Dragon Head, Vol. 1 by Minetaro Mochizuki
Series Name: Dragon Head
Genres: Drama, Horror
Intended Age Group: OT or Mature
Publisher: Kodansha
Edition: ebook
ISBN: 9781642121339
Rating: 1/5
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Description
A train of students is on its way back from the last field trip before exam season. Something goes terribly wrong, and the train crashes, killing nearly everyone on board. Teru Aoki, Takahashi Nobuo, and Seto Ako are the only survivors. But, the worst is yet to come, because the crash appears to have trapped them inside a tunnel with no hope of rescue from the outside. One of them starts to lose their sanity almost immediately. Will the others soon follow?
Personal & Info
This is a book I got for free from a BookWalker sale. It looks like this series was originally published by Tokyopop back in the day, before they shut down in America. That means the physical editions are out of print, so I don’t recommend trying to read those. The digital editions will be much easier to find, because they are more recent.
I see other people label this series as post-apocalyptic. I can’t verify that with only this one volume, so I won’t be marking it as such. It’s also commonly considered horror, but I’m not sure how accurate that is, either. I will indeed mark it as horror, because I feel like the actions of one of the characters is going to lead it down that road. If I ever read more of the series, I’ll update my tags with what I think fits.
This book/series has some gore because of the train crash. If you don’t like blood or demented behavior, do not read it. Consider this your content warning.
Characters
Aoki Teru is the main character. He’s the one who wakes to find the train is now a cemetery, and tries to do the morally right things in the terrible situation in which they now find themselves.
Takahashi Nobuo is a boy from a different class, who also happened to survive. He was apparently the kid in his class whom everyone else bullied. His character is rather unsettling.
Seto Ako is the only surviving girl. This volume doesn’t show much for her due to her lack of consciousness for the majority.
Story & Thoughts
I don’t think this series is for me. The first volume is bland, in my opinion, when read by itself. I don’t like it nearly enough to bother looking into getting the second in any format. If I already had the second one ready to go, I’d read that just to see if it gets better.
The story is slow. Not much of anything happens. The entire volume is the survivors realizing and coming to terms with the fact they are trapped with no rescue coming. The temperature of the tunnel is hot and uncomfortable. Their food supply is rotting fast, but they have a decent amount of water.
One of the characters is quickly going insane, which does not bode well for the other two. I’m curious to find out what happens, but not enough to look into it.
These things are practically the only information you get in volume one, so if you’re reading this review, you’ve practically read the book.
If I have to compliment something, I think it’s the premise. It sounds interesting, but I was definitely expecting something more.
Something I didn’t like, why did Seto Ako have to be on her period? That seems unnecessary to the story. Why is it included? Did the author just want to include an additional complication to the story to make things even more uncomfortable? This isn’t usually something people bother drawing attention to in stories. I’m not trying to period shame. I just think it’s unnecessary for this particular story.
Anyway, this book is not interesting enough to draw me into the series. It’s not my thing. It might be one of those things where you need to read more than one volume to get into it, but I’m not curious enough to pay money to find out.