Jan 24, 2025
Milgram is a mixed-media project, focused on storytelling through songs. The main story of Milgram features 10 characters, who are judged for crime by Es, the audience surrogate. Each having committed murder, their crimes and character motivations are carefully weaved within specially-written character songs. This manga, on the other hand, is an adaptation of the first Milgram novel, which is a side story with the same premise but a different and smaller cast of characters. Naturally, it takes a much more straightforward approach to the story, lacking the songs and side content that defines the Milgram project as a whole. As such, where does this
...
manga stand?
The characters are fairly basic. Their personalities don't really go much beyond "being kind of nice" (besides the one obligatory aloof character), but I personally enjoyed the few interactions between the characters. I'm just a fan of strangers working together in an unfamiliar setting, which is what we have here. The real "meat" of the story comes from the backstory and crimes of the characters, which are just okay. They typically feature some kind of traumatic past for the characters and a somewhat sympathetic reason for why they committed murder, but there's not a lot of time to flesh out the characters further, which leaves them feeling rather stereotypical. This is not helped by the fact that the characters are pretty promptly removed from the story after their crimes are revealed, which gives very little time for character reflection.
The main draw to the Milgram series is its thematics: whether it was okay to forgive someone for the crimes they commit, given their reasons for doing so. While I enjoy the original Milgram, this story feels far less nuanced compared to the original, and thus it's not as interesting. As I said before, the crimes that the characters committed are pretty stereotypical. Unlike the original, where the characters feel a bit more grounded in their crime, the crimes that the characters in this commit feel a tad more unrealistic, I think? Combined with the lower amount of time to flesh out characters, it feels like there's not a lot of nuance to their crimes. Thus, it's a lot less interesting to "judge" these characters for yourself, when that is supposed to be the selling point of the franchise.
Secondly, the main character, Es, doesn't work well as an audience surrogate. As the one responsible for judging the characters in-story, she reflects how you, as the audience, are tasked with judging the crimes of the characters. The story frequently tries to question Es, and in turn the reader, on whether it was okay to do so. Unfortunately, while the story tries to make it seem like it has a lot of things to say about the topic, it doesn't really have a lot of things to say. This comes down to the fact that Es as a character doesn't really have a lot of character growth. As an audience surrogate, her struggles should be used to offer the audience a different perspective on the question at hand. However, Es doesn't really get much opportunities to reflect on what she's doing and why she would give someone a certain verdict, which leaves the central question feeling unanswered.
At the very least, I don't think the story is boring, certainly not enough for me to dislike it. While it's not as fun as the original Milgram, where a big draw is dissecting the visuals and lyrics of its music videos, I still enjoyed the build up of the mysteries behind each character. I mean, it's pretty hard to go wrong with a premise where you get a bunch of characters and you slowly find out that they each killed someone. As a fan of Milgram, there are also some interesting lore-drops, with a particular reveal in the final chapter that did catch me off-guard. I also like the art. It's cute, but also expressive enough for when the story gets more grim, and there are some interesting visual symbolisms used. I do think it's a bit hard to distinguish the male characters from one another, since they have pretty similar designs between their hairstyles and prisoner outfits, but I wouldn't blame the manga artist for it specifically. At the end of the day, this manga is a pretty short read, so there's certainly nothing stopping you from giving it a try. Watch Milgram, if you haven't already.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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