Welcome back to Guest Review Wednesday! Today we have a special Guest Review by Christian Le Blanc of 3DComics! Christian has kindly watched an anime so I don’t have to, freeing me to finish up Princess Principal instead. ^_^ (About which I quite probably will do a review one day. ) So let’s please welcome Christian back and give him our full attention. The floor is yours, Chris!
Sophie Twilight is, let me assure ya,
An anime fangirl vampira.
At the end of each night
In her coffin sleeps tight
With a bishoujo dakimakura.
Ms. Vampire Who Lives in my Neighbourhood (Tonari no Kyūketsuki-san), which is streaming on Crunchyroll, is a 12-episode comedic slice-of-life anime series based on the 4koma manga by Amatou serialized in Comic Cune magazine. Ms. Vampire herself, Sophie Twilight, is a centuries-old vampire who is practically the poster-girl for “Non-Threatening Vampires” magazine – she doesn’t drink blood straight from humans (she orders bottles of it online instead), and she enjoys manga, anime, and ordering anime statues and body pillows off the web. When she first meets our other main character, Amano Akari, she tells her “Don’t be afraid. I’m just your run-of-the-mill vampire passing by. Nobody suspicious.”
Akari is a normal…well, human, anyway…high school student obsessed with dolls, and becomes infatuated with the doll-like Sophie Twilight at their first meeting – so much so that, by the end of the first episode, she’s moved herself into Sophie’s house, much to her parents’ puzzling beatific indifference. Akari’s friend Hinata starts hanging out with them, as does Sophie’s vampire friend Ellie. Most of the humour comes from the culture clash of vampires and humans as they all spend time together – Ellie prescribes treatments for the human cold based on outdated concepts of the four humours, Sophie tries feeding nails to Akari because she doesn’t understand ‘food’, Akari makes a cold, bloody treat for Sophie which results in her penguin-shaped shaved ice maker looking like something removed from Silent Hill for being too disturbing, etc. Our cast enjoys each other’s company at Sophie’s house, the mall, high school, the beach, Akihabara, etc. Obscure bits of vampire lore come into play, but always in a cute manner, of course.
This being a moe comedy, almost everything about this show is light. The faux-baroque score is very whimsical and cute; nothing you’ll likely remember (aside from the opening and ending songs), everything just seems to fit the scene, and nothing really stands out as distracting. The color scheme is light as well – bright, pastel colors that suit the tone of the show and make it pleasant to watch. Any quarrels that *do* appear get resolved by the end of each segment; the first episode makes it look like Akari is going to become a constant harasser to a Sophie who just wants to be left alone (see: Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles), but Sophie quickly realizes she misses Akari when she’s not around. Even the fact that it’s based on a 4koma means that the pacing is generally quick and light, jumping from beat to beat.
Naturally, any Yuri in this show is light, as well – the four main characters are all just friends, although Akari plainly crushes on / lusts after Sophie – just like in Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles, our pursuer pictures herself and the pursued together in wedding dresses. Ellie, for her part, crushes on / lusts after almost any young girl she sees. Hinata also has a mild crush on Akari, just to round things out.
All in all, it’s mostly just a cute show to relax with if you want some light comedy and pleasant, fun character interactions without angst or drama, and just a smidgen of the supernatural with Yuri elements.
That said – when I first approached Erica about writing this review, there were only 3 or 4 episodes up. I could choose to review whatever episodes were already released, or, wait for the series to end and report back. While the chances were pretty slim, I decided to hold back and wait just in case any problematic issues came up that I should address. As you’ve probably guessed, I did find a little something.
Ellie (Sophie’s vampire friend), as I mentioned above, is the thirstiest character on the show. She’s also the youngest-looking character on the show – in fact, they spend time addressing the fact that she was turned into a vampire right around the onset of puberty, so she laments that she never got to grow more mature-looking. Akari’s human friend Hinata even mistakes her for a child at first, prompting Ellie to grope Hinata’s chest in anger before storming off, which makes poor Hinata depart in tears (wait, wasn’t this a comedy?). Ellie’s portrayed as a sex-positive 400-year-old vampire, who looks and acts like a child most of the time…which makes it ultra-gross when she gropes Akari’s butt at the hot springs, wears a revealing succubus costume for Halloween, suggests Sophie buy Akari a thong for Christmas, etc. It’s not that the characters are being flirty and suggestive from time to time that bugs me, it’s that they’re doing this while looking and acting like little kids who are drawn, and written, much younger than they are. It’s creepy enough seeing the camera pan slowly across Akari’s butt dimples at the beach, but watching her play with her dolls later in the same episode encreepens it that much more.
