Mod Edit: review may contain spoilers.
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With the limited amount of 10/10s in existence, I am forever on the lookout for anything of the more serious and twisted variety, for if there is anything that can get a reaction out if me, it is not blushing wuv shoujo, or the usual braindead school anime.

Bradherley's Coach certainly fits the bill: set in Europe in the early 1900's (the setting matching best with England), is is about girls from orphanages getting picked based on their appearance to join the opera troupe of one of the most powerful nobles (the fourth, to be precise!) in existence - Bradherley. The girls view this like we would see winning the lottery in modern times; jumping from rags to riches.

What the girls do not know about is a plan Bradherley put forward to parliament after something serious occurred at a prison. (There was a riot, the result being a lot of death and injuries.) Seeing his chance in the aftermath, Bradherley suggested taming the wild urges of the inmates serving life at prisons by offering a 'lamb' to counter their violent and lustful needs after a certain amount of months, preventing any further riots by allowing the inmates to give into their urges by offering them one innocent victim who would be sacrificed for the greater good.

The 'lamb' would be tricked into thinking she's being taken to Bradherley's estate in a coach, get taken to a prison instead, then get lead into a room full of 30-60+ inmates and, finally, the prison guards would then watch on as the inmates beat and rape the girl over and over. This would be allowed to continue for as many days as it took for the girls to die.

For handling the payments given to the orphanages for the 'lambs', supplying the girls and basically taking all the risks, Bradherley gained more power within the government and maybe even was allowed to evade paying taxes. There were a lot of benefits balanced against the risks. But, really, what risks were there in allowing inmates who wouldn't ever leave prison to have their way with girls with no family; girls who wouldn't be remembered?

Following the short introduction of a girl leaving her orphanage, blissfully unaware of her fate, the manga started off by showing a fairly graphic rape sequence. It didn't disturb me - I've seen one too many doujins on the internet to be easily disturbed, as well as a fair few other things - but I have read that some of the early parts of the story made some people stop. But, after the opening two chapters, the chapters that followed didn't show that kind of thing quite so graphically, instead mainly focusing on short stories involving different girls outside of the prisons...or, in other words, the events leading up to them becoming 'lambs'. The mangaka showed what happened to the girls in detail at the start in order to get the readers to fully understand what the girls had to endure and then stopped so as to not make the series pornographic. There was even a chapter telling the story from the perspective of a few prisoners; a chapter that was good because it helped me understand how the prisoners handled the situation they found themselves in.

What I loved when reading this series was the art. It was drawn with the intention of being realistic in an attempt to make the events more believable and disturbing, and it worked a treat. I couldn't spot any flaws in the art, either. The mangaka is meant to be pretty famous and, if this effort is anything to go by, I can see why.

To sum it up, Bradherley's Coach is an excellent series to read... if you can handle something realistic to the point of being disturbing. Rape is only shown in graphic detail at the beginning and it does veer away from being pornographic, though. It's short enough to read in one go, it only lasting for eight chapters, and the fact that each chapter tells the story of a different girl (or two) keeps it fresh. I highly recommend it to lovers of short 'n grim stories.