Breathe is a story about a small girl trying to find the truth about the death of her family in a small village in China set in the late 1800s. The story seems fine at first and actually accelerates quickly due to the 4 issue restriction, but has so many flaws.

For starters, the characters are lifeless, bereft of any personality, and mean nothing to me as the reader. Second, the story feels very generic and the ending of issue 4 is rather predictable and tries to feel like a surprise, but sort of isn’t. The writing is very stiff and void of identity. I got little enjoyment out of this series, and it was surprisingly sitting in my library for a couple of years unread.

Lastly, the art is atrocious, and how was this approved? The characters look like they are drawn by 5-year-olds and colored by a blind person. I understand the art style was going for a minimalist washed-out watercolor vibe, but it fails hard. I know that messy art is also a style, but this is just bad. The characters look deformed and it just felt like a rushed mess. I would avoid this series at all costs.