Very moving and nihilistic, taking some great character and emotive moments from the characters and setting. However, it must be viewed as a product of its time, with a slightly dated and problematic depiction of a Japanese character.

A very, very odd piece of Who when looked at out of context. It is a pure historical, with the only anachronistic elements in the story being the Doctor and the TARDIS. He meets a Japanese soldier, who gets a very heartfelt arc, but the depiction is very dated and pretty problematic. This story is also very nihilistic, and up to this point feels like the culmination of Steve Parkhouse’s Doctor Who. Even The Tides of Time is  very intense for Doctor Who, being much more mystical and abstract. This is a very sharp departure from the Mills/Wagner run, which is more akin to shonen. This comic takes itself very seriously and touches on dark subject matter. There is no monster for the Doctor to fight.