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This manga is some gorgeous, intense, confusing, disturbing, mind bending MADNESS! The art and gothic horror atmosphere are absolutely incredible. The storytelling and characters, not so much. This manga is absolutely carried by its gorgeous, ethereal, and disturbing art. The storytelling itself is a bit confusing though... and the characters are cliched stereotypes. Still the incredible atmosphere & gorgeous art more than make up for these shortcomings.

DRCL recontextualizes the story of Dracula as taking place in an elite Victorian boarding school. All the characters of the novel meanwhile are recast as students and faculty of said Victorian Boarding School. Oddly enough even in doing so ... it manages to stay true to the overall spirit of the story... while subverting U acting as a criticism of its Victorian Value fueled xenophobic classist themes. Which leads me to the what is a major source of contention/controversy for many people.

The story mixes in a LGBTQ+ & social justice themes heavily into the story. It features a cast of explicitly varied races, genders, biological sex, sexual preferences, and classes banding together to combat a vile monster/disease that threatens them all equally. What's more, it is anything BUT subtle about it. If anything it is VERY in your face and transgressive about it with some blatantly provocative & disturbing imagery. We are talking a cast that features trans characters with split personalities... closeted gay characters... a black character who's the son of a nouveau riche freed slave family... a racist, sexist/misogynistic, elitist British noble... a Japanese Exchange student Prodigy... and a Low Class red headed girl (complete with all the Victorian social baggage that entails) who openly defies gender and class expectations... All coming together to save Luke/Lucy Westenra, the Man/Women they love.

As you can imagine all this is rather out of place in a story set in Victorian Era UK. Thing is its VERY apparent that this dissonance was intentional. The manga uses that dissonance to highlight critique overly conservative, regressive, & outright bigoted social attitudes still common today. That said, a lot of it is undercut by the rather shallow stereotypical, and (at times) outright psychotic writing of the characters.

The manga also features quite a bit of shocking, provocative, prophane/blasphemous, and sexual imagery. It is NOT for for the faint of heart... and rather disturbing & upsetting at the times. It does NOT hold back or pull its punches in any way in this regard. Some of it is blatantly designed to trigger the religious conservatives, homophobes, & transphobes. So you have been warned.

Overall I still recommend it. The manga is gorgeous. The atmosphere is incredible. The atmosphere, gorgeous visuals, & social commentary absolutely make this manga worth reading, in spite of its weak writing, flat characters, & (at times) incoherent plot. The art and atmosphere are THAT good. That said, if you are in any way put off or triggered by blasphemy &/or LGBTQ+ themes... keep the FAR away from it. It's practically designed to disgust and infuriate you. Overall I give it an 8 out of 10.