The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

Victoria's Electric Coffin

What's It About? 

David Douglas wishes he'd never been born. What's the point of a slum boy enduring a miserable existence and ending up on death row? Victoria Frankenstein, a thirteen-year-old medical doctor, offers him a change of fate. Together, they can help people and prove the worth of Victoria's invention: the electric coffin. After David becomes Eins, what kind of life will this second chance offer?

Victoria's Electric Coffin is a manga with story and art by Ikuno Tajima, with English translation by Leighann Harvey. This volume was retouched and lettered by Lys Blakeslee. Published by Square Enix Manga (April 2, 2024).

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

In many ways, I can be very easy to please. A surefire way? Create a story based on classic literature that understands the original work and plays with it enough to make it entirely (or mostly) new. Victoria's Electric Coffin does this beautifully. Taking place in 1920s New York (early, judging by the costumes), the story follows David Douglas, an executed murderer who is reanimated after death by genius girl scientist Victoria Frankenstein. Victoria (whose name is the feminized form of Mary Shelley's original 1818 scientist) wants David, now called Eins, to use his second chance at life to do good things for the people, and while he's not sure that's possible, or even should be allowed given his past, Eins discovers that he likes being a good guy. His new lease on life mirrors Mary Shelley's original creation's desire to be nothing more than a good person, and where Frankenstein's Monster couldn't move past the way people perceived him, Eins largely appears like he is.

Eins' main concern is that he was such a bad person before that he was executed via electric chair for five murders. He's conflicted: he recognizes that growing up in the slums of New York City didn't leave him many options for survival, and there's a bit of a question as to whether he truly committed his first murder, that of a young woman named Justine. Eins maintains that he did, but the context around Justine's death is murky – why would David have killed the person who taught him to play the organ and was, in his memory, the only one to be genuinely kind to him? Maybe he didn't wield the knife, but somehow still felt responsible, leading him down the path that would end in the electric chair. Although Eins isn't as complex a character as Shelley's original, he's still got a lot of room to develop and is fascinating in his own right. Victoria is a bit less so; she's not quite a mad scientist stereotype, but she also doesn't get much development until the bonus chapter about Eins' first night in her apartment. Eins could drive the story all on his own, but I'd still like to see more done with Victoria.

There is still a strong theme of who the monster is and who the man is running through this. David/Eins carries that theme within him, wondering if his monstrous past can give way to a human future after death and rebirth. Henry Clerval, a name readers of Shelley may recognize, is present as Victoria's foil, with his "corpse bride Willie" serving as a counterpoint to Eins. However, I find myself more invested in the storyline that follows Felix, a young boy stealing to buy his mother medicine. Felix's story may end in this volume, showing the horrible cycle of poverty and crime in the city, but I hope that Tajima gets back to it, nonetheless.

With a well-realized setting and solid foundation in classic literature, I enjoyed Victoria's Electric Coffin. It has its issues, one of which is that Eins anachronistically uses the word "boobs" (first recorded in literature in 1932, at least ten years after this is set; yes, I looked it up because I'm obnoxious), but overall, I can't wait to read more.

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Lauren Orsini
Rating:

Victoria's Electric Coffin is a Frankenstein retelling where the titular doctor is a 13-year-old girl, and her monster is an undead criminal with a heart of gold. I was surprised to learn that the "electric coffin" of the title is a person, not a box. More specifically, he's a condemned criminal whom Victoria revived after his page-one execution. Previously known as David Douglas, Victoria re-christens him Eins and gives him a new life purpose: to help people.

Nobody is more surprised about Victoria's plans than Eins. Through a series of flashbacks, it becomes apparent that Eins became a career criminal by necessity to survive in the unforgiving setting of sci-fi-embellished 1920s New York City. It's a bleak backdrop for the story, cold and claustrophobic, with all the action taking place in alleys and wooden corridors. The misery of the slums is never far away. Some chapter titles borrow Art Nouveau design elements, but the setting is less Roaring Twenties than Gilded Age, and the gilt veneer has all but peeled off. After a (former) lifetime of crime, Eins is convinced that he's fundamentally a bad person. Throughout the story, he grapples predictably with whether he deserves this second chance and if he has it in him to be good inside (yes, but you guessed that already).

Victoria, for her part, is a closed book. She's flat and seemingly emotionless, and Eins' secondary objective is to unravel the mystery that is his calm and collected creator. Victoria is 13, Eins is 19, and this is shaping up to be a romance, so tread carefully if age gaps are not your thing. But that's still in the background in this first volume. Eins barely has time to adjust to his second life before the story shifts into a shonen manga battle treatment with a revolving cast of opponents who must be defeated through Victoria's wit and Eins' brawn.

The diminutive doctor has no shortage of enemies who either covet or condemn her genius. These opponents range from the realistic (a religious leader who opposes corpse reanimation) to the absurd (a second teenage genius doctor and his second reanimated corpse). By chapter three, the characters have already met their mirror match. It's a quick read, the first of a series that succinctly wraps up in three total volumes and is entertaining enough, but I can't help but feel like I've seen many of these story elements done before and done better.

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Kevin Cormack
Rating:

I like a bit of social commentary as a side to my main dish of absurd SF-tinged period comedy-drama. Victoria's Electric Coffin is fully aware of its silliness – the first chapter alone features a tuxedo-wearing reanimated corpse (with a huge screw poking out of one side of his head) saving people from a train crash while spouting lines like "Dr. Victoria Frankenstein, the electric coffin you created is here to help!" The effect is immediately charming, along with some cute and goofy character designs. Author Ikuno Tajima uses this to slip in some interesting nuggets about class divisions in early 20th century North America – the resurrected Eins admits that when he was alive, to survive in the slums, he had little choice but to commit crimes. Someone else always had to suffer for his continued existence. No wonder he almost seems to welcome his execution and frequently wishes he'd never been born.

Victoria herself is only thirteen and lives alone, yet the newspapers claim she spends her time performing "disgusting and cruel experimentation on dead bodies." She's overly serious, and multiple other characters comment on her unusual maturity. Her main motivator is to help others using her morally questionable science, though understandably, not everyone is on board with this type of innovation.

Eins' new "life" is entirely under Victoria's control – if he slips up and returns to his previous criminal ways, she can end him as quickly as flicking a switch. That's a lot of power for someone so young, but she seems honestly benevolent. Initially, she seems emotionally flat, but her joy from witnessing Eins' turn to heroism seems to embolden her spirits. Although she continues to mostly emit an air of quiet intensity, the times she smiles, she's adorable.

Despite the apparent references to Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein novel, Victoria's Electric Coffin is a much brighter, breezier work. There's little in the way of a Gothic atmosphere, and most scenes occur in the daytime. Victoria and Eins' interactions are often humorous, though Eins, when alone, is prone to self-doubt and rumination. Their developing relationship (which thankfully does not appear to be coded romantically) is supportive and fun, their story's tone reminding me a lot of Kia Asamiya's Steam Detectives.

Tajima's art is mostly very character-focused with backgrounds, in general, lacking much detail – apart from the occasional illustration of a tram or other period-appropriate backdrop, there isn't much to evoke a specific New York-flavored atmosphere. This could occur in almost any major city, from North America to Europe, from the mid-Victorian era onwards. At least the characters are fun and interesting. This volume's fourth and final chapter introduces a potentially great new villain. I found a lot to enjoy in this sweet, intriguing story, and I look forward to reading more.