Sana TakedaRecensioner

this was just too much for me, I do like plots that involve protagonists sharing a body with some kind of demon/monster they have to try and control BUT I really don't like this world and there's just too much dark shit even for me.. I will not be continuing with this series

gorgeous illustrations and super intriguing premise. the twins are so lovable and funny and i am Obsessed with their parents. really solid horror and gore level too

This book took me by surprise on so many levels.

First we have settings. Set on alternative Earth around the beginnings of Industrialization we are presented with breathing and living world where Humans (technology) are waging silent war against Arcanics (magic). Between these two you have plethora of creatures, starting from wise-cracking cats (as far as I can see separate race completely and considering they are true offspring of Gods and others are faulty races - I mean ... cats, right :)), wondrous animals used for traveling, monstrous apparitions from other dimensions, strange creatures lurking under guises of Humans and of course (again this book is very much a steam-punk story) dirigibles and sky ships.

Then we have story. Entire story happens during uneasy armistice between Humans and Arcanics. Both races found themselves at the stalemate after one especially destructive event that cost thousands of lives on both sides. Now both sides are licking their wounds and trying to find this unknown weapon to use it against their foes. And then in the middle of all of this we have our main protagonist Maika Halfwolf, Arcanic girl seeking revenge against the most powerful person in Human realm. As the story progresses we can see that Maika is more than it meets the eye - at times terrible power strikes out from within her and causes havoc to friend or foe surrounding her.

And finally we have art. Man, what a beautiful art. Each panel is just mesmerizing. Trust me you need to see it to believe it. To be honest this is what hooked me - when I saw it I knew this was truly a gem.

All in all exquisite book. Highly recommended to all comic and beautiful arts fans.

Merged review:

This book took me by surprise on so many levels.

First we have settings. Set on alternative Earth around the beginnings of Industrialization we are presented with breathing and living world where Humans (technology) are waging silent war against Arcanics (magic). Between these two you have plethora of creatures, starting from wise-cracking cats (as far as I can see separate race completely and considering they are true offspring of Gods and others are faulty races - I mean ... cats, right :)), wondrous animals used for traveling, monstrous apparitions from other dimensions, strange creatures lurking under guises of Humans and of course (again this book is very much a steam-punk story) dirigibles and sky ships.

Then we have story. Entire story happens during uneasy armistice between Humans and Arcanics. Both races found themselves at the stalemate after one especially destructive event that cost thousands of lives on both sides. Now both sides are licking their wounds and trying to find this unknown weapon to use it against their foes. And then in the middle of all of this we have our main protagonist Maika Halfwolf, Arcanic girl seeking revenge against the most powerful person in Human realm. As the story progresses we can see that Maika is more than it meets the eye - at times terrible power strikes out from within her and causes havoc to friend or foe surrounding her.

And finally we have art. Man, what a beautiful art. Each panel is just mesmerizing. Trust me you need to see it to believe it. To be honest this is what hooked me - when I saw it I knew this was truly a gem.

All in all exquisite book. Highly recommended to all comic and beautiful arts fans.

This book took me by surprise on so many levels.

First we have settings. Set on alternative Earth around the beginnings of Industrialization we are presented with breathing and living world where Humans (technology) are waging silent war against Arcanics (magic). Between these two you have plethora of creatures, starting from wise-cracking cats (as far as I can see separate race completely and considering they are true offspring of Gods and others are faulty races - I mean ... cats, right :)), wondrous animals used for traveling, monstrous apparitions from other dimensions, strange creatures lurking under guises of Humans and of course (again this book is very much a steam-punk story) dirigibles and sky ships.

Then we have story. Entire story happens during uneasy armistice between Humans and Arcanics. Both races found themselves at the stalemate after one especially destructive event that cost thousands of lives on both sides. Now both sides are licking their wounds and trying to find this unknown weapon to use it against their foes. And then in the middle of all of this we have our main protagonist Maika Halfwolf, Arcanic girl seeking revenge against the most powerful person in Human realm. As the story progresses we can see that Maika is more than it meets the eye - at times terrible power strikes out from within her and causes havoc to friend or foe surrounding her.

And finally we have art. Man, what a beautiful art. Each panel is just mesmerizing. Trust me you need to see it to believe it. To be honest this is what hooked me - when I saw it I knew this was truly a gem.

All in all exquisite book. Highly recommended to all comic and beautiful arts fans.

