence. While not the worst content out there, it’s certainly not suitable for children.

The manga is packed with action sequences. However, I felt some were overly long. For instance, one battle took up half a volume. There’s also a lot of puzzle-solving and French wordplay. In one scenario, characters are trapped within a dimensional cage and can only escape by solving a particular puzzle. As a reader, I couldn't solve it myself since it was designed specifically for the characters to resolve. Thus, I could only watch passively rather than actively participate in the puzzle-solving process.

What I enjoyed most about the manga was its art. It’s very gothic and dark, fitting the fantasy-thriller style. Many pages have more black than white, using thick lines that aren’t rough or slashy. Lea looks like a beautiful goth-loli doll, while D'Eon is cute. Surprisingly, the characters have very expressive faces. The world depicted in the story is fairly unrealistic. Some characters wear period-appropriate clothing, but Lea resembles a girl from the late 19th century, and D'Eon’s police uniform looks like something from the early 1900s. More eccentric characters dress like medieval or gothic jesters. So don’t expect historical accuracy here.

I haven't finished the manga yet (I haven’t gotten my hands on the final volume), so I can't say whether it ends well or not.

Concluding thoughts: A decent manga with awesome art and cool style. It’s not historically accurate, but the artificial setting is intriguing. I felt a strong emotional connection and sympathy for the main character, D'Eon. However, some action sequences were too long, and the puzzle-solving and mysticism aspects were sometimes beyond me. There’s some horror and violence, but not enough to deter me. I’d recommend it if you enjoy gothic art.

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So what are the differences between the manga and the anime?

Firstly, although both versions feature a large cast, the only characters shared between them are D'Eon, Lea, Robin, and the king. All other characters in the anime were created specifically for it.

The anime borrowed concepts such as:

- Setting in 18th-century France
- A brother with his murdered sister’s soul residing within him
- This brother working for the king to suppress a mystical cult that uses poets.

That’s pretty much all the anime takes from the manga. The anime employs a realistic setting and art style, which I find somewhat bland. More of the story unfolds within the palace, featuring additional characters and introducing a love interest (there was virtually no romance in the manga). Overall, I found the anime stodgy and stuffy, resembling a period drama.

Thankfully, the mysticism is less complex in the anime, and there’s no puzzle-solving. However, I found the horror scarier in the anime, with zombies pursuing our characters, and when slashed, mercury pours out from their lead-gray skin.

The anime is shoujo, while the manga is seinen. They have different styles and storylines. If you enjoy one, you might not appreciate the other...

I only picked up "Le Chevalier d'Eon" because it had a French title and I wanted to avoid another terrible isekai manga. One of the few things I can muster energy to praise about this manga is its story, which was decent with some enjoyable twists and turns. The gimmick here is that the characters use poetry to fight, yes, poetry. It's essentially a generic action manga with swords, magic, and monsters, but all special moves are related to poetry, and naturally, everyone speaks in verse. It’s like being back in English class, listening to the teacher explain Shakespeare lines all over again! Ah, memories.

In this tale of woe (and poetry), the main character is a man working for secret police who cross-dresses as his sister when an evil poet starts leveling up their dark poetry. He gets possessed by her spirit, and she starts hacking and slashing evil poets for revenge since she was killed by one and wants vengeance. This bizarre plot actually exists now. The sister's nickname is "Sphinx" because she asks lots of questions and kills you if you don't know the answers, which are always about herself, leaving villains perpetually confused. There's an entire mystery surrounding Sphinx, but they never give you a reason to care about her; she’s easily the most boring character in the manga.

The fights themselves are okay, and the villains typically look cool and speak in rhymes, which is awesome. The battles have interesting developments using the villains' magical gimmicks. However, the way the overpowered main character defeats enemies is usually lame and anti-climactic, relying heavily on word-play from French and Latin poetry. Unique, but not good for fight scenes since you need extensive knowledge of 18th-century France, Latin, or random mythology to follow along.

Since Sphinx is the pseudo-main character, they possess infinite knowledge and unmatched poetry skills. Starting as a level 3 poet in the evil poetry society's leveling system, they inexplicably level up to defeat stronger foes, leaving everyone baffled. Even Sphinx doesn’t seem to understand why. And it’s unclear why Sphinx is even on the evil poets' leveling chart to begin with. For context, the leveling system goes up to level 8, and the secret police's mission is to stop evil poets from reaching this level and destroying France and the Catholic Church by maxing out their evilness. This manga takes itself 100% seriously.

The moment you start reading, your eyes will be assaulted by some of the ugliest art in manga history. The character designs are hideous and so complex that sometimes it's hard to tell what you're looking at. I would feel bad for the artist having to draw these horrendously ugly characters, except they sometimes just say “fuck it” and produce lazy, incoherent garbage. Character proportions make no sense, and some drawings are so embarrassing I'm surprised publishers allowed them to go public.

The absolute worst part of this manga is its ending, or lack thereof. Just like the artist who didn’t care, neither did the publishers, apparently, because during the final volume, you can see exactly where they axed the manga, leaving absolutely nothing concluded! What a colossal waste of time—eight volumes and nothing is resolved. No story elements finished, no mysteries solved, some villains still undefeated. Nothing. All we get is “tHe StOrY cOnTiNuEs!” which is the most non-ending imaginable. Fuck this manga.

All I got from this manga is a reminder of why I stopped liking manga and a deep feeling of sorrow realizing how many hours of my life were wasted reading something I'll never see the conclusion of. Even before the final volume, the manga was never that good, but the non-existent ending really makes this one not worth reading much at all.