Review: HOLY CORPSE RISING

Of course, there are plenty of sexy witches in manga too.  Some of them have more effort put into them than others, such as this title.

HOLY CORPSE RISING (Seigai no Majo), by Hosana Tanaka.  First published in 2014 and first published in North America in 2016.

PLOT:

Warfare has broken out between the Holy See and witches on the streets and dark corners of 15th century Rome.  Caught up in the midst of it is a young archivist named Nikola Eskalibur.  He has been tasked by the Pontifex herself to use his knowledge of heretical texts to find and resurrect an ancient witch to use as a weapon.  This witch, Aethevald, is cruel and powerful but for the price of Nikola's pure tears of emotion she is all too happy to cut down any witch who crosses her path.

STORY:

If you were going only by that summary, you might think that Holy Corpse Rising was some sort of dark, ambitious, fantastical alternate history tale, one where pagan terrors are wielded against witches during the height of the European witch hunts.  That's certainly part of this series, but that's not its true face.

No, that doesn't begin to reveal itself until after the first chapter.  Initially the dynamic between Nikola and Aethevald reminded of Darling In the Franxx more than anything else.  After all, both stories feature a frail but brave guy who by chance ends up bonded to a tall, statuesque, stacked supernatural woman who is immensely powerful but willfully submits to him for Plot Reasons.  As the volume went on and more and more witches are drawn to Nikola, the true form of Holy Corpse Rising becomes clear: it's a harem manga.  In that sense, I guess it's shaping up to become something closer to Witchcraft Works, where a small dude becomes the object of devotion (or obsession) for multiple, tall, statuesque, stacked, magically gifted women for Plot Reasons.  Nobody's tried to carry Nikola like a bride quite yet, but I wouldn't put it past this series to try it.  

At least unlike most harem protagonists, Nikola has a reason to be nervous around horny women: he was an orphan raised by this universe's version of the Pope and took vows of chastity to become a monk.  Outside of his relationship with the Pontifex (whom he idolizes as both a mother and a holy figure), he has had no contact with women.  That said, the longer the series goes on the more it does begin to resemble your standard harem dynamic, as his multiple witchy wives begin to squabble amongst themselves for Nikola's attentions.  Neither Aethivald nor Upsala (the second revived witch) are particularly deep either.  Aethivald is the stern but motherly one, while Upsala is the horny one.

Thankfully there is an actual plot to keep things moving along.  While much of it is in service to the author's fetishes (more on that later), there is some actual thought put into the worldbuilding.  Making the witches be former acolytes of the Roman goddess Diana with a sanctuary at Lake Nemi is a particularly inspired touch, even if I could pedantically note that the last thing any acolyte of Diana would do would be to marry themselves in any sense of the word to a man.  It helps that the whole thing is delivered with the sort of confident audacity that I normally associate with works like Hellsing or Bayonetta.  I don't know if I can call this story good per se, but it absolutely knows what it is and makes no pretenses otherwise.

ART:

Perhaps some of that confidence comes from Tanaka's confidence in his own skills as an artist.  He would certainly have good cause for it.  If nothing else, he's very good at drawing beautiful women with fairly realistic proportions, movements, and expressions.  Hell, he can even draw realistic horses! Nikola is the big exception to this rule, with his big, childish eyes and his tendency towards over-the-top expressions of shock and terror.  

That being said, he definitely does not shy away from the sex and violence.  If there's any opportunity for any woman to expose her boobs, butt, legs, or abs, he will take it.  This is most evident in the battle outfits for the witches, which tend to involve a lot of exposed buttcheek, garters, and feather pasties.  Even the Pontifex spends her days wearing dresses with crotch-high skirt slits and cleavage for days (and apparently thong panties underneath that).  Even the witch fights look more like modeling sessions than blood battles, even as the enemy witches get literally cut to pieces.  Weirdly enough, I was more off-put by the scene where the witches consume Nikola's blood and tears.  Part of that is because it's the part where Tanaka gets the most overtly sexual, with extreme first-person perspectives and a lot of emphasis on the witch's tongues and fingers.  Part of it is because he draws Nikola's tears as weirdly thick and goopy, all the better to remind of you other lickable bodily fluids.

RATING:

Holy Corpse Rising is more than a little trashy, but there is enough genuine thought and artistic effort put into that I cannot begrudge its existence.  It's not for me personally, but I suspect that fans of artists like Oh!Great or Akira Hiramoto would love it.

This manga is published by Seven Seas.  This manga is complete in Japan with 7 volumes available.  All 7 have been released and are currently out of print.