Review of Toan's Run to Heaven t.1: the race of life.

Run to Heaven evokes the feeling of a good summer manga with its azure cover, smiling face, and a young girl running against a backdrop of a sunny sea—a true ode to freedom. But behind this heavenly title lies a much darker reality: war, trauma, and violence.

Toan delivers a powerful and unconventional debut work here.

The story is set in 2036 on Arrecquero, a fictional Pacific archipelago torn apart by a global armed conflict. The war divides the local population, with some fighting for the American army and others supporting independence, still haunted by past conflicts and rejecting Western propaganda on their land. Yet, amidst this tension, life goes on.

Fee is a young islander from Arrecquero, troubled by her mother’s constant absence—an admiral away at war—and her father’s fragile health. Fee only finds happiness when running along the coast, hoping for her mother’s return.

One day, she gets the chance to showcase her running talent at an inter-school competition, but in the meantime, her mother returns, bringing the weight of a war that threatens to crash mercilessly onto the island of Arrecquero...

Run to Heaven, a surprising French manga

Run to Heaven is a bold title, especially as it marks the debut of Toan, a French mangaka. Initially self-published, the work caught the attention of Ankama Editions.

It’s a daring first work, far from typical shonen inspirations. This is a seinen manga, starting as a sports story but descending into the abyss of war. The peaceful cover art is not representative of the content. Run to Heaven presents a constant struggle between the innocence of sports and the harsh reality of war.

From the first (and stunning) color pages of this debut volume, the mangaka plays on the delicate balance between a paradisiacal landscape and the looming threat of war, represented by fighter jets.

From there, the author weaves a gripping story that initially distances the conflict through a sports narrative, only to plunge into the horror of war in a merciless final third.

Running for freedom

In the first part, Toan carefully portrays our heroine’s desire for freedom, persecuted by some island children who see her parents as traitors or cowards. Fee finds solace only in running and music, her old cassette Walkman's earphones firmly in place. She runs to escape. The opportunity arises for her to showcase her talent at a local island sports festival organized in response to the world games. It’s hard not to see a parallel with the recent Olympic Games—a brief respite in a world at war.

The story is elevated by a detailed tropical setting (waves, piers, marine life) and a colorful cast of characters, some more closely tied to the conflict than others. Fee, embodying innocence and a thirst for freedom, is supported by her sick father, who tries to hide his condition, and Camille, a dreamy schoolgirl drawn to the sports competition. One of the most intriguing characters at the start of the series is Fee’s mother, the admiral returning from war—a complex figure with a constant façade of a smile, her gaze ever fixed on the conflict.

Toan's refined graphic style evokes certain 90s animes like Cowboy Bebop and even Captain Harlock for the charismatic admiral character. His characters have a lean, airy look, imbued with a certain energy, though occasionally hindered by slight proportional flaws in some panels.

Running to survive

The mangaka brings a realistic dimension to the work, recalling both the Olympic Games and past or current global conflicts. The author drew inspiration from the Vietnam War to imagine this pro- or anti-American conflict. The fact that the story is set in 2036, in a near-future rather than a distant one, adds a realistic and brutal edge to the narrative.

In terms of pacing, the author excels. The plot is engaging, but the tone shifts sharply towards the end, with a chilling break that spares neither the characters nor the readers. Simply put, the end of this volume will leave you stranded at the water’s edge. The innocence of the race turns into violence; beads of sweat are replaced by tears. The heat of the run and the speed effects give way to fierce and furious combat, with bullets taking over the sense of speed.

This first volume of Run to Heaven is already shaping up to be a gem of French manga. For his debut work, Toan delivers a bold title—a relentless, chilling, and gripping race for freedom that leaves the reader stranded, eagerly awaiting a salvaging second volume.