definitely worth reading the prequel if you can! it delivers pretty well on the crime aspect, and you get to see plenty of the titular stigmata in action - the way the blood is drawn and scenes showing asako experiencing the memories are beautiful. the art in general is really good, the characters are a little funky looky lol but in a way that's kind of refreshing - they're still twinks but at least they don't look the same as every other bl. only issue i had was just when i thought the mystery was getting interesting it was like immediately resolved in the nextchapter lmao. but it's not supposed to be the main focus of the story i guess, it's more about the relationship between the two mains and i do love their relationship a lot. i feel if the manga was made longer you would have gotten more of it, but i since it was made to be pretty short there's only so much you can fit in one story.