Manga Review – Night Owl Reviews

Manga Classics: Dracula is a manga retelling of Dracula by Bram Stoker. While it is a retelling due to changing the medium of the story it is using the original text of Dracula, though some has been left out to help condense the story, and is accurate to the novel.

I would recommend this as a way of getting in to Dracula if you have tried the novel and didn’t enjoy the experience. Much like other ways of reading Dracula, such as Dracula Daily, you get to understand the horror of Dracula and how different adaptations have changed the story over time.

For instance, in the original novel Mina is not Dracula’s reincarnated wife and Dracula while probably inspired by Vlad the Impaler he is not that historical figure. Unlike movies and other adaptations Dracula is a horror story and is not a love story at least not for Dracula.

In this manga adaptation the visuals are amazing and they take the time to give each character a slightly different writing style to help tell the story. I love Dracula and I love different adaptations so I figured I would enjoy this manga.

Saiyuki is a manga series by Kazuya Minekura which very loosely on the Chinese novel Journey to the West. The Resurrected Editions are the new hardback editions from Kodansha that also have an updated translation.

The story follows Sanzo, Gojyo, Goku, and Hakkai as they travel to the west to stop the resurrection the evil god/demon Gyumao. These four volumes follows the group as they attempt to travel west but are side tracked my many other enemies and we also find out about each characters back story. I feel if you like the premise you should try the series out. However, this series while does have a complete story is not the end of the journey and the other parts of the series haven’t been finished due to the authors health issues.

Personally, I love this series but I’ve been a fan for years and I’m not sure if my love of the series comes more from that then the story itself. There have also been several different anime adaptations which are a fun time but also include some anime only stories.