Cesare Review: Renaissance Italy Rendered as a Manga Master Class in Historical Drama
by Fuyumi Soryo
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Quick Take
- One of the most meticulously researched historical manga ever created — the Renaissance Italy is real
- Cesare Borgia as a manga protagonist: brilliant, beautiful, dangerous, and completely realized
- Fuyumi Soryo at the absolute peak of her craft
Who Is This Manga For?
- Historical drama readers who want manga that treats history with genuine respect
- European history enthusiasts — particularly Renaissance Italy and the Borgia family
- Seinen manga readers who want literary quality alongside historical content
- Fuyumi Soryo fans (Mars, ES: Eternal Sabbath) who want her most ambitious work
Content Warnings & Age Rating
Age Rating: M (Mature) Content Warnings: Renaissance political violence, the Borgia family's historical activities, religious politics and corruption, death depicted seriously
Adult content appropriate to its historical subject matter.
Yu's Rating
| Category | Score |
|---|---|
| Story Depth | ★★★★★ |
| Art Style | ★★★★★ |
| Character Development | ★★★★★ |
| Accessibility for Non-Japanese Readers | ★★★★★ |
| Reread Value | ★★★★★ |
Story Overview
The University of Pisa, 1491. Angelo Silvio Piccolomi is a scholarship student from Siena — intelligent, idealistic, from modest means. He meets Cesare Borgia, who will become one of the most controversial figures in Italian history.
At this point, Cesare is seventeen. Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia (his father, who will become Pope Alexander VI) has accumulated significant power in Rome but not yet the papacy. Cesare is already extraordinary — brilliant in his studies, devastating in his ambitions, possessed of a political intelligence that seems to exceed ordinary human capacity.
The series follows the friendship between Angelo and Cesare, and through it, the political landscape of late 15th-century Italy — the Italian city-states, the papacy, the Medici, the Sforzas, the emerging threat of French power, and Cesare's slow emergence as the strategist-prince that Machiavelli would later cite as his ideal ruler.
Characters
Cesare Borgia: Rendered with historical depth and human complexity. The manga refuses easy readings — neither the Borgia-as-monster of later tradition nor the Borgia-as-hero of romantic revision. He is a person who was exactly who history recorded, and the manga allows that person to be genuinely compelling.
Angelo Silvio Piccolomi: The point-of-view character whose ordinariness allows the reader access to the extraordinary world Cesare inhabits. His friendship with Cesare is the emotional thread; his growing understanding of what Cesare actually is provides the series' tension.
Art Style
Fuyumi Soryo's art is exceptional — perhaps the most accomplished historical art in manga. Period Italian Renaissance settings, architecture, costume, and atmosphere are rendered with research depth that would be impressive in an academic context. Character designs are expressive and historically grounded. The visual storytelling has the pacing of someone who has complete mastery of the medium.
Cultural Context
The Borgia family's actual historical reputation is complicated — they have been simultaneously demonized and rehabilitated over centuries. Soryo's approach is to render them as they were: powerful people operating within the specific ethics and possibilities of their time, which were different from ours.
The historical research in Cesare is exceptional. The series' academic supervisor was a specialist in Italian Renaissance history, and the commitment to historical accuracy is evident throughout — not just in events but in the texture of daily life, the specific rhythms of university culture, the details of papal politics.
What I Love About It
Cesare is the kind of manga I didn't know existed before I read it.
I thought I understood what "historical manga" meant. A period setting, perhaps some research, a character drama against historical backdrop. Cesare is something entirely different: a work that takes history seriously as history, that treats the past as a real place inhabited by real people whose decisions had real consequences — and that renders this realness through the specific tools of the manga medium.
The Cesare Borgia I met in this manga is not the villain of legend or the hero of revisionism. He's a person. Brilliant and ruthless and genuinely capable of warmth with the specific person he's chosen to show it to. Understanding him — really understanding him — illuminated the actual historical figure in ways that straightforward history hadn't.
That's what the best historical fiction does. Cesare does it.
What English-Speaking Fans Say
Deeply admired among readers who have accessed it — the lack of English translation is widely lamented as one of manga's significant gaps. Fuyumi Soryo's English fanbase (from her earlier works) is particularly frustrated by its inaccessibility.
Consistently ranked among the best seinen manga of the 2000s by readers in multiple countries.
Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning
The scene where Cesare explains to Angelo his actual philosophy — what he believes about power, about the people who have it and those who don't, about what he intends to do with his own — is the series' intellectual center. It's a conversation that draws on Machiavelli before Machiavelli wrote it. Cesare is not the origin of these ideas; he is one of the people whose existence generated them. The manga makes you feel that.
Similar Manga
- Vinland Saga: Different period, similar commitment to historical reality
- Dororo: Tezuka's historical Japan; different period, similar moral complexity
- Thermae Romae: Different tone (comedy), same commitment to period research
Reading Order / Where to Start
Volume 1. The political world builds from the opening chapters — context accumulates.
Official English Translation Status
Cesare has no official English translation. Available in Japanese only.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Exceptional historical research and rendering
- One of manga's great characters in Cesare Borgia
- Fuyumi Soryo's finest work
- Complete at 11 volumes
Cons
- No English translation
- The political complexity rewards prior knowledge of the period
- Demands patient engagement with historical detail
Format Comparison
| Format | Notes |
|---|---|
| Physical | Japanese editions available |
| Digital | Available in Japanese |
| Omnibus | Not currently available |
Where to Buy
Cesare is currently available in Japanese only.
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Written by
Yu
Manga Enthusiast from Japan
I grew up in Japan and manga literally saved me during a tough time in elementary school. My English isn't perfect, but my love for manga is real — and I want to share it with you.