Art and story: Shin'ichi Sakamoto
First published: 2025 (UK)
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: Dracula meets manga in this surreally beautiful and chilling retelling of Bram Stoker’s quintessential horror classic.
In this beautiful, evocative, and often surreal retelling of Dracula, a fearsome enemy comes 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.
Reason fails and madness takes hold as Count Dracula’s influence begins to spread throughout the halls of Whitby School and the streets of London alike. Yet within the pages that Mina has so painstakingly typed out, she finds an aegis against the Count’s corruption, along with the means to turn the world on its head once more—and transform the hunter into the hunted.
The review: For previous reviews see: Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, Vol 4 & Vol 5.
With Joe in London dealing with the Count’s landholdings, this volume turns its attention back to Whitby and specifically Mina. She is haunted by memories of Lucy and the Count intends to make her his – though the interesting take on the story contained here offers an assertive route through for Mina, which she equates to being New Woman. Indeed, in the first instance we see it was Lucy who fed her from their chest. The brides come into this in interesting ways also. In England, they both haunt Mina and, later, the whole company. Mina, whilst asserting her own dominance and destiny manages to rip the skin from the mouth of one of the brides, leading to a disturbing but effective graphical rendition of that bride. Unfortunately, the school has mostly been corrupted by the Count, leaving Arthur and Quincy to orchestrate their escape from the school.
The theme of feminism, and the confrontation of misogyny continues in this volume with Mina observing how the (Victorian male only) club put a barrier of tobacco smoke to deter the woman – which was a nice allegory. It also has a class/wealth commentary with Mina accusing the three boys of being vampires: “You elites thrive off the lifeblood of my kind – the working class.” In this way the Count and his vampires could almost be read as egalitarian, a nice twist, where Stoker very much had the Count as the old guard of elitism and old monies. The art is as beautiful as ever, the story taking visually psychedelic turns. This series is still one of my favourites. 9 out of 10.
In Hardback @ Amazon US
In Hardback @ Amazon UK
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