Dark Wars: The Tale of Meiji Dracula

Rating T+ Genre horror Publisher Del Rey External Links Official Dark Wars Website

by Hideyiki Kikuchi

Monsters, thick black foggy nights, lips red with blood and the temptations of a cursed life of eternity. These are some of the compelling traits of Hideyiki Kikuchi’s Dark Wars: The Tale of Meiji Dracula, ones that I only wished would have been more developed. The story takes place in 19th century Japan on a dark and foggy night. The stage is so perfectly set for a terrifying plot…especially because I read the book alone in my dorm room, the slush making the morning dim and gray, while I was quite possibly the only college student even awake at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday...eerie! I was ready to face the horrors of Dracula.

The plot begins with seventeen-year-old Daigo, a swordsman prodigy. His innate sense for the sword and disciplined training has left all of his numerous challengers to be defeated. A strange, dark foreigner comes to Tokyo who will be the challenger matched for Daigo, while bringing plague to the town. He will soon reveal the unbelievable mystery of Daigo’s father’s death…seriously, it’s unbelievable. When the secret was revealed, the story lost me. What should have been a ‘gasping’ moment, I found myself chuckling in folly disbelief. The story unfolds as the entire country is susceptible to fall prey to Count Dracula, joining his vampire family. Everyone who loves Daigo faces tragic peril, leaving him no time to cope with what is happening since he is the only one to save his town from the crimson-eyed shadow of the night.

Kikuchi does a beautiful job integrating Japanese words (with a useful glossary in the back) into the story. Not knowing much about Japan in the 1800s, the author’s brief explanation of significant events during this time was extremely helpful to give me a better understanding of the history behind this era. The author eloquently portrayed the importance and significance of martial arts including judo and the lost art of swordsmanship so well into the plot that I almost wished the whole book focused on that! As Americans, we grow up learning the haunting ghost stories of such menacing characters as Dracula that I fully expected myself to be biting my nails out of anxiety and fear from a Dracula book. The names “Dracula” and “Transylvania” are words so loaded with horrible stories eager to haunt you, but Dark Wars didn’t do that for me.

I found myself turning each page just to see if my predictions would come true, and they usually always did. Such phrases as ““his instincts told him something was wrong…” and “how red his lips were…red like blood” should make the reader curdle inside. I found them to be merely words; they didn’t come alive to me. I think I would suggest this book to middle school boys who would appreciate the enticing samurai spirit and basic monster plot. The story didn’t feel menacing or consistent to me. The plot was in 1800s Japan, yet here is an excerpt from the book: “in that age before email, television news, and international phone calls…to most people foreign countries were unfamiliar…” The mere mention of email and television affirmed my suggestion for a younger crowd that may feel comfortable with the sight of such topical words in our technology-driven society.

Overall, Dark Wars was not particularly my taste in books. However, it did spark my interest in the two subjects of Japanese martial arts and the history of Dracula…just not combined.