I can't even give it any rating because from the outside, I can recognize it as a stunning piece of work, with truly beautiful illustrations and an interesting story. However, i choose not to read stories with too much death, violence, and blood, especially visual ones, so I did not get very far.

Merged review:

I can't even give it any rating because from the outside, I can recognize it as a stunning piece of work, with truly beautiful illustrations and an interesting story. However, i choose not to read stories with too much death, violence, and blood, especially visual ones, so I did not get very far.

I can't even give it any rating because from the outside, I can recognize it as a stunning piece of work, with truly beautiful illustrations and an interesting story. However, i choose not to read stories with too much death, violence, and blood, especially visual ones, so I did not get very far.

Monstress is something else.

CW: A LOT, including, Graphic Violence, Gore, Slavery, Prejudice, Child Abuse (including threats of sexual assault), Torture, Cannibalism, Self Harm.

Liu and Takeda have created a world as aesthetically arresting as its lore and people are wondrously fascinating. An art deco science fantasy world that takes inspiration and imagery from various cultures, mythology, and time periods with magic animals, hybrid Arcanics, authoritarian witches, steampunk blimps, fae courts, eldritch monsters, and yonic eyed cosmic horrors...which is a lot! But the tone set by Takeda's unbelievable artwork and the mercurial folkloric voice Liu tells the tale in come together to blend that heady mix together.

As you can summise from the content warnings that I could recall from the top of my head, this is no light fairytale. Following a horrific war, ended only by an unknown calamity of unthinkable destruction, the hybrid Arcanics and humans live entirely separate, except where witches imprison, enslave, and experiment on any Arcanics they can get their hands on. The world and its people are traumatised and twisted by the carnage and a willingness of some to claim ancient power for themselves, regardless of the cost.

We have an immensely powerful, quiet, and uncaring protagonist with a cute sidekick and extreme violence in the vein of Berserk with a monstrous entity within her that is as mighty as it is dangerous, putting me in mind of The Darkness and Venom, as well as a mysterious past with her mother and experiments, reminiscent of Attack on Titan. These are touchstones to convey the elements, while Monstress has its own clear identity.

I truly cannot get over the artwork! Even if you have no intention of reading it, check out the art (maybe with safe search on of you want to avoid the gruesomeness).

Coming from binging Saga, I am aware that I am not completely emotionally engaged with the characters, but a little fox girl did bring me to tears, and I am truly ensnared by the richness of the world and the mystery of it and can see this becoming my next comic binge.

Wow, the aesthetic of this book really turned me off—I often enjoy stylized horror, but the first couple issues are about gruesome and traumatic things happening to a super sexy seventeen-year-old protagonist and her super cute chibi sidekicks, and I just felt gross reading it.

Maybe later in the volume we get the things that would make this concept palatable for me: an edge of satire, meaningful character development, or a sense of moral weight. As it is, I'm going to nope out of this one.

At the start of MONSTRESS: AWAKENING, 17-year-old Maika is sold as a slave, becoming a prisoner of a sect of deadly nuns who steal a powerful drug from the bodies of their young victims. She and a handful of potential victims escape, but there's no safe haven for them. Maika seeks to understand what happened to her mother, who disappeared years ago, and the trail of clues leads to encounters with winged warriors, human/animal hybrids, and perhaps even the Old Gods.

I wanted to rate this higher than four starts but truth be told, I think this is a bit of bumpy start to a very promising series. Monstress, Vol. 1 plunges readers in the middle of the action with little preparation. In Monstress: Awakening, clues to how this world works are scattered hither and yon, and it's up to the reader to collect them and put them in the proper order. This is fine but it made for a bit of a confusing and slightly frustrating reading experience. I feel like the world building is a little too complex for a graphic novel. It’s trying to squeeze so much information in, but it can’t quite cope with the amount it has.

But, at the same time, this graphic novel is packed with awesomeness. Sana Takeda's gorgeously painted illustrations, which mix the traditions of both European comics and Japanese manga, are truly stunning. The art is often intriguing, strange, horrific, and beautiful.

I might be complaining that the story is hard to follow but really Maika holds a dark power- in this case a literal demon living inside her- and is caught in the middle of an old war. That's really all you need to know going into this.

You got to work hard with this one but I think its worth it. It's a dense and beautiful illustrated story. Magical!

