The Immortal: Demon in the Blood #2 Review: Where’s the Action?

Let us return to Meiji Era Japan and to Amane Ichinose in “The Immortal: Demon in the Blood” Number two. This time leave your sense of action at the door.

In this comic, Ichinose, now living in Tokyo as a tattooist, meets a young woman named Natsu Hisaka. Her father was arrested for being a traitor and now is asking Inhinose to help her bail him out.

While there is no action in this comic, we do learn some more of Ichinose’s backstory, along with some new characters. There’s not much, but what there is doesn’t really do much for the story. There’s very little to tell and very to tell it with. What little we do get is okay and only semi-interesting.

We also don’t learn anything about the tattoo powers at all or even a strong central conflict. The whole getting a relative out of jail story is pretty weak and not at all interesting. There should be more to this story. The tale this comic does tell isn’t fully developed. Instead, we get a mediocre get a relative out jail story that ends way too abruptly and easily.

One thing that is introduced in this comic about this world is robots. Yes, there are robots in this comic. This has gone normal Meiji Era samurai drama to Meiji Era steampunk samurai drama. So far, the robots seem to be only servants and nothing more. They also seem to be tagged on just for the hell of it. They serve no purpose to the story whatsoever.

At least the artwork is good. The Immortal’s artwork has that America manga style with good looking characters, nice colors and backgrounds that capture the look of Meiji Era Japan nicely. Even the robot designs are interesting and are appropriate for the time period.

The biggest problem with “The Immortal: Demon in the Blood” is the story. It’s not all that interesting and it lacks focus. Issue two continues the trend of the boring story that lacks focus and is even less interesting than the first issue. Although the ending does make it seem like the story will pick up in the next issue. The artwork is still good, as usual, good art does not compensate for weak story. Issue three should start breathing some life into this comic.