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Title | Volume 1
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Illustrator | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Author | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Publisher | VIZ Media - 2023
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First Printing | Sueisha - 2021
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Title | Volume 2
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Illustrator | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Author | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Publisher | VIZ Media - 2024
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First Printing | Sueisha - 2022
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Title | Volume 3
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Illustrator | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Author | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Publisher | VIZ Media - 2024
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First Printing | Sueisha - 2023
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Title | Volume 4
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Illustrator | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Author | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Publisher | VIZ Media - 2024
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First Printing | Sueisha - 2023
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Title | Volume 5
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Illustrator | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Author | Shin'ichi Sakamoto
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Publisher | --
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First Printing | ---
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Category | Manga
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Mina, Lucy, Arthur, Quincy, Joe, Dracula
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Main Elements | Vampires
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 Volume 1
In this beautiful, evocative, and often surreal retelling of Bram Stoker's Dracula, a fearsome enemy arrives from the east, bringing with it horrors the likes of which have never been seen in the British Empire. Standing opposed are Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray and her stalwart companions, united in a cabal that eclipses gender, nationality, and station until the day that they can achieve victory.
As Mina struggles to find her place as Whitby School’s first and only female student, a devilish horror is unleashed upon the academy and its unsuspecting students: Count Dracula. However, when this unspeakable evil lays claim to her beloved Lucy Westenra, Mina stands ready to join forces with her fellow students and fight against it with everything she has.!
Volume 2
The lines between reality and fiction blur as Count Dracula’s influence grows within the halls of Whitby School. The arrival of the eccentric Professor Abraham Van Helsing offers Mina and the others a chance to learn about the foul condition that afflicts their beloved companion. But will the professor’s knowledge be enough to preserve them in the face of this unspeakable evil, or will their fragile bonds be torn asunder by the arrival of the son of dragon?
Volume 3
With Lucy’s life hanging in the balance, tempers flare and tensions rise as Arthur, Quincey, and Mina struggle to decide who is best suited to offer aid. However, the sudden appearance of Count Dracula may render all their efforts for naught. Will centuries of humanity’s collected knowledge be enough to hold back the count’s advance, or will wisdom and logic falter in the face of the undead king’s maddening presence?
Volume 4
In this beautiful, evocative, and often surreal retelling of Dracula, a fearsome enemy arrives from the east, bringing with it horrors the likes of which have never been seen in the British Empire. Standing opposed are Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray and her stalwart companions, united in a cabal that eclipses gender, nationality, and station until the day that they can achieve victory.
The nature of time, reality, and fantasy intertwine as Jonathan Harker’s ill-fated journey to meet with Count Dracula begins. Traveling through strange, foreign lands, a young boy will confront unimaginable terrors that his short time in this world could scarce prepare him for. Yet even after escaping the fearsome beasts and ghosts of the wild, he will find within the stone walls of Dracula’s castle terrible monsters waiting to devour him all the same.
What did I just read? Let me start by saying I regretted reading it before bed, it was disturbing, the artwork creepy and dramatic, honestly gave me more chills than the novel it is based on...well, let's start with the overall plot first perhaps.
Yes, it is based on Dracula, but great liberties are taken. We start on the doomed ship Demeter, where the sailors are taken over by moss and those mysterious boxes of dirt exude two giant venus flytraps that open into eyes (ugh, the hair/eyelashes, it's like from The Ring, gah). Totally weird start, very scary imagery, though the wolf monster was intriguing, monstrous but somehow beautiful too.
Ok so next up we have our protagonists. They are all in high school together (guess all manga have to have their characters in school for some reason?), Mina is the first girl ever to attend so of course she's picked on mercilessly by the boys. She looks like Anne of Green Gables with a similar personality. Arthur, Quincey and Joe are three elite snots, but their eyes...ugh, there's just something wrong with their eyes like they are drugs or something, think Clockwork Orange. The artwork can be beautiful, and incredibly detailed, but man...so unsettling sometimes. Arthur is pretty much himself, Quincey is a rich free black man (ok, that works), and Joe is Japanese (why? well it is written for a Japanese audience). But how on earth does he keep a crazy nun named Renfield in his bedroom in the school?? Doesn't anyone find that weird? Especially when she takes bits and pieces of various animals and makes a macabre marionette out of it.
And then there is Luke, sorry Lucy. I take it he's transgendered, he's actually a boy, but at night he lets loose his true self and runs around in Mina's nightgowns. I just couldn't resolve all that with the hair, and don't get me wrong, beautiful male manga characters with long luscious locks are pretty common, but he just came off too much like a girl, rather than an effeminate boy. I couldn't buy the transgendered aspect, I just kept seeing a woman dressed in a boy's uniform which I think took away a bit from the power of the queer aspect, since he didn't come off queer at all.
And dude, the brief glimpse we get of Drac's chest, the guy's ripped! Must admit though Luke/Lucy's transformation into the undead is eeries and dreamlike and beautifully done. She's confused, she doesn't realize yet what's happened to her, but feels liberated and free, but still doesn't want to be alone and wants Mina to be with her for comfort.
Ooh, and careful on the last page of the first volume, I did not want THAT as the last thing I saw before bed, argh!
Two more books in and my brain is soooo confused and yet fascinated. At least I figured out one thing, when Mina is dressed in normal clothes she's usually in some fantasy of her own creation, because, in fact she's not a student but a maid. I still can't stand any of the male characters, and Van Helsing is...just short of insane? He's nearly useless too, falling apart the moment his research into folklore didn't work (because we had to drag Darwin into this somehow and decide that Dracula may have evolved so that's why garlic and holy water don't work anymore??). It's a little all over the place.
But...if you can get past some of the deviant sexual behaviours (and I'm not in fact talking of Luke/Lucy's transgendereness...there's weirder stuff to come), and the almost nonsensical events that only vaguely connect to the original novel, if you like very etherial creepy artwork (Vampire Hunter D kind of comes to mind, but its not as freaky, but both are still beautiful), it might be worth a try. But its almost less a retelling of Dracula, than it is a way of exploring how society molded some seriously messed up characters. From Arthur's father, to Qunicey being Black and Mina being a girl that likes the wrestle...
But arrrrghh! Why does Dracula have to look EXACTLY like Michael Jackson?!?! In a book that's already freaky and weird, that face is just messing with me and I just cannot see him as Dracula, it kicks me right out of the flow.
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