The story starts off with a young woman, missing her left arm below the elbow and with a strange tatoo on her chest, being auctioned off to slavery. But rather than getting sold off to some old man for his sexual fantasies, she becomes the property of the Cumaea, an order of women who plumb the boundaries of magic and science. We soon learn that this is part of the young woman's plan. For she has come here seeking answers and a bit of revenge.
The young woman's name is Maika, and she's come to learn what her mother was researching before her death and why she was killed. Maika is an Arcanic, the hybrid offspring of Humans and Ancestors or one of their descendants. Ancestors are familiar earthly animals with humanoid form, blessed with immortality and magic. Their appearance reminded me of the Egyptian pantheon of gods. Some Arcanics like Maika look fully human, but the majority of them have some animalistic traits (ears, tails, wings, etc.) which belie their parentage. Humans consider them to be abominations. There was a savage war between Humans and Arcanics not too long ago, which Maika took part in, and ended in stalemate after a pitched battle near the city of Constantine left over a hundred thousand dead.
There are also talking cats with multiple tails. Some of them wield swords.
This dark fantasy takes place on a world that mixes magic and steampunk technology. Matriarchal societies are in power and wield it ruthlessly, each trying to gain the upper hand on the other. And, of course, there are whispers of "the old gods," cyclopean horrors bent on submitting the world to their appetites. As befits the title, Maika factors into this last one.
The artwork is fantastic. The nuances in facial expressions from one panel to the next convey so much buried emotion. Art deco influences palacial homes, laboratories, and weapons. It's blended with Egyptian heiroglyphics to adorn subterranean tombs. While some of the Arcanic kids are drawn a bit too anime style for me, Takeda makes up for it with the exquisitely rendered monsters and forbidding forests.
Just as there's a wonderful level of detail in the artwork, Liu matches it with character depth. While this is Maika's story, so many other characters are there to provide other POVs to carry the story along. But none of them seem wasted. Each provides some window into this cruel world whereupon we can learn more of its backstory. There are no good guys here, save for the children. Every adult is capable of terrible things, but to balance it out, Liu grants all but the most irredeemable some way to express their better natures.
5 stars.
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DED
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