Last week Christian introduced us to the first volume of Akili’s vampire Yuri comedy. This week, Christian is back with a continuation of the series, so grab yourself a stiff drink and please welcome him back!
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I don’t want to look like I’m pushy,
Or complain and get labelled a wussy,
But when minors take baths,
What I thought I’d see last
Was a detailed view of their loofah!
In the second volume of Akili’s girl-meets-vampire, girl-likes-vampire, girl-is-asked-to-kill-vampire-and-doesn’t-want-to Yuri romance, Vampeerz Volume 2 – “My Peer Vampires” (published by Denpa and translated by Molly Rabbitt), the romance is starting to blossom, but so are a few…issues we need to look at.
Ichika (14 years old, long black hair, not a vampire) has already told Aria (??? years old, short blond hair, is a vampire) that she likes her in the last volume, and in this book, has decided that she’s entitled to smooches and make-outs with Aria in return for all of her blood she’s been letting Aria drink.
Now, you and I are used to romances where someone is tsundere, and, due to the power of manga, somehow it’s ok for them to keep saying they’re not interested, while the other character is all “Oh-ho, the chase is afoot!” like they’re some ancient metaphysical poet writing about fleas biting them as a conceit for why they should be getting down.
Aria, however, in spite of being old enough to have maybe met John Donne in person, tells Ichika that “I still look like a child and think like one too. I have no interest in romance.” Welp. In Ichika’s defence, she’s only 14, and figures Aria must be just on the verge of getting into romance, or she’s just saying that, or something – she’s lost a fair bit of blood so maybe she’s not thinking logically. This is a romance manga, and if you’re good with this, ok; if you’re a bit skeeved out by the maturity gap and want to go back to reading something more wholesome (like Citrus), that is also a natural reaction!
Now Vampeerz is a comedy after all, so maybe that affects how you feel about lecherous, licensed-doctor vampires abusing their powers of hypnotism to day-drink during their job as school nurse and lustily suck the blood from hapless students who show up when they cut themselves doing school things…which is my way of re-introducing Sakuya, Aria’s supposed mom, who has a larger role to play in this volume (mostly as Aria’s servant; as we learn in this volume, Aria is apparently some kind of ‘big deal’ in vampire circles). “Ha ha ha, classic Sakuya,” you might say, “the way these middle-school girls are wigged out by this grown-ass creeper mackin’ on them is very droll, quite!” But, again, if that sort of thing creeps you out regardless of the lighter tone of the book: it would be sketchy as hell for anyone to try and talk you out of that.
In the final chapter, Aria is given an antagonist in the form of Khara, another vampire who’s after the sacred sword introduced in volume 1 (a special artifact able to destroy vampires when wielded by certain special humans, like Ichika). I gotta say, if your story has more than one person in it who seems to be from India, then it might not be as big of a deal when one of them is drawn with dirty feet and a bad smell from having to stow away in a shipping container to get to Japan. As it stands, when your only person of color is depicted this way, it’s just – you don’t do that. Why would you do that. Like, why.
Ok. With these issues out of the way, let’s get back to what the book has to offer. Well, the art is still fantastic, imho. It’s fun seeing Ichika in love and going for it and pursuing the object of her affections (more so if you can think of her as being on equal footing with Aria). Ichika’s advances are thwarted when Aria switches to drinking fetal bovine serum, which means she won’t have to drink Ichika’s blood anymore and is therefore excused from smooches as compensation. (In case you were curious about how fetal bovine serum is harvested, I just looked it up, and, oh my god, Aria what the hell is wrong with you) Uh, the other chapters have a…fun camping trip, a spooky test of courage…some clothes shopping…those poor cows, uh, let’s just get right to the scores, shall we?
Art – 9 I still really dig the detailed artwork, and Akili’s skill with faces and expressions and tones.
Story – 5 Girl pursues vampire, everyone goes camping, and we get a big fight scene. Hopefully Akili gets to draw more fighting, there were some really cool angles and perspectives in here.
Characters – 4 Jiro (Aria’s manservant from volume 1) doesn’t show up. I miss Jiro. I like everybody else a lot less this time around.
Service – I was not expecting to see a 14-year-old girl’s vulva that clearly through the bathwater. Like, everything’s drawn all wavy and ripply, but now that I look closer, there’s no mistaking it.
Yuri – 7 Smooches happen, even if Aria’s not into it. Sakuya comes onto way too many young girls. Score given is for quantity and not quality.
Overall – 2 I started out closer to a 6 when I was just lightly reading this for fun, but the more things I noticed and the more I started thinking about them, the less fun it got. I was worried about talking you, dear reader, out of trying this book; now, I almost kind of hope that I did?
Final thoughts: if you’ve read Vampeerz vol.2 and really like it, that is wonderful; I’m honestly not trying to talk anyone out of enjoying something. To paraphrase Matt Allex from horror film podcast Horror Show Hot Dog: you like more stuff than I do, that means you’re winning, in a way. There’s a cute story in here if you’re able to gloss over some stuff (just like how the cover is fully glossy now, booo). I just want you to understand that if someone else has some issues with this book, they have some legitimate reasons, and they’re not just being intentional spoilsports out to ruin your day or anything. We cool? Cool.
Erica here: I mean, yes. All of this. And the fact that although the manga continues, the narrative kind of really doesn’t. Akili’s love of pervy peekaboo is openly on display here. When you remember that Denpa Books was originally co-founded by the VP of Fakku Comics, it’s not that surprising, though.
Liliest was a slick perfect bound collection of essays about Yuri location travel, webtoon recommendations and brief history of Yuri from the 1990s to the present, a terrific essay answering the question “Is Anne of Green Gables Yuri?” and, when one flipped to the other side, original fiction and manga.
Also wonderful was UTY’s second publication, a copy book entitled, Hyaku-Nengo Ni Nokoshitai Yuri Manga Hyaku Sen. Let me me see if I can explain what is going on in this title. If you look at the red characters, they spell ‘Yuri,’ but the first character also is ‘100,’ so this title means something like, 100 Selected Yuri Manga For the Ages, but is a couple of clever uses of the way kanji is read and laid out. It’s very clever in a college club way. ^_^
Their publication is lovely little A5 perfect bound volume, 