Update: Reread in 2022. The world building and storyline holds up and is AMAZING on a second reading. One of my favorite graphic novels. It's an absolutely remarkable work of art and imagination.

Merged review:

At the start of MONSTRESS: AWAKENING, 17-year-old Maika is sold as a slave, becoming a prisoner of a sect of deadly nuns who steal a powerful drug from the bodies of their young victims. She and a handful of potential victims escape, but there's no safe haven for them. Maika seeks to understand what happened to her mother, who disappeared years ago, and the trail of clues leads to encounters with winged warriors, human/animal hybrids, and perhaps even the Old Gods.

I wanted to rate this higher than four starts but truth be told, I think this is a bit of bumpy start to a very promising series. Monstress, Vol. 1 plunges readers in the middle of the action with little preparation. In Monstress: Awakening, clues to how this world works are scattered hither and yon, and it's up to the reader to collect them and put them in the proper order. This is fine but it made for a bit of a confusing and slightly frustrating reading experience. I feel like the world building is a little too complex for a graphic novel. It’s trying to squeeze so much information in, but it can’t quite cope with the amount it has.

But, at the same time, this graphic novel is packed with awesomeness. Sana Takeda's gorgeously painted illustrations, which mix the traditions of both European comics and Japanese manga, are truly stunning. The art is often intriguing, strange, horrific, and beautiful.

I might be complaining that the story is hard to follow but really Maika holds a dark power- in this case a literal demon living inside her- and is caught in the middle of an old war. That's really all you need to know going into this.

You got to work hard with this one but I think its worth it. It's a dense and beautiful illustrated story. Magical!

Update: Reread in 2022. The world building and storyline holds up and is AMAZING on a second reading. One of my favorite graphic novels. It's an absolutely remarkable work of art and imagination.

At the start of MONSTRESS: AWAKENING, 17-year-old Maika is sold as a slave, becoming a prisoner of a sect of deadly nuns who steal a powerful drug from the bodies of their young victims. She and a handful of potential victims escape, but there's no safe haven for them. Maika seeks to understand what happened to her mother, who disappeared years ago, and the trail of clues leads to encounters with winged warriors, human/animal hybrids, and perhaps even the Old Gods.

I wanted to rate this higher than four starts but truth be told, I think this is a bit of bumpy start to a very promising series. Monstress, Vol. 1 plunges readers in the middle of the action with little preparation. In Monstress: Awakening, clues to how this world works are scattered hither and yon, and it's up to the reader to collect them and put them in the proper order. This is fine but it made for a bit of a confusing and slightly frustrating reading experience. I feel like the world building is a little too complex for a graphic novel. It’s trying to squeeze so much information in, but it can’t quite cope with the amount it has.

But, at the same time, this graphic novel is packed with awesomeness. Sana Takeda's gorgeously painted illustrations, which mix the traditions of both European comics and Japanese manga, are truly stunning. The art is often intriguing, strange, horrific, and beautiful.

I might be complaining that the story is hard to follow but really Maika holds a dark power- in this case a literal demon living inside her- and is caught in the middle of an old war. That's really all you need to know going into this.

You got to work hard with this one but I think its worth it. It's a dense and beautiful illustrated story. Magical!

Update: Reread in 2022. The world building and storyline holds up and is AMAZING on a second reading. One of my favorite graphic novels. It's an absolutely remarkable work of art and imagination.

One of the most brutal adventures I've ever read.

One of the most brutal adventures I've ever read.

Merged review:

One of the most brutal adventures I've ever read.

The artwork is so unique in this comic- very dark, intricate, and mystical looking. Between that and the intriguing mystery of what lies within the main character and why, this first volume of The Monstress had me interested enough to continue to the second one. I will say the story can get a bit confusing and the bits where there are full page history lessons is a little boring but overall it is interesting. I would say it is even worth reading for the artwork honestly.

Merged review:

The artwork is so unique in this comic- very dark, intricate, and mystical looking. Between that and the intriguing mystery of what lies within the main character and why, this first volume of The Monstress had me interested enough to continue to the second one. I will say the story can get a bit confusing and the bits where there are full page history lessons is a little boring but overall it is interesting. I would say it is even worth reading for the artwork honestly.

