#DRCL: Midnight Children vol. 5

Last time, the series took a volume-length detour to follow (really) young Jonathan Harker’s trip through the Transylvanian countryside to meet with Count Dracula on behalf of the Whitby School.  What he found there was the cutest and fluffiest version of the Count yet put to page.  Vol. 5 picks up from the end of Jonathan’s journey as he and Mina converse one last time as the latter realizes she has a new power at her disposal.  She uses this to commune with Lucy, who still has Arthur, Quincy and Joe at their mercy (from that cliffhanger way back in vol. 3).  Assuming everyone survives, their next step will be to track down the Count’s new residence in London.  Which is either going to be that much easier or harder because of the new rash of murders that has hit the town of late.

Looking at vol. 5, I’m struck by two things:  One is that cover image of the Count, which really doesn’t leave any doubt that mangaka Shin’ichi Sakamoto is using the King of Pop as a visual inspiration for him.  The other is how each of these volumes seems to keep getting smaller, which is a big issue when I’m paying a premium for each one.  At least this volume felt denser to read than previous ones as it took me a couple (interrupted) sittings to get through.  Even if Viz is going to bleed its readers to read each installment, it’s just a little comforting to know that we won’t be able to do it in one go.

As for the actual story in vol. 5, this remains a series that is primarily sustained by its mangaka’s visual skill.  Five volumes in and Sakamoto still delivers inventive visuals in every chapter – and sometimes on every page of them.  Which is good because his decision to involve a real-life murderer whose legend has only grown with time, feels very much like “Where’s he going with this?” than the synergistic mythologizing the mangaka was clearly going for here.  Sakamoto does end this volume on a memorable visual and plot development, but that just made me wonder why he couldn’t do that more often with everything that came before it.