As a person who read almost the entirety of 'Legends of Bubble' series I can say that it's bonkers how 'Dreamcatcher' is the smallest book in the series yet it's surprisingly the most important book for its original source.
'Demonslayer' has, like, 5 separate legends, two of them are fucking HUGE (with 'Yarkh. Step up' being the biggest) but 'Dreamcatcher' is the only one that actually ties the first and the second part of its source material and uses it cleverly. It's amazing.
I read this one with the expectation that it's a fanservice-y kind of comic book that could potentially explore the characters but have very little impact on the story as a whole. A story for a very specific audience, a story that could be just skipped. But nooooooo.
They went HARD on this one. Not only we learn more about Balor and Yana's relationship and how it's even more fucked up than we thought (the part where we learn how their first meeting actually happened and whose fault it was had me shooked), but we also learn what kind of plans they had for the future, we learn why they do what they do in Vol.2, we learn why and how the whole 'Satan in the knife' plot started.
But the craziest thing is that they basically spoil the entirety of Vol.2. I kid you not, the way they splattered small delicate details everywhere that you only notice and connect after you read the entirety of 'Demonslayer' is insane. It was not even a Chekhov's gun, it was straight up a Chekhov's cannon. And if after you read it for the first time you're like 'Well, that was fun, moving on!', on your second reading you experience something akin to the existential crisis mixed with five stages of grief. And if you decide to read 'Demonslayer' in its entirety again, thanks to this you'll see everything in a new light and cry over things you didn't cry about before! In fact, you'll finally understand things you didn't understand! You'll also be obliterated by the ending twice as hard this time!
And to this day it drives me crazy how all of this was done in just 114 pages.
