Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers Vol. 1 by Ishio Yamagata
Teodora's Rating: ★★★

Review:
Adlet Meyer is the "strongest man in the world" (according to him) and also one of the legendary Braves - a group of six heroes dedicated to protecting the world from fiends and ultimately defeating the evil god. When Adlet calls to assemble the rest of the Braves, something is amiss. Instead of six heroes, there are seven! Now trapped within a barrier, the Braves must find out who is the traitor among them... and they think Adlet is the seventh! Can he prove his innocence before he is killed?
Picking up this manga, I sensed RPG fantasy themes right away. What was unexpected for me was the mystery that is constantly present in the manga. The batch of suspects is small and the author does not muddle the story with more unnecessary characters, making it much more fun to guess who is the seventh Brave. Despite that, the biggest problem with this manga is the lack of explanation. I admire books that go straight to the action, but this time I felt left out. At the end of the manga, I had a small idea of the world and its problems, but many of my questions were left unanswered. This also affected the characters whose backstories were few and far between. I hope that the next volume addresses these. Art-wise, the style is nice to the eyes and some expressions are quite humorous. The style has a simple, same-thickness line-art and the pages flow nicely to the next. I don't understand the character design much. For example, two characters sport cat and bunny ears and tails, but are addressed as being human. Overall, the start of this manga introduced an intriguing main character and world.