#DRCL: Midnight Children vol. 3

Luke/Lucy Westerna is still in Dracula’s thrall at the start of this volume, but there’s a chance a blood infusion might bring him/her back.  Mina is more than willing to be the donor, seeing it as a chance to both save her friend and stick it to the other boys this evening.  These concerns become frighteningly insignificant once the man himself shows up – and finds his way inside the church everyone’s holed up in.  Still, there’s plenty of garlic and holy water on hand to keep him at bay.  Right?  Or is this version of Dracula one who doesn’t bother conforming to the notions of how his story has been told all these years?

Much like this manga adaptation, I would think.  Vol. 3 doesn’t double down on the problematic material introduced in the previous volume, nor does it successfully build off of the duality of how Mina perceives herself in this story versus how she actually is.  In fact, the actual story being told in this volume feels kind of slight as not a whole heck of a lot happens from the night in the church to the following night in the graveyard.  Which is kind of a problem when I’m paying $27 for a relatively normal-sized volume of manga, even one with a hardcover.

So if the story doesn’t quite deliver, it’s a good thing that the visuals do.  Mangaka Shin’ichi Sakamoto continues to throw every bit of visual imagination and style he can muster at the pages here.  From turning Dracula into a monstrous Santa with a sled pulled through the night sky by wolves, to the flesh-peelingly gory fate met by one of the characters here, to the striking transformation that another one undergoes, the mangaka’s work continues to effortlessly dazzle the reader here.  Even when he’s trying to force a silly plot point like trying to convince the cast that the sun has risen.  Still, it’s a real triumph of style over substance for this series, which is a good thing.  Assuming that’s what you came here for.