This was on my to-review pile and conveniently, this week it was licensed by Seven Seas! So its certainly seemed like a good time to talk about Scarlet, Volume 1 (スカーレット) by Yuino Chiri. Before we begin, yes I know. Just hush yourself right up. This is not a vampire story. Not technically, at least. The word “vampire” is never used.

Finé Hera took a drug that turned her into an inhuman bloodsucker. In an attempt to stop others from having their lives destroyed by this drug Finé and her partner Iris Redhood, a werewolf (wink/wink) travel around confiscating the elixir on behalf of the military organization attempting to curb the elixir’s spread. This affiliation allows Finé to wear a cool Utena-esque uniform.

Finé and Iris have an intimate relationship. When the bloodlust takes Finé, Iris acts as food. The promise they have made to each other is simple. Finé can drink as much from Iris as she wants and the wolf will accompany her until she regains her humanity, at which point, Iris will eat her. Fair and square.

Finé and Iris are ostensibly on the side of good, but they are realists – once a person has ingested the elixir, they are no longer human, no matter how sweet or kind they used to be. A young woman aptly named Misery is drawn into their world when her injured younger sister is given the elixir to heal her wounds. Finé and Iris go to great ends to help Misery, but do not have much hope for her sister. They track the elixir down to LEA, and it’s head, creepy Goth-Loli lolicon Mara Emposa, who has used the elixir to create an army of once-humans demons and who is about to add Misery to her harem.

Volume 1 is full of action, deceit, violence and quite a lot of blood. As one might expect. There’s some service, especially around the act of sucking blood and Mara’s demon-human lesbian orgy. I don’t criticize Mara’s desires, just her aesthetics. It seems unreasonable to force  one’s harem to have a sex party on uncomfortable chairs in the middle of a large empty, presumably cold room. Give your demon- women something soft and warm to screw on, sheesh. Have some class.  I mean, really.

This series hits Seven Seas’ sweet spot – monster girls and Yuri and creepy loli characters. It’s like the perfectly aligned Venn diagram of everything they publish, so I expect it will do well for them. ^_^

I’m still reading it in Comic Yuri Hime and it doesn’t seem that the plot is in any rush to wrap up, nor do we know more than a few flashbacks’ worth of info about Finé’s backstory  so, I’d expect more blood and violence for a little while. In fact, the May issue of Comic Yuri Hime wraps up this arc, (untidily, with splats of blood,) but the story is no further along. So unless this series gets cut off for some reason on the JP side, I’d expect at least 3 volumes.

Ratings:

Art – 7 Scenes are generally well-drawn, but I have objections to the way secondary sexual characteristics, i.e. breasts and crotches, are handled (and also drawn)
Story – 7
Characters – 7 They are shockingly likeable. Iris is a cheerful drunken werewolf, Finé is the requisite emo bloodsucking creature with a sword. All is well with the world. Unless you are a elixir-mutated demon.
Service – 6 You will find yourself looking at Iris’ breasts rather more often than you might imagine.
Yuri – 6 In their own hungry way, Iris and Finé care for one another, much as I care about the well-being of the animal I am going to eat later.

Overall – 8 Slightly better than the sum of its parts

Scarlet isn’t a vampire story
Although it’s plenty bloody and gore-y
A fairy tale it is not
Revenge against evil is the plot
Against a Goth-Loli demon in all of her lace glory

You’re welcome.