Volume 1 cover
The Koudelka manga is a direct sequel to the video game of the same name. Written and illustrated by Yuji Iwahara, it was published in November 1999 in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Ace Next magazine and collected in three volumes.
While the Shadow Hearts video game trilogy is also a direct sequel to the Koudelka video game, a number of details in said trilogy put it in a separate continuity from this manga.
The manga provides examples of:
- Alternate Continuity: In this continuity, De Gaulle claims he was Patrick Heyworth's benefactor, comparing how Lord Leslie chose his daughter over the future of medicine to how Patrick chose his wife Elaine over everyone else. The Shadow Hearts trilogy has Patrick's benefactor be someone else entirely.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Lord Leslie's ritual to revive his daughter starts going haywire, Roger Bacon aims one of these at him:Roger Bacon: Think about it! Haven't you ever wondered why a society that can resurrect the dead isn't still alive!? How did we get the Manuscript in the first place!?
- Canon Discontinuity: The manga was written as a direct sequel of the game, and gave a lot of extra detail on the backstory of Roger Bacon and the Émigré Manuscript... but Patrick Heyworth's benefactor is retconned (from the manga's Big Bad to someone else), and a line from Roger in Shadow Hearts: From The New World directly contradicts the manga (specifically, he has never seen a successful Émigré ritual, whereas at the end of the manga he was witness to the revival of Mary Vermont and several fetuses as angelic beings. Though it's possible he was specifically referring to a ritual that completely revives a person as if they had never died in the first place), making the manga's connection to the Shadow Hearts continuity questionable.
- Demonic Possession:
- At the story's climax, Koudelka gets possessed by the Author of the original Emigre Manuscript (the basis for the translated copy written by Roger Bacon). She had the foresight to hypnotize herself beforehand, becoming the dominant personality once she saw her necklace in Joshua's hand.
- Bacon also notices that De Gaulle has imps that can possess people, and thinks the latter may have been possessed after learning the secrets of the Manuscript by reading what Bacon wrote.
- Distant Finale: The Epilogue is set 18 years later, in 1917, where Joshua reads a letter from Rosanne.
- Joshua has accepted her female body and is a doctor at a rebel's camp in Saudi Arabia. She no longer hates doctors.
- Rosanne has opened up Mary's School for Girls with Joshua's donation.
- Becky has become beautiful and is an amazing teacher now.
- Hans is happily greeted by students of Mary's School for Girls. He grumbles about where Koudelka is.
- Dr. Horn moved to America.
- Kitty had decided to stay single until the end of her days, but she changed her mind and married the inspector.
- Koudelka has been waiting right outside the camp after delivering Rosanne's letter. Joshua realizes this and goes to catch her before she leaves.
- Entertainingly Wrong: At the story's climax, Joshua believes Koudelka gave her necklace to her to give her courage to face any situation. It turns out Koudelka had implanted a hypnotic suggestion on herself to become the dominant personality while possessed once she saw her necklace.
- Heel–Face Turn: After De Gaulle laughs at Mary Vermont's corpse being dumped in the soup within the Cauldron of Life, Hans shoots him in the forehead with his gun, disgusted with De Gaulle's act of desecration. When Koudelka destroys De Gaulle's body and he tries to escape as merely a left eye, Hans finishes him off by stabbing/dicing it repeatedly with a shovel.
- Karma Houdini: Despite Dr. Hans killing a subordinate to pin his death on Koudelka at the start of the story, he never faces justice for it.
- Must Make Amends: Lord Leslie is willing to do anything to revive his daughter.Lord Leslie: I... There's something I have to tell her when I see her... no matter what it costs.
- Rejected Apology: Implied. When Mary Vermont revives as an angelic being alongside the countless fetuses Lord Leslie had arranged to be dumped into the Cauldron of Life earlier, she leaves without giving him a moment to make amends, only leaving behind an angelic feather with a final message for her child Joshua.
