Walter Tell and the Bailiff of Wolfsmund face off in a final battle, but will Walter be able to defeat the highly-skilled Bailiff!?
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Mitsuhisa Kuji
Translation/Adaptation: Ko Ransom
What They Say
The tide slowly begins to turn. While the rebels continue to pinch in upon the Wolfsmund, its bailiff, Wolfram, is now at the end of his rope. Waiting until reinforcements may no longer be an option for the cruel station-master, as canton rebels are slowly moving up the main building after taking the Wolfsmund’s flanks.
Now the time has come. Wolfsram and his most cunning adversary, Walter son of Wilhem Tell, will face off in a knife fight to settle the fate of this fort and battle.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Walter Tell is facing off with the Bailiff of Wolfsmund after the fortress has fallen to the three Cantons of rebels. The Bailiff proves to be both cunning and adept with his knives. It doesn’t take him long to score potentially fatal injuries on Walter. Being unarmed, Walter will have to become as cunning as the Bailiff if he has any hope to survive and avenge all his fallen comrades, including all of the Bailiff’s innocent victims.
One thing this series has never shied away from is gnarly bone-crunching torture and mortal combat. Once the Bailiff is subdued, he gets his own fair share after how poorly he has treated people at Wolfsmund. While I thought breaking his arms and throwing him down a staircase was impressive, the slow, excruciating, emasculating way they kill him puts all previous torture in this series to shame!
With Wolfsmund defeated and back in the hand of the natives, they take a night to party and cherish their hard fought victory. But not only that, they are celebrating the sacrifices their fallen comrades made to bring about the defeat of the Bailiff. The very next day, celebrating is over and the three Eternal Alliance cantons begin their next phase for achieving freedom from their Austrian overlords. Now they can retrieve all the weapons they stashed in Italy and combine them with the weapons from Wolfsmund before they make a move to push out the Austrians from their country. This will be a difficult battle, the Alliance only has 1,500 men to go up against Austria’s Duke Leopold and his force of 9,000 men. How can the rebels possibly hope to hold out against those odds?
In Summary
The fall of Wolfsmund’s Bailiff was by no means anti-climatic, and a welcome ending to that horrible man. However, I have to wonder how this series will do moving forward. Until now, the Bailiff was the only thing really holding this story together since every character the author introduced usually met a grisly fate a few chapters later. Add to that the fact that Walter Tell is resting from his wounds while the three Cantons continue to press against the Austrians, and I wonder if a character will come forward to grab the reader’s focus.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Vertical, Inc.
Release Date: March 31st, 2015
MSRP: $12.95
