The Cain Saga, Vol. 1: Forgotten Juliet

Our story takes place in Victorian England, where poison collector Earl Cain Hargreaves is investigating or involved in a string of murders. Cain’s cousin plots a Romeo & Juliet-style fake death, only her lover isn’t so true, and she has to climb out of her grave and take revenge. After that, we have Branded Bibi, which with its identical twins swap made me think of Sarah Waters Fingersmith. There's a story about an all-boys school club finding an immortality potion. He is searching for his blood brother, who has gone off to the big city to become an actor. At the end of ‘The Death of Cleo Dreyfuss’, Cain takes revenge on the brother of his good friend who murdered him.

Several short stories/mysteries introduce the main characters and set up the plot line of the book. However, I have difficulty relating to the characters. Our hero’s backstory is tantalizingly hints, but the stories are too short to do much character development or depth to the mysterious events. The author of this series, Kaori Yuki, might expand on her characters and storylines because it spans two different manga titles.

A second issue is that she does not have a consistent drawing style or plot continuity. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s happening in her artwork panels since they jump from one scene to another abruptly, especially in key scenes with a lot of interaction between characters. I feel like it deleted some key panels in the middle of the story. Her illustrations are gorgeous and have fine details, but the way she jumps around in her story does not appeal to me. It is very distracting to hear her abrupt transitions. The interesting premise and artwork have me excited about the next volume.