The artwork is so unique in this comic- very dark, intricate, and mystical looking. Between that and the intriguing mystery of what lies within the main character and why, this first volume of The Monstress had me interested enough to continue to the second one. I will say the story can get a bit confusing and the bits where there are full page history lessons is a little boring but overall it is interesting. I would say it is even worth reading for the artwork honestly.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugos-2023-best-graphic-story-or-comic/

Lots of people love this series, and I’m sorry, but I don’t; the art is gorgeous, but I have lost track of the plot by now, and I find the violence too squicky.½

Every year, I read the latest volume of Monstress for the Hugo Awards, and every year, I think to myself, "This series is baffling and you're not enjoying it; you should stop picking it up." But then the next year rolls around and I think to myself, "You own all the previous volumes, why would you stop now? How bad can it be?" Then I read the newest volume... and I am baffled and don't enjoy it. Too many characters, too many plot threads, too much backstory. Maybe this would read better straight through, but that's not how it was released; it was released over seven years with absolutely no concession to that fact. Maybe when it's done I'll take a stab at it again, and maybe volume seven will make more sense if it hasn't been a year since volume six.

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the She Eats the Night trilogy. I got this as a birthday gift.

Thoughts: I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this new graphic novel series by Liu and Takeda. The story is humorous and horrific all that once and the illustration is stunningly beautiful.

Milly and Billy are twins trying to keep their restaurant business going through the pandemic. Luckily their parents, Ipo and Keon, are in town to help with things. Ipo (their mother) is strangely obsessed with plants and also determined to solve the mystery of the creepy abandoned house across the street. When Ipo decides to teach her kids a lesson about caring for plants by making them help her clear out the creepy house, things go sideways. Milly and Billy quickly (and violently) learn that neither their parents or themselves are what they thought they were.

This was a fun story about family and mysterious pasts that is incredibly entertaining. I loved that Milly and Billy were just normal young adults trying to get through life and then their parents reveal all these crazy secrets. Some of the twists and turns in here were truly unexpected and I really enjoyed this.

The story touches a lot on family and immigration and the struggles of past generations compared to the struggles of present generations. Of course, there is also a good dose of creepiness and supernatural horror in here as well.

The hardcover book itself is beautiful quality with nice thick paper. The illustration is amazing as always; with beautifully detailed drawings and deep rich colors. This was as much of a joy to look at, as it was to read.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I really loved this first book in The Night Eaters series and am eagerly awaiting "Her Little Reapers", which is planned to release in Oct 2023. This is a wonderful humorous supernatural horror read, that starts out pretty normal and ends up a bit crazy with some huge twists and turns. If you are looking for a great new fun horror graphic novel series to read, I would definitely recommend this.

This graphic novel won an Eisner Award and totally deserved it! Liu's story was mysterious, horrifying, and incredibly funny. The main characters - especially Milly and Billy - are engaging. Takeda artwork was splendid. Read this book as soon as you can.

I was attracted to this immediately because of the jaw-dropping art deco meets steampunk meets manga artwork but I was NOT expecting the crazy amazing story inside. To me, this read like a novel and I’ve already teed myself up for the next installment.

Well, the art is beautiful, but I'm not a fan of the writing in this volume.
For my taste, too much of the text was just straight exposition and explanatory world-building.

I had been hearing good things about this series forever, so I finally got around to checking it out. Let's start out here: the art is absolutely AMAZING. Everyone cites the steampunk art deco vibe, but that only applies to those scenes in and around buildings. There are also all the races, monsters, and magical creatures, who run the full gamut from menacing/unsettling to chibi adorableness. There is how effectively the art and coloring convey the mood and atmosphere. The art alone does so much heavy lifting, which is good because there is SO MUCH going on here -- we are dropped into a world that feels so rich and dense with meaning and history and we just have this little sliver of a vantage point to start figuring it out.

A dark story very well started.

Monstress lays out an epic tale of warring factions, racism, classism, violence, and monsters. The art is simply gorgeous, and the storyline is intricately plotted with complex characters and heart-racing events. As I read, I got hints of Shadow of Colossus, Skyrim, Bloodborne, and Saga – though it is certainly a series that stands apart from the rest. This may fit best in the fantasy genre, yet there are very real elements of horror. Yes, there are scenes involving demons and monsters, but it’s the scenes showcasing the sick depravity and malice of people towards other races/social classes that are truly disturbing.

I still really like the art, but I'm starting to feel like the story is dragging. I'm finding it hard to remember all the characters, which is probably part of why my interest is waning.

Fuuuuck. I don't think I've ever seen art so captivating and beautiful. And such a rich story.

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