The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

Blade & Bastard

What's It About? 

Deep in the unexplored reaches of the dungeon, a corpse is discovered―one that shouldn't exist. After Iarumas is resurrected, his memories of life before death are gone, and he spends his days delving into the dungeon to retrieve the bodies of dead adventurers. Can they be revived as well? Or will God reduce them to piles of ash on the altar? Either way, Iarumas collects his finder's fee. And though his skills earn him some grudging respect, he's also scorned for this cold, utilitarian attitude. The living keeps their distance―Iarumas consorts primarily with the dead. That is until he meets Garbage, a feral young swordswoman who's the sole survivor of a massacred party. With Garbage by his side, Iarumas ventures deeper, scouring the dungeon for clues to his past, avoiding monsters, traps, and the inevitability of a permanent ashen demise.

Blade & Bastard is a manga by Makoto Fugetsu, adapted from a light novel series by Kumo Kagyu (author) and so-bin (illustrator), with English translation by Sean McCann. This volume was lettered by Madeleine Jose. Published by Yen Press (October 15, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

When faced with a story with multiple reading possibilities, the question is always whether one is better. My answer for Blade & Bastard is the same as for Kumo Kagyu's other work, Goblin Slayer: the light novels are better. In the case of this story, that's not because the manga adaptation tarts up the original; there's only one mention of anything approaching sexual assault, and that's when a girl stuck in a clan (a group that seems to be like a party, but larger) notes that she'd rather go hungry than risk developing too quickly and having to deal with the creeps in the group. But the novels give a lot more lore and other background information than the manga version and I found myself at times reading this and realizing how much I was relying on having that to understand this.

It almost feels less important that this is set in the world of the Wizardry games, although it's certainly worth mentioning. That's most apparent in the way that the story unfolds; it feels more like one of the Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms novels I inhaled back in middle and high school than a typical light novel. Even the dungeon is different from what we usually see – rather than a layered pit filled with random monsters, this dungeon is more like a catacomb, with most of the rooms designated as burial chambers. Naturally, no one knows where it came from. It seems like it may disappear and reappear at random intervals, because our hero, Iarumas, was discovered as a desiccated corpse behind an unopened door by the All Stars clan, who were shocked at this evidence that someone had been there before them. Iarumas, the implication is that, explored the dungeon so many years ago that no record of the structure still exists.

That explains his current line of work: after being resurrected, he now wanders the dungeon in search of corpses, which people then pay him to retrieve and bring to Sister Ainikki at the church to resurrect. He briefly mentions that he's hoping to find others from his time, even though he doesn't remember anything about his past, and there's something a little melancholy about the way he sort of trudges through his life. Of course, that would make for a very depressing story, so he ends up with two plucky kids in tow, Raraja, who was abandoned by his clan, and Garbage, a former slave who…thinks she's a dog or is cursed to only be able to bark. The whole thing's a bit murky on that front, and I can't say I love having our main female character acting like a canine…although one of my sisters did go through a phase like that when she was little.

Blade & Bastard is proud to be a dark story, and unfortunately that's almost all it is in the manga. It's still entertaining, and the bits and pieces of lore we get are tantalizing. Fight scenes are decently well drawn and Garbage's body language is a definite strength of the art, while Iarumas always looks sulky and worn down. It's a pretty good sword and sorcery story, and if I hadn't read the novel, I might have been more enthusiastic about this version.

Yet another addition to the dungeon-delving fantasy genre, Blade & Bastard began as a light novel from Goblin Slayer author Kumo Kagyu, with illustrations from Overlord artist so-bin. This manga version sees edgy, hooded protagonist Iarumas scouring The Dungeon for the corpses of his fallen former party after he was mistakenly resurrected. During one solo expedition, he meets a slavery-collared feral child (apparently called “Garbage”), who speaks only with dog-like growls.

Iarumas is one of those hard-boiled noirish protagonists prone to narrating his thoughts darkly while butchering enormous pig orcs, or dragging wrapped corpses behind him. He favors sleeping on the floor because sleeping in a comfortable bed makes him feel “old”. He states “The cold, hard floor and the scent of death that follows me as I spend my time with corpses is all deeply ingrained in who I am.” He's not exactly a barrel of laughs, then.

Blade & Bastard is a staunchly grimdark manga, the only humor comes from Garbage's occasional antics. Violence is frequent, graphic, and bloody. So far there hasn't been objectionable material as Goblin Slayer's opening section. Connoisseurs of dark D&D-flavored fare will likely enjoy this, but it didn't grab me to the point where I wanted to continue the expedition.

I often complain about fantasy novels biting too close to RPG mechanics, but with Blade & Bastard I have to let them have it—because it's a Wizardry spin-off. Not only are actual Wizardry spells and objects namedropped left and right, but even the Softalk All-Stars (famed high-level characters from the original game) are major characters. The short story at the end claims that protagonist Iraumas (hint: spell his name backward) sees the dungeon as a white wireframe on a black background. Cute.

Anyway, outside of one hamfisted moment that talks about a character's “bonus points” (also known as “Blessings from God”) or discussing “character alignment”, the series does a good job at playing up the Wizardry connection. The setting is appropriately dour, given the Wizardry series' imposing difficulty and take-no-prisoners mechanics. Yes, your characters can and will turn to ash instead of resurrecting at the Temple of Cant if your luck is bad. Garbage being a freed slave even makes sense in the context of the games, given the strategy most players have of rolling a character, stripping them of equipment, and using them as a meat shield (“At least her name has more than one syllable,” Iarumas muses). Iarumas is a dour fellow, but not so much so that he doesn't have some form of charm and rapport with his peers—and the mystery of his origins does add some urgency to his constant spelunking. After all, the All-Stars found his corpse on a floor even they never reached...

The thing I appreciate about Blade & Bastard is how it mostly fleshes out the concepts and trappings of Wizardry into a manga without doing the old canard of making characters bring up status menus to observe themselves—for the most part. If they could just completely avoid the (thankfully, rare) moments of discussing “alignments” or “bonus points”, I'd have rated Blade & Bastard much higher. Nevertheless, it's a competent fantasy series that celebrates one of the grandpappies of the RPG genre without needing to bludgeon you over the head with RPG references. I'd like to think good ol' Robert “Trebor” Woodhead and the late Andrew “Werdna” Greenberg are proud. Recommended.