Gunka no Baltzar - (Ongoing) Impression
Have I ever write am impression for Baltzar before? Think I have, but whatever.
Gunka no Baltzar is one of those rare manga where it takes a setting of a real-world like pseudo-european without any magic or fantasy stuff involved. It actually rarer since the main conflict of the story involved a lot of politicking since somehow Japanese authors wouldn't touch politics without 10 foot poles even when the setting is a fictional one. Quite strange since Romance of The Three Kingdoms is popular there and The Warring States Era basically a political hellhole.
Actually I'm reading this in a hope for a manga that have focus on military tactic and strategies battle like Kingdom or even the LoGH OVA. Well it does have some military stuffs in it, but it wasn't quite what I expected. Despite that, Gunka no Baltzar is still a good manga of its own and a worth of read if you had a similar interest in military and politics stuff.
What makes Gunka no Baltzar good then? First I think is the art. It still distinctly a modern manga in style, but it have aesthetics that works well enough with the theme of the story and the european setting itself. Nakajima Michitsune also able to create characters that very distinct to each other without relying on bizzare traits and quirks. This makes remembering characters or at least who they are to the story are much easier. Then there's character interaction, though I can't say something more of it, it's definitely decent and fun to follow each others interaction.
But to be honest though? Gunka no Baltzar have done a lot of thing inadequately that prevent itself from being great and only stuck at being decent. One of the major problem I found is how the manga lacks of characters. By characters I mean the individual, not their traits, personality, etc. For a manga that have emphasis on regional scale euro-politics, its numbers of important characters are countable by hands. The lack of supposedly important and involved characters makes the scope of the story and conflict limited. Weissen, the pseudo-German country of the manga doesn't have its chancellor revealed. Does anyone would believe the military chief of staff would reign so freely to control the country? We also hadn't see the top brass figure of neighboring countries even after escalating tension, a war, and a peace treaty. The number of parties involved is unbelievably small, even by a normal politics standard.
Nominally the number of characters is suffice, if it's not for the fact that most of them are soldiers without any political power. The only character from the main cast that should've a role and power in politics beside Baltzar is Prince August, but for story reason and the plot, even he doesn't have much on his hands when the politics portion of the story moving forward. This is why Gunka no Baltzar feels more right when the story moved its lens toward the battlefield arena since most of the main cast belong there and capable of having an actual role in it. The story becomes more engaging and the scale feels right since a lot more of characters are involved when compared to the politics field of the manga.
The lacking number of characters in the high-brass politic plays have a noticeable effect on the main character, Baltzar, namely how his role and his position within the story are not quite a match with each other. Baltzar have scored some military achievement and feats that make him recognizable by the top brass military. But his actual position does not give him any actual political power. Yet Baltzar is highly involved with the politic play , deep enough to give me an impression that the author try to turn him into a lite-Bismarck. He does all the politicking by himself though since the recent chapters revealed that the Chief of Staff doesn't actually trust him. It makes me thinking more than once that Baltzar is a masterless pawn that punching above his weight. Not in a good way since both himself and the story does not realize it and treats it as a normal thing, slowly turning him into a single character that do everything and become the sole trigger to move the plot forward.
There are some changes that the author could do and turned Gunka no Baltzar into great tier. First choice would be introducing more characters from the involved parties within politics. Second choice is changing the focus of the story no longer in the euro-politics but rather the battlefield itself. But judging from the most recent chapter, I'm doubting the author will ever share the story role of Baltzar to any other character ever. Now I'm just hoping a new war chapters would come soon already.