Philip's Reviews > Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening

3ish stars.

This is a good volume 1 with a cool, BA heroine (view spoiler)[(slash villain?) (hide spoiler)] and some of the art, especially the issue covers and full-page panels, is pretty beautiful.

At first the story seems like your typical epic fantasy, race wars, magic, Chosen One. It ends up a lot stranger and creepier than that, which is a good thing. The heroine/monstress, Maika Halfwolf is super cool and not a typical heroine. Other interesting characters include cute little fox-girl Kippa (I just want to take her home and keep her and pinch her cheeks and love her forever) and various talking cats.

The setting professes to be "1900’s Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steampunk" which I think is misleading. The artist, Sana Takeda, definitely incorporates some art-deco inspired elements but I didn't get 1900s Asia or any steampunk. I didn't think the villains were that cool except for the monster-thing. Whatever's going on with that is crazy and disturbing and I love it.

The art is mostly beautiful. Certain characters are especially well-drawn throughout and a lot of the architecture and indoor layouts are really impressive and highly detailed. I feel like the artwork gets a little sloppy as it goes on and impacts the storytelling especially because the plot itself gets confusing at times, but whenever there are large or full-page panels, they're stunning.

Overall a solid first collection worth checking out.