Manga 129984 Akai Kiri No Naka Kara

The 19th century England town setting and the art style are luring. It starts-off pretty solid, the mc had a vivid personality, unfaltering in any situation. The way he moves from place to place giving us these short arcs was also interesting. Then things got bigger and busier, past intertwined with the present and possible future, little plot twists, and curious events occur. The last arc was to be honest a bit laggy but still doesn't change the fact it was overall a really fine read. Lots of my questions remained unanswered but I feel like the ending left a safe place for a ... sequel,If the writer ever decides that...I hope they do... I wanna read more.

Overall I did enjoy this manga for what it was, some edgy food to munch on. But the ending was terrible I can't lie, everything leading up to it was fun, interesting, and a good time, but everything came to a screeching unintelligible halt. I think if given more time it could have done so much better with the premise it had. But the ending we got was rushed and left so many things unresolved. It was hardly an ending, it felt like the ending of an arc to lead to more possibly interesting things, but it just stops there.

All in all, read at your ... own discretion, you may find an enjoyable time despite the ending, I did at least, but I cannot in good faith recommend this as something to read because of its disappointing finale even if it couldn't be helped.

I'm a follower of the author, so I'm writing this as a fan who's also critical of their work. I'm quite passionate about this one, so this is a lengthy review, sorry.
Masae Nohara is a great artist and character designer. From their social media, you can tell they have a passion for horror and psychological settings, and they have a lot of love for the characters they created for this manga. Passion, however, can only take you so far.

"From the Red Fog" had a lot of potential, with an intriguing plot and interesting characters. Its main issue, however, is its pacing and character development. With ... it being only 25 chapters long, it tries its hardest to show the whole picture of Rwanda's story while also giving some spotlight to the other characters, but it ultimately has no time to truly develop them, which is not surprising, as it barely has enough time for its own protagonist in the first place.

As a result, every character besides Rwanda and his mother feel like they have missed potential, especially Macalo and Midwinter. Since her first appearance, Macalo seemed like she would play a bigger part in the plot with how she connected with Rwanda when they met, but she disappears for a long time and, when she makes a comeback, it's over very quickly and ultimately feels underwhelming since it has no bearing on the main story.

As for Midwinter, his backstory was very underdeveloped, as were his motivations, which were very superficial and cliché. I kept hoping the story would further develop his subplot, especially with how big the scale of his plans seemed to be, but we barely get to learn about it. By the time that arc comes to an end, it seems to get resolved off-screen, as the manga deals with his character in a way that is more of a let down considering how big of a presence he had until then.

The ending of that arc itself was fine -- it was satisfying enough, though I do wish its execution was better. Although I said that Rwanda's mom is one of the better developed characters, that isn't to say her character writing was particularly clever, and I did wish her backstory was more relevant.

Then there's the next and final arc. There's not much left of the manga at that point, so it feels more like an epilogue than anything else. The idea of exploring how Rwanda was going to deal after the end of the previous arc is a nice one, but the execution wasn't good. A lot of new characters get introduced, but there's not enough time for the reader to get invested enough to care about them even if they wanted to. The villain of this arc was very disappointing too, he honestly felt like the character with the least heart poured into, as he wasn't original at all, nor was his writing any good. I was also disappointed with how Macalo's character turned out, as she barely held any resemblance with the character we first met. The author tried to bring back some of the stuff from Rwanda's past, which would've been nice if there was enough time to actually explore it. Even with the open ending, the fact there were so many things left unresolved really bothered me.

I keep repeating the word "time", but that's because I really feel like that's the main problem here. I know the author wanted to show as much as they could with what time and power they had. However, in trying to show both Rwanda's past and present, while also trying to give attention to other characters, even minor ones, everything ended up feeling rushed, and the pacing was awkward even when it wasn't trying to rush. Had it been a lenghtier manga, there would have been more time to properly develop every plotpoint and character. Maybe we would get to see more of Rwanda's childhood and his time at the hitman organization would've had more of an impact on him. Even the last arc could've been more enjoyable once we actually connected with the new characters, even if it would still have its flaws.

I see some people complaining about the characters bringing up family and love, but I honestly feel like these are genuinely important ideas to be explored here, with the focus on Rwanda's upbringing and what brings each character to kill. There's also a short discussion about whether attachment makes you weaker or stronger, and it would've been nice to see Rwanda figure this out by himself through his connections to characters like Ivan and Macalo. But, of course, none of this gets explored past surface level, and none of the questions brought up in the later arc are any better.

My personal rating is a 6, if only because of how much I like these characters, but critically, I can only give it a 5 at best. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who knows their way around psychological manga, because the higher your standards are, the more disappointed you'll be: there probably isn't anything here you can't find somewhere else done better. If you still want to give it a try, I suggest not reading past volume 4.