Wings of Vendemiaire

"God's creations need no wills of their own... they should listen to the voice of god."
The Priest

Wings of Vendemiaire (Vendemiaire No Tsubasa) is the debut manga by mangaka Mohiro Kitoh, who later went on to create the better known Narutaru and Bokurano. It is a two-volume collection of short stories involving six Artificial Humans known as Vendemiaires. It takes place in Europe both before and after the first World War, and starts off when Ray, a young boy, meets Vendemiaire #1 for the first time, and ends the day after Ray dies.

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Tropes used in Wings of Vendemiaire include:

• Armour Piercing Slap: Vendemiaire #5 to Avary
• Artificial Humans
• Children Are Innocent: Mostly played straight, unlike Kitoh's later works. Subverted with Brumaire.
• Book Ends: The manga begins and ends with the same shot of a road going over the horizon. At the beginning young Ray is coming home with his motorcycle, and at the end Vendemiaire is leaving on a bike after she had sex with old Ray's dead body.
• Diagonal Cut: The circus ringmaster breaks apart Vendemiaire #1 with a slash of his whip, and also cuts Ray's hand with it.
• Distant Finale
• Goggles Do Nothing: For some reason, The Priest wears goggles.
• Gonk: Some of the circus freaks (it goes without saying). One looks like a monkey.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Brumaire makes Vendemiaire #4 kill a rabbit caught in a trap with a stone. Later, when Brumaire gets caught in a trap, Vendemiaire kills Brumaire with the stone.
• Happiness in Slavery: Subverted with Vendemiaire #5.
• Hoist By Her Own Petard: Brumaire
• Ill Girl: Thermidor
• Multicolored Hair: "Sixty-Three", the orphaned trapper guy, has a head of blond hair with a tuft of dark hair on the forehead.
• Nightmare Fuel: Fairly tame when compared with Kitoh's later works, but it still has its moments - most notably the fifth chapter.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Inverted; Milton dislikes violence and does not fight, unlike most other noblemen.
• Sinister Minister: The Priest definitely counts, he can also be seen as a Badass Preacher, since he's pretty good at fighting.
• Soul Jar: When Milton throws the Priest's bible into the fireplace, the priest catches fire and burns to death.
• Squick: Vendemiaire #1 "playing with" Ray's dead body in the final chapter
• Surprise Creepy
• Theme Naming: In every chapter there is a female character named after a month of the French Republican calendar.
• Time Skip
• Winged Humanoid: All the Vendemiaires except for one.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The main source of conflict.
• Whip It Good: A whip is the circus ringmaster's favourite weapon, he is seen destroying one of his artificial humans and cutting Vendemiaire #1 in half with it.
• You Have Failed Me...: The ringmaster destroys one of his automatons (see above) for not having performed well during the show.