A review by planetlibrarian
Tesla Note Vol. 1 by Kōta Sannomiya

2.0

*Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review*

I loved the cover and thought the summary sounded interesting, but overall this volume was disappointing. The art is great good, the character design was decent and the action panels weren't too messy to follow. Where things really lacked for me was with the characters and the plot. The concept is pretty neat: Nikola Tesla, renowned turn of the century inventor, realized his inventions were too ahead of the times and locked them away in shards which, when tampered with, cause mayhem and chaos. There's a few different organizations vying for the shards, but real goals and motivations aren't stated. The first volume revolves around the hunt for one specific shard and setting up the main cast, but mostly things aren't well explained and I felt lost at times. I did like Botan's character well enough, but didn't care for most of the other characters. I also thought the attempts at humor were forced and fell flat, it felt like the author was trying to include a type of humor that just didn't suit the story. It created an awkward narrative and I didn't like how it informed character interaction. Overall a great premise, but not the best execution. I do think there is potential for the author to hit their stride and really pull out a good story in future volumes though.