#DRCL - Midnight Children #2

History

The series behind Volume 2 was conceived by Shin-ichi Sakamoto — veteran of Innocent and The Climber, both Excellence Award winners at the Japan Media Arts Festival — as his first new major serialization after Innocent Rouge concluded in early 2020, and was preceded by a one-shot preview chapter published in Grand Jump on December 2, 2020, before full serialization began January 20, 2021. Sakamoto has stated in a 2024 interview that he came to Stoker's novel fresh, having previously known Dracula only through films and the Japanese horror manga boom of his 1970s childhood — influences including works by Shinichi Koga and Shinji Hama — and that his intent was to dismantle and rebuild the 120-year-old story for a contemporary audience. The tankōbon collecting chapters 8–14 (which form Volume 2) was originally published in Japan by Shueisha on October 19, 2022; Viz Media released the English edition on March 19, 2024, and Ki-oon released the French edition on May 2, 2024.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Volume 2 (Ki-oon French edition: May 2, 2024; Viz Media English edition: March 19, 2024; Japanese original: October 19, 2022) collects chapters 8–14 of the ongoing Grand Jump serialization.
• First full appearance and introduction of Professor Abraham Van Helsing in the series — reimagined here as a newly appointed professor at Whitby School arriving from Holland, rather than the sage elder of Stoker's original novel; TV Tropes notes he first appears specifically in Chapter 8.
• Volume 2 contains Count Dracula's first major appearance within Whitby School itself, escalating the threat directly into the boarding-school setting that Sakamoto uses as the story's central stage.
• Sakamoto is the sole creator (writer and artist) of the series; the French translator credited on the Ki-oon edition is Sylvain Chollet, while the English Viz Media edition is translated by Caleb Cook.
• The broader series was nominated in 2024 for two Eisner Awards: Best Adaptation from Another Medium and Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia (published by Viz Media).
• The series won Best New Manga at the inaugural 2024 American Manga Awards, per reporting by Anime News Network.
• Sakamoto has described his creative approach to the Dracula adaptation as rooted in the social context of the late 19th century — specifically the emergence of workers' and women's rights — rather than in pure horror spectacle, using Mina Murray (recast as the school's sole female student) as the moral and narrative center.
• The series is a seinen title published in Shueisha's Grand Jump magazine, placing it firmly in the adult-male demographic; Sakamoto's previous series Innocent and Innocent Rouge were also seinen, establishing a consistent creative lineage of lavish, historically inflected horror across his Grand Jump work.