In another world, Tsunashi is the prince and sole heir to a small kingdom whose neighbors are slowly being conquered. Tsunashi does care, but he feels removed from the conflicts and prefers to learn about the world through reading rather than swordplay, much to the chagrin of some of his retainers. But progress waits for no one and soon Tsunashi has to take up the sword, defeat an empire, and find out the mystery behind his ever-present eyepatch.
This was a rough work through and through. The art alone looks surprisingly sketchy for a shounen manga; I started wondering if the manga-ka didn’t have time to finish inking and toning the pages! I found the art more distracting than helpful in telling the story. There’s also no continuity when it comes to designs at all. It seemed to be a jumbled-up mash of every style of clothing and character design Masahito Soda and Kanaka Mizuki ever thought looked cool, and it made the entire story seem even messier.
The story itself tries to go ten million different ways in just these first six chapters. At first it seemed like it would be more of a “boy becomes king” coming of age story a la The Heroic Legend of Arslan or Yona of the Dawn but then it tries to throw in twists and counter-twists until your head spins. It’s almost amusing that the story suggests a grand, sweeping story of conquering empires and prophecies but thinks that the best way to spend the first volume is to focus very closely on a few characters without really developing or even properly introducing some of them!
In the end, I don’t see myself continuing with Tenth Prism. Of course a long-running series will take longer to set up and get moving, but a great one will give you a hook in the very first chapter and that just didn’t happen here for me.
Tenth Prism is available digitally on Crunchyroll.
