Edit: The English scanlation is up and running again I am doing proofreading and typesetting. I cant link it because when I tried it was taken down for promoting illicit copyrighted content. Cesare: the Destroyer Creator is about the political child prodigy Cesare Borgia pronounced Chessaray Borja by the way along with his stoic but skeptical righthand man Miguel and the innocent but intelligent peasantborn Angelo. Cesare navigates the corrupt difficult world of the Catholic Church as he strives for his father to become the next pope. Born illegitimately he cannot technically become a cardinal himself but makes every attempt to establish himself as a valuable member of the Holy See. But in the midst of Italian infighting religious conflict and the discrimination of his Spanish heritage this is no small task. It also explores the infamous Medici and Borgia families. This manga is incredibly underrated. Compared to every other historical manga I have read it is by far the most wellresearched. I cant vouch for its historical accuracy as I have not done much research myself on Cesare Borgia but it comes across like it knows what its talking about. Its not a light read not at all. Its infoheavy and extremely detailed. Most other historical manga will modernize the story just a bit to make it more digestible but not Cesare. It reads like it was written in the time period its based in. It helps if you know a bit about Italian/Catholic history and geography first which I didnt so I must admit some parts can be confusing and you might have to reread to absorb everything. For this reason it was honestly quite hard to read for me but the characters and art carried it in my opinion. But nevertheless it deserves much more praise especially from the historical seinen community. I can tell that some might be turned away by the art style as its very yaoi/shojolike since that was what the mangaka did before I think however it does not read like that at all. Theres way more old men than pretty boys lol The art is simply incredible as well. It captures Rennaisance Italy as if the mangaka was able to time travel and draw from life. Cesare is a multifaceted morally gray character in the likes of Griffith but in his case his character is based on an actual person. He is a manipulator and takes advantage of the corruption to advance his own agenda. However in many cases he is actually the most morally sound person in the room. Its quite an interesting dynamic. Angelo exists as a sortof narrator he observes Cesares antics from a more unbiased perspective and starkly contrasts Cesare. Miguel appears to blindly serve Cesare but over time it is revealed he is in fact his own person he can see right through Cesares manipulation and recognizes hes hard to truly understand but he lacks the confidence to express his conflicting ideas. At times it seems like its about to go in a strange romantic direction theres sometimes a lot of tension between Cesare and Miguel or even with his sister but it never strays from its politicaldriven plot. In this way I feel its most realistic perhaps its just a cultural difference from today I wouldnt know but I strangely appreciate it. Be warned from what I can tell not all of Cesare is translated into English only up to volume 9 iirc 79 chapters and it seems that the scanlation team has no intention of continuing as their website is gone and I cant find any more information. Ive also had trouble finding out if the manga was canceled or if the mangaka is still slowly publishing because the English speaking fanbase is so small that almost nothing about it exists online. Its a shame honestly. I have a hard time pitching it to people as a story about corruption in the Catholic church probably does not seem very interesting for most people but the intricacy of the philosophy politics and psychological battles are on par or even better than those of Berserk Vagabond Vinland Saga etc. If you are interested in history and religion and perhaps politics as well I could not recommend Cesare more. Its complicated with many moving parts but at the same time its a beautiful look into the powerhungry side of the Catholic church. 220http://storage.canalblog.com/98/68/1015232/85829720o.jpg 220https://imagesna.sslimagesamazon.com/images/I/71WVyNMYKPL.jpg 220https://i.ibb.co/Rvm0tx9/z19.jpg