Ratings:
Art – 6
Story – 4 (not necessarily bad, just nothing really eventful happens)
Characters – 4
Yuri – 3
Service – yes, unfortunately.
Overall – 5
If you’ve read all this and it still mostly sounds like something you’d enjoy if it didn’t have the problematic bits, then give it a try and, depending on your tolerance, you may want to just skip past the first halves of episodes 5 & 7, the post-credits scene of episode 9, and episode 10 in general. You might even watch this and feel that I’m overreacting, and, that’s ok; I’m not out to spoil your fun, but I definitely want you to understand why this show might not be someone else’s idea of fun.
Erica here: Comic Cune is, of course, the home of moe, creepy characters, creepy not-quite Yuri and cake. If the service of the anime irks, but you like the premise, take a look at the magazine. The fan service tends more towards what cake are we eating today?
I also want to shoot a stern look at Disney for forcing this absurd title on the anime when clearly “My Neighbor the Vampire” should have been the translation. This translation absolutely ruins the flow.
Thanks Christian for taking a look at this for us!
Slice-of-life is definitely not my favorite genre, and especially when paired with peak-moe character designs where everyone looks to be about 8 years old means a hard pass from me. I kept hearing about this series around the web, though, as a “good” yuri offering, so thank you Christian for taking the hit for me here. Reviews done well will correctly steer some of the audience away as well as point the right audience toward – nice job!
I am likewise not all that copacetic when it comes to moe, which was my major complaint about Princess Principal.It would have been amazing had the characters been drawn to be interesting,
Well, in the case of PriPri it also gave its advantages, for example, many were surprised that this is actually a dramatic action show, and not a cute moe show. When a year later Relyce the Spyce tried to play the same card, but in a more moe-ish way, this anime not having received even a third of the popularity that PriPri has.
It did not even help that, unlike PriPri, RtS was originally created by two well-known people in the yuri fandom, who instead of “well, this is not romance, but we are not against your interpretations”, directly offered the audience to see the show as yuri.
Thank you very much for that, Mariko – I struggled for a while with how to word the last paragraph, and your comment makes me feel like I was in the right neighborhood (…no pun intended).
And Erica, I took a look at some of your Comic Cune reviews, and – moe Elder Gods? And cake? I won’t lie, I’m impressed that this exists!
It was…something…for sure.
So, if I understood you correctly, it seemed uncomfortable to you that the characters look like little girls and at the same time are obviously positioned by the author as an object of fanservice and erotic or vulgar moments?
Well, I’m not a fan of moe anime, so I can hardly say a lot, except that you gradually get used to it getting more and more anime experience. However, I still find it hard to think of such characters as sexually attractive.
Thanks for the review!
P.S “so I don’t have to, freeing me to finish up Princess Principal instead. ^_^ (About which I quite probably will do a review one day. )” – I look forward to! Perhaps our opinion will be different, but I’m always happy to hear your opinion on my favorite titles.
Thank you for commenting, Super – I appreciate it!
You are correct, the fact that the characters look and act like children while we get service-y shots of them, is a bridge too far for me.
I disagree about getting used to it though; I’ve been watching anime since 1994, which means I’ve gotten used to seeing a lot of questionable content (so, you’re correct in that sense!), but in those cases, the characters never seem like they’re…10 years old.
Thanks again for your comment :)
I agree with Christian, I do not get used to it, nor do I ever want to be a person who casually accepts the sexualizing/fetishization of child-like bodies. That is unacceptable to me now and forever.
Well, I’m not Japanese, so I can’t speak for the Japanese, but as I recall, Miyazaki and Kon considered the popularity of this style to be the result of the general infantilism of the audience. However, to me personally, most moe shows seem just too vanilla and boring.
At least, if it is not KyoAni shows, who usually take care of the plot and try to avoid problematic content.
I think I’d have preferred an “Hungry for You, Endo Yasuko Stalks the Night” anime adaptation.