Okay so Innocent by Sakamoto Shinichi is definitely a wonderful work, from its marvelous art to a wonderful balance and characters, the manga as a whole is an outstanding experience. The work flows around the Sanson family, a family of executioners for the french crown, our protagonist is Charles-Henri Sanson, future head and his morals and ideas revolving around his "cursed" work as a executioner. I mean cursed due to the old beliefs that families of executioners had cursed touch.

Its historycal setting is done exceptionally good , altough not 100% accurate, the author managed to, not only get his personal flavour into what's already an interesting theme, but he also managed to stick to the existing flavour of its setting, The Revolutionary France (in fact this manga has its story leading to France's revolution).

Not to mention that after I was done with Innocent, my interest about its characters and figure peaked, so I went on a research spree to learn as much as could, due to the fact the manga has an immense potential to get you emotionally attached and interested in it.

Onto the art, the art it's simply amazing, out of this world, it conveys such angelical beauty that even the most grotesque and nasty scenery actually looks wonderful, there are takes so cinematographic and artistic I'm awe to this day.

The characters are so angelical and equally beautiful, almost everyone in this work seems androgenous, and I don't mean bad, every character has its flavours, be it dark or light, and the art emits it in such a way it's remarkable.

The story has a healthy balance of "dark and light" so to say, nothing it's too out of proportion, when it has to bring its dark aspects it does beautifully and in contrast to its light moments. The lyricism and symbolism are strong and marvelously done, the metaphors and monologues have a beauty of their own. Historically speaking it's not full accurate, as said before, but it is still historical and revolves around "big" figures of the time period, also giving value to the setting and the author changes.

Now not everything is perfect and Innocent pace certainly isn't, sometimes it can't feel all over the place, plus it's also a letdown that Innocent ended being a saga (with Innocent and Innocent Rouge), due to the bitter taste the end gives, of course moving into the next part of the saga will most likely take away the bitterness, but cutting it short just to keep it going it's still something many people don't like, I myself included, but there are circumstances and we must respect it.

Characters, oh characters, the characters in this one are masterfully done, each design, each personality and traits it all blends well, the growth for our important characters is so satisfactory and gorgeously done. That aside many characters are just tossed in and cast aside, making them loose relevance.

In short Innocent it's an artsitic manga, with deep lyriscism, vast use of metaphors and a protagonist that has a lovely growth, alongside with his struggles in a marvelous walk leading to a bitter tasting end that is continued in Innocent Rouge, my score is a solid 9/10.