#DRCL - Midnight Children #5

History

The creative origins of #DRCL trace directly to 2020, when Sakamoto collaborated on a fanzine with horror-specialist manga artist Usamaru Furuya, an exercise that sent him back to Bram Stoker's novel for the first time and revealed resonances — epidemic anxiety, patriarchal structures bearing down on women, the psychic intimacy between predator and prey — that he felt demanded a full serialized treatment. The series launched with a preview chapter in Shueisha's Grand Jump seinen magazine on December 2, 2020, moving into monthly serialization on January 20, 2021; Vol. 5 was collected and released in Japan by Shueisha on November 19, 2024, then published in English by Viz Media on September 16, 2025, and in French by Ki-oon on August 28, 2025. Sakamoto produces the series entirely digitally using a Wacom Cintiq Pro 32 tablet and Clip Studio Paint EX, a workflow that allows him to layer intentional blurring and atmospheric distortion effects that give the book its distinctively cinematic quality.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Written and illustrated entirely by Shin-ichi Sakamoto (story, art, and script credited to him alongside Bram Stoker for the underlying source material).
• The Japanese tankōbon (Vol. 5) was released by Shueisha on November 19, 2024; the English edition was published by Viz Media on September 16, 2025; the French edition was published by Ki-oon on August 28, 2025.
• Volume 5 runs approximately 192–216 pages depending on edition (French edition: 192 pp; English/Viz hardcover edition: 216 pp) and is presented in black-and-white with select color pages.
• The central narrative development in Vol. 5: Mina discovers she can enter Jonathan Harker's memories through their shared psychic bond as bite victims, learning both the full horror of his captivity in Castle Dracula and the rule that those bitten by the count can form mental links with one another.
• Dracula adopts the alias 'the Count of Whitby' and begins his journey westward toward England, representing the series' transition from the castle-bound horror of volumes 4–5 into the London-set second act of the adaptation.
• Mina is formally accepted into the Camellia Club alongside Arthur, Joe (Quincey), and Godalming, consolidating the group of student vampire hunters that mirrors — and substantially reimagines — Stoker's band of heroes.
• The series received Eisner Award nominations in 2024 in the Best Adaptation from Another Medium and Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia categories, and won Best New Manga at the inaugural American Manga Awards the same year.
• Sakamoto has publicly stated that his creative entry point into the project was a 2020 fanzine collaboration with Usamaru Furuya, after which he read Stoker's novel for the first time and identified its epidemic-fear and feminist undercurrents as the thematic core of his adaptation.