That's about the face of it.

Peace Maker is a story clearly inspired by westerns, with plenty of gun duels and the like, albeit set in a fantasy world. It's not a perfect story by any means, but it is pretty fun, though the middling bits are ittedly a bit tiring. While I agree with Hope's philosophy, it definitely gets stale hearing him rehash it, especially because he keeps having to go against it because of [insert extenuating circumstances here]. His character development moments (if you can even call it that) are also few and far between.

Furthermore, the individuals increasingly get overshadowed by a wider, overarching conflict, to the point that I almost feel as if I'm reading two disconnected stories at once, and not really caring about either of them. The problem is that Peace Maker, while a cool western with nice ideas, isn't so great at connecting Hope's conflict with the world's conflict. Nicola is a central player in both, but as things becoming more and more tense, her role as a character grows smaller, and she becomes used as basically a plot device. Which isn't what I enjoy seeing.

But never fear! The story gets better!

Nicola, as the new protagonist after the timeskip, is exemplary. And it's amazing to see how much the story has been elevated now that she's taken the central role. I especially love her philosophy, which is like Hope's, but also distinct from his. And it feels like she's reaffirming this philosophy at every turn, actively working at superb gunfighting skills in order to not kill people. It's wonderful!

It's so great, in fact, that I almost don't want Hope to reappear again. Though I kind of suspect he will--the future volume covers seem to hint at that, at least.

Overall, it's a pretty decent action manga, especially if you like westerns. Everything gets better, in my opinion, after the timeskip, though, so if you're willing to hold out for a several volumes until then...

If Western gunfighting action is your thing, give this story a try.

Otherwise, turn around and walk away. The characters, the writing and the plot are cliche, inconsistent and flat-out stupid. The entire plot revolves around the pacifist main character (who isn't honestly a pacifist since he goes through every other chapter shooting to kill) wants to hand over his father's gun to his head-of-the-assassination-group-seeking-to-kill-him brother.

Its a wonder to me why this series is averaging 7.7 on reader votes. The manga is action packed, the characters are interesting, and the plot is also good as the story is unraveling at a steady pace. Unless, the chapters that come after vol 3 are complete utter rubbish, i would say that this series should be in the upper 8s.

Simply put, this is a good manga to pick up; especially so for the wild-west enthusiasts who love the whole cowboy, gun-slinging, duel type of stories. Its kind of like a mixture of Priest and Blackcat manga combined.

This is by far the best western type manga i've ever read. Good story, good characters and a good main protaganist with cool gun fighting moves. I hope this manga continues to be translated because if it does and the quality of the manga stays the same, it will be on of my favorite mangas.

This is one of the most widely appealing, amazing stories in this publication( Ultra Jump) that I happen to subscribe in Canada, I just wish more scanlators realize this and pick it up for translation.