#DRCL Midnight Children by 坂本眞一
Genres: Horror, Drama, Gothic Horror, Historical, Body Horror, LGBT, Psychological Horror, Arthouse, and also Horror
Triggers: Graphic Violence/Blood, Body Horror, Nudity, Era-Accurate Bigotry
Background on the artist:
Shin-ichi Sakamoto is a mangaka’s mangaka. He is not famous among general manga readers at all, but his work as an artist is so masterfully done that even Naoki Urasawa (IMO the modern god of manga) has praised his work. In addition, he has won numerous Japan Media Arts Festival awards. I’ve never read any of his other works, but just looking at the art and how its used abstractly as metaphors instead of directly depicting what happens, he is clearly not just a mangaka, but an Artist with a capital A.
Here is some more information about his artistic process if you are interested (courtesy of wikipedia)
Sakamoto said that as a novel, the original work uses metaphors to create imagery, and he decided to show these in his manga adaptation. Examples of his symbolic imagery style include letters of the text in Kokou no Hito being mirrored to convey a character’s panic from losing oxygen, and public outcry from a public execution in Innocent Rouge being depicted as a tsunami.
Sakamoto said he does not plan these in advance and, because his career struggled for so long, he will go with them as long as he finds it interesting because he is ready for his career to end at any moment. He went digital around 2012, citing the possibility of the paper he used being discontinued or his favorite pen stopping working like it used to as the reasons. Sakamoto is known for his detailed and realistic images. When Naoki Urasawa suggested that his work is known for the characters’ lips, the artist explained that he draws them as if they are interior organs.
After drawing the name on paper, Sakamoto’s manga is created completely digitally. The artist takes photographs of his assistants modeling clothing and costumes, some of which he sews himself, in poses that he wants the characters in. He draws using an LCD ablet and has multiple layers to an image that he can add or remove at will; a background created by an assistant, a pre-made outline of the character, a photo of his assistant posing that is cropped and resized to fit the character outline, and a draft he draws on top. Drawing with his right hand, Sakamoto uses a remote in his left to move, rotate or flip images. After finishing the draft, he “inks” the final version using the G Pen setting because it is the thinnest. Sakamoto can not only immediately undo a line he does not like, but can select a specific part of the image, such as an eye, and reposition it. He cited this as one of the reasons he can not go back to traditional ink on paper. The clothes and hair of characters are kept on their own layers. Sakamoto meticulously traces the details of clothing from the photos he takes, and has a digital library of over 2,000 hairstyles he created that he picks pieces from.
Manga Summary:
#DRCL midnight children is an alternate take on Dracula, as I am sure you might have guessed. Characters from the original story are younger and are often given different characterizations than in the original novel. Why elements are added and changed, it is still extremely dedicated to certain details and style of the original novel. A big difference is that it takes place at a boarding school in England, where a mysterious series of crates arrive by ship to be temporarily stored there. It focused on a young Mina Murray and four teenage boys as they fight against the dark influence encroaching on them, as well as dealing with their own personal shame.
This manga has a team of costume makers and photographers and so many assistants for everything from history to effects to Romanian language translations. And it shows. Here is just A SMALL FRACTION of the incredible art of this series.
While the art is certainly atypical of manga, I think I can say with confidence that this is the best drawn series in Grand Jump, and I could easily argue its one of the best drawn things I’ve ever read. Fans of the horror elements and art of Berserk NEED to check this manga out!
Sean’s Thoughts/Should You Read This?:
I’ll be real, at first, this manga is confusing as hell. It never directly tells you what is happening, and a lot of the art is more metaphorical than literal, and when it does reveal information it jumps from place to place.
At first, I thought this was just a badly constructed manga, but once I continued and got to the meat of the story (Vol. 2) it became much more clear and I understood the purpose of all of the slow preamble of the first volume. As I read, I grew to appreciate the story as, ironically, more of a piece of classic literature one would read for class rather than a simple horror story. There is nothing simple about this, and stretching your brain to keep up with it is at first frustrating but eventually becomes more and more rewarding.
I would really really really recommend checking this out in English first, otherwise you will be so freaking confused (I mean you will be confused anyway even in English). Once you have a grasp of the story, switching to Japanese is hard, but manageable. Honestly, its worth it just for the art alone.
TLDR:
You shouldn’t read this if:
- you want an easy read. Even in English this is abstract and difficult to understand
- you hate ambiguity
- you can’t handle various kinds of horror
You should read this if:
- you like Berserk
- you like vampires/the Dracula mythos
- you like classic literature
- you want a challenge
- you have eyes, seriously the art is so detailed and incredible that its worth dealing with everything else IMO
I hope you like the write up and check this manga out! Its a labor of love but it is definitely worth it! Hell, just scrolling through to see all the art is worth it honestly! Lemme know what you think!