Criminals do not always receive justice. If a murderer serves several years in prison and yet shows little change or remorse by the end of their sentence, should they be free to roam the streets and move on with their life? Written and drawn by the deranged Jiro Matsumoto, Freesia depicts a world where these criminals can be legally executed by a group of trained killers, formally known as 'enforcers'.

Rather than meeting a swift and painless end, targeted criminals are legally able to defend their lives by hiring a small group of bodyguards. If they cannot afford one (which is likely- a single bodyguard ranges in the hundreds of thousands of dollars) or do not have a friend willing to put their life on the line for their sake, the state will give them one free of charge. Or at least that is what they are led to believe. Far more often these 'free' bodyguards will abandon the criminal and leave them to an almost certain death. Corruption permeates the world of Freesia, but so too do many other awful things.

If legal assassination sounds implausible or absurd-- it kinda is. It would be one thing if these criminals were tried in a court and then executed via hanging or lethal injection, but instead innocent lives are put on the line for a twisted game of murder. I suppose entertainment in a story comes before realism.

Freesia is not a manga to be read while in high spirits. There are so many disgusting and inhumane events in the story that it is likely to make you pop a few anti-depressant pills. Gore, rape, betrayal, insanity, infidelity, corruption and domestic abuse are among the things that paint Freesia's cruel world. There is the ever-present theme of nihilism, and while it is not too overbearing, the lack of humanity in *any* of the characters is continually made apparent. Yamada is possibly the only character in the entire story who is not an absolutely terrible person, and that is even including the dozens of background characters who appear for only a few pages. This misanthropic portrayal of humanity feels a bit forced. The constant misogyny is also quite bothersome; if the girl has not been raped, she has been victimised or abused in some other way. On the other hand, all the male characters fall into the macho tough-guy persona. For a manga that deals with so much mature content, it can be awfully immature in how it chooses to portray it.

Thematic issues aside, Freesia does an excellent job of developing the main character, Kano. While he never becomes truly likeable, he does become more transparent. It is impossible to have any clue in hell what is going on with him at the start (what with his frequent hallucinations and out-of-place commentary), but his behaviour gradually becomes more coherent. Kano understands that something is driving him crazy and chooses to fix it. He realises that it was not the world around him, but he who was falling to insanity. He could have easily existed as a stereotypical anti-hero (the sort that 12-year-old boys go crazy over), but the mangaka thankfully treats Kano as a three-dimensional character. His role becomes less a plot device and more the central theme as the story treads on.

The same cannot be said for all the primary characters. Mizoguchi is as archetypical as they come, a cackling lunatic who kills for sport. He accidentally kills innocent bystanders during his job and does not bat an eye. He beats his wife and screams at her simply for doing as he asks. There is no redeeming feature in Mizoguchi. Not a one. A well-written character would at least have a believable personality, but Mizoguchi is a contemptible psychopath "just because". How did he become such a horrible person? Who knows. He receives little to no character development and exists largely as a catalyst for Kano's own issues. There is no excitement to his appearances; it is just another "Oh, great, it's this guy again!"

Freesia succeeds in making the reader care about the enforcements that take place. By spending several chapters developing the criminals' backstory and motives, it becomes difficult to decide who to root for. When they take that bullet to the face, they are permanently taken out of the story. It's always a bit of a bummer to see interesting characters perish in an instant (even if they were terrible people who deserved it). There is emotional weight to each and every major event.

There is also a bit of black humour spread throughout, such as during a scene where Kano casually sips his coffee as a bullet flies through the window right next to him. Are these moments even funny, though? ... Not really? It's hard to find humour in a world filled with chaos. Some of the scenes (like Kano having sex with his girlfriend on-top of his old, dying mother) are just downright disgusting. It takes a certain type of person to find scenes like that amusing, and I am definitely not one of them.

The artwork of Freesia is abrasive and sketch-like, though that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The lack of refinement makes the awful events of Freesia stand out all the more. Had it looked clean and polished, these scenes would only feel out-of-place. This does not excuse the many instances of lazy drawing, however. Panels frequently contain backgrounds that resemble doodles, while others (mostly the gore scenes) are drawn with expressive detail. There's absolutely no consistency to the artwork.

Is Freesia an enjoyable manga? Absolutely not. Is it a good one? Sometimes. There are some really interesting themes tucked away in here, but they are inevitably held back by the constant gore and childish misanthropy. Freesia regularly switches from maturity right back down to immaturity. It does not quite know what it wants to be or what it wants to say. It will take a skin of steel to handle the awful things Freesia throws at you, but if you can look past that you will find something much more thoughtful. Probably.