MY FIRST GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW | GORGEOUS

Monstress (Single Issues #1-6)
by Marjorie M. Liu & Sana Takeda (illustrator)
Image Comics | November 4, 2015

       Steampunk meets Kaiju-Japanese genre involving monsters [attacking cities]-in this original fantasy epic for mature readers.
       As young Maika risks everything to control her psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, placing her in the center of a devastating war between human and otherworldly forces.

Overall Rating:

 

The art is fantastic! I think everyone picked it up because they were drawn to the cover. The writing isn't exciting or absorbing; it's dead-weight compared to the art. The art is pulling the story because it's so beautiful and enrapturing. The writing contributes little with its weak power and allure.

The writer doesn't develop the history as the story progresses, which makes comprehension difficult (lots of things happened, and lots of people were introduced.) She utilizes the last page of the novel as a history lesson from a cat. I think it's adorable, but not entirely effective. Text boxes surround images, and it was meant to be read in this spiral-motion. The amount of information and the format it's presented in makes your head hurt. I skipped the history because it's an essay. As much as I love each of the covers, I wish all the issues were bound together and published as ONE book.

The story reminds me of Naruto and Soul Eater. Maika's character resembles Naruto because both have this powerful demonic/monster entity inside them. This demon is causing an issue, and there are people that are targeting Maika. It's similar to Soul Eater because the monster reminded me of the Kishin, Asura. They're drawn similarly with the three eyes, and the monster resembles the Kishin's madness. They have this insatiable hunger, and they're feared/quite creepy. The witch-nuns in the graphic novel reminded me of the witches in Soul Eater.

Kishin thing that I was describing poorly.

However, Maika isn't as exciting as Naruto. In fact, I don't particularly like Maika. Even though she's the main characters and has a demon inside her, she isn't exciting; she had so much potential! She starts out guns-blazing (literally) and badass with her gilded bayonet- flame thrower! After that, she "died"-the story became a graveyard. I wish there was more to her, and everything else in this series. I want more to the story/storytelling, more of the history in a less info-dump fashion, more of the Arcanics & Witch-Nuns, etc. I wish everything was more developed-more time, more thought, and more editing. It needs more!