This was such an interesting take on vampires. I feel like when you bring up vampires in books, you think of the paranormal genre, but this book felt more like a mix between science fiction and dystopian, with a dash of historical. What kept me from becoming fully engrossed in the story was that I wasn't quite invested in the characters. I liked some more than others, but at times it felt like I was viewing them from a distance. The ending also felt a bit abrupt and sudden.

I understand (and support) the live action show's decision to cut out Don Krieg from the show. The most important part was Sanji's backstory with Zeff anyway. I'm excited to finish out the Arlong Park storyline.

This duology definitely feel like a situation where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Individually, both of these graphic novels were good, but put together, the overall reading experience feels all the more impactful leaves a lot for you to think about.

Going into this graphic novel I had not completely read the synopsis, so I had the notion of this simply being a recounting of true historical events from the perspective of a young kid, which is why I was taken aback at first by the fantastical elements. I was also surprised at how dark the story got- for someone I figured that sense it was categorized as young adult it would gloss over the more darker aspects even though the plot is taken for true historical events, and history is dark. After reading this I definitely want to eventually look into more nonfiction about the Boxer rebellion.

I liked this slightly more than the first installment, although there were times I felt a little bored. Mostly I'm excited to continue on so I can be closer to catching up where the show left off.

I was liking this enough for the first half of the story, but it really came together in the second half for me. Really liked the alternate history/historical fantasy vibes, and I thought it was really emotionally impactful for it being a novella.

After watching the Netflix live action adaptation, I've become with the show and the characters, and now I'm really motivated to catch up with the manga while waiting for the next season. I do think this was a solid start to the series, but if I'm being honest at this point I do prefer the live action's version of events, which is probably blasphemous to admit. 

Even though almost review I had come across of this novel was not favorable, I was still hopeful enough to give it a try. That proved to be a mistake, because the only reason I finished this book was that by the time I finally realized I wasn't liking it, I had read so much of it that I figured I might as well finish it, even if it was just for the petty satisfaction of giving it a low rating. Anything I was liking or liked at some point about the story was not able to outweigh all the negatives. To name a few criticisms: the plot was not engaging, the characters were uninteresting and didn't feel fleshed out (it felt like the author was making them do them for the sake of moving the plot forward instead of it feeling authentic to the characters' personalities and motivations), and all the characters that I read as being coded as people of color were either the villain or made to suffer for the sake of the white characters' development. 

It seems like I'm enjoying each of this author's books less than the previous one, which is a shame. The pace of story just felt off- like too many things were happening but at the same time almost nothing was happening. There wasn't enough time to get truly invested in the characters, so none of the stakes felt high enough for there to be an emotional pact. The one thing that kept me reading was the appearance of characters from the authors' previous works. 

I never thought I'd say this, but the footnotes really saved the book for me. I usually am intrigued by a story told by an unreliable narrator, but something about the main character's self-righteousness and obliviousness while wallowing started getting old after a while. It was refreshing to read the footnotes (added in by another character) calling the main character out. I'm also usually all for character driven stories, but the story started to feel repetitive and meandering in the second half. I wouldn't say this was an unenjoyable reading experience, but these things did make it hard to get through at times.