Amakusa 1637?

[Prester John]

Has anybody read the manga Amakusa 1637? At first glance it seems to be told from a Christian perspective, centering on a group of Christian students who travel back in time to the Shimabara Rebellion. If anybody has read it, would you please tell me if it is any good, if it is worth delving into? I would greatly appreciate it.

[Atria35]

Well, I ran it through the search engine on MAL, and found that out of the thousands of users on the site (and I'm talking about 20,000 perhaps), only 57 have read any of this manga. So it's not terribly well-known.

Synopsis:
During a school cruise trip, a group of friends are thrown back to the year 1636. According to history, in 1637 a revolt known as the Shimabara Revolt broke. It was a rebellion by Christian rebels and led by a charismatic youth known as Amakusa Shirou, which ended in the defeat of the rebels and resulted in the loss of 3,000 lives. Hayumi Natsuki, our heroine, is mistaken as Amakusa Shirou by the villagers she met, never mind that the real Amakusa Shirou is male. Apparently the real Amakusa Shirou died the year previously, before gaining recognition or popularity as a leader among the people. Before long, she became famous as some-sort of heaven-sent angel and people started calling her "Shirou", believing she is the saviour prophesied 25 years before.

No idea whether it's any good or not- there are no reviews for it.

It's one you're gonna have to find out for yourself, I think.

EDIT: There is a slight "Shuudo" relationship in the manga- a pederastic relationship that was rather common between men of noble houses and boys (ages 13- about 20) of noble houses that were under their mentorship. While it is historically accurate, it is a homosexual relationship depicted, though I can't find out whether it's depicted in detail or not.

2nd Edit: It's not in graphic detail, just acknowledged to be there. And it turns out most of it is between the girl that's in drag and the main guy, because the main guy had that kind of relationship with the guy that the girl looks like.

[Kaori]

A while ago, I happened to randomly pick up volume one of this, used; read through the first chapter (50 pages), and I can definitely say that both the artwork and the writing are below average. I really wouldn’t recommend it.

I don’t know for sure, but with Japan’s 1% Christian population, it’s unlikely that the mangaka is a Christian, so at best it’s probably an outsider’s viewpoint on Christianity (and that of an outsider who probably does not know very much about Christianity).