Did you ever think that criminals deserve a much harsher punishment than being sent to jail to serve time? Ever thought that the famous law of Talion should be in vigour? Freesia portrays such juridical system in which the victim's family may issue a warrant to have the aggressor executed legally.

The story of Freesia is narrated in a society plagued with war, in which killings are legalized and are carried out by enforcers, who are trained killers or ex-soldiers. The protagonist Kano is recruited by Higuchi to such an agency, in which he cooperates with the newbie Yamada and the senior Mizoguchi. There is more to Kano - he is not your typical protagonist; he has a disturbing personality, is very antisocial (unable to communicate accordingly with fellow humans) and he is plagued by hallucinations. In the beginning you have literally no idea what to think of this character.

The manga also displays a lot misery, corruption, cruelty, gore, paranoia, insanity and misogyny. A bit in excess in fact, impacting the story in such a way that it seems that no humanity is portrayed in society at all. Other thing to mention is the war that takes place: basically nothing is explained about it, why it did happen, how is society affected by it, none of these questions are answered, making the war a mere plot device to justify the current juridical system, which leads to other point of the story: the "enforcing".

First off, there is a gist to the system: instead of criminals being executed in a controlled and official environment, criminals are hunted down by enforcers. The criminal is free to hire bodyguards to defend against the prosecutors, but these are often unaffordable, which leaves the criminals with no other option then to rely on their friends or family members. Nevertheless, they have the liberty to choose a place where the enforcement should take place. The idea is interesting, but there are problems associated with such a system: trying to assassinate each other in populated areas, hence involving and risking the lives of many innocent civilians? This would never work in reality, leaving the reader with a somewhat unsatisfactory story setting.

The development of the main character Kano is one of the strongest points in Freesia. Besides of being an interesting character, Kano himself is aware that he is insane, and not the world around him as he thinks in the beginning; he tries to change it gradually, which he does through interactions with different characters and events, and his own hallucinations.

This cannot be said about the other characters. There is Higuchi, who apparently has a motive for working in such an agency, but this is never portrayed throughout the manga. The same could be said about Mizoguchi: characterized by being a total psychopath, who beats his wife on regular basis, killing innocent bystanders, without having a single positive characteristic to him. Nothing is explained on why possibly he displays such behaviour.

A lot of secondary characters are introduced, with some being interesting as "The Phantom", the grandma, but a lot of those are shown in some pages and just disappear, as in the case of the serial killer. This character seemed to have some importance to the story development, but after being displayed to the reader, suddenly isn't mentioned before. Or the lover of Keiko, who suddenly disappears as well.

The art style of Freesia is sketchy, which fits well with the theme of the story, making it able to display the cruelty and gore of the world well. Nevertheless, inconsistencies could be found in the manga, as well as characters design being simplistic and hard to distinguish from each other.

Overall Freesia was a compelling read which suggested an interesting juridical system for themes such as revenge, but failed to convey these in a realistic manner. The characters were somewhat lackluster, and lacked in humanity, Kano being the most appealing one of the narrative. Definitely recommendable to anyone who seeks a dramatic action manga.

Thank you for reading.