So this girl wants a vampire lover.
But first, take a look at this cover!
Dappled texture and flaps
It in no way detracts
From the contents, it adds lots of lustre!
Chocolate and peanut butter. Coffee and donuts. Yuri and vampires. All famously great pairings, and Akili’s Vampeerz, Volume 1 (subtitled “My Peer Vampires” and translated by Molly Rabbitt) is yet another addition to the latter, joining the likes of Killing Me!, Hungry for You, Scarlet, Ms. Vampire Who Lives in my Neighborhood, Vlad Love, etc etc etc. (For more on why there are so many Yuri vampire stories, please see Erica’s video on the subject here: https://youtu.be/rkE3pg-ihvA
So what does Vampeerz have that sets it apart from these other stories? I reached out to publisher Denpa to help me answer that, because I was curious about the cover binding, which I thought was quite thick and classy; it even has those nice flaps you see sometimes. I was told it was gloss, with no extra laminate, whereas most other covers have two layers of film instead of the one layer used on Vampeerz. To my eyes, this produces a cover with a bit of texture in the gloss, an almost dappled toothiness that sets it apart.
As for what the story has that other works don’t? The short answer to that after thumbing through those other works is “less chaos,” but let’s delve into that.
When we begin, Ichika (14 years old, long black hair, not a vampire) is mourning the passing of her grandmother Chiyo. This in turn brings about the arrival of Aria (??? years old, short blond hair, is a vampire), who claims to have been a friend of Chiyo’s.
From the start, it’s obvious to the reader that there was more to Aria’s relationship with Chiyo than she’s letting on, but Ichika is taking a little longer to suspect, maybe in part because she quickly finds that she’s fallen for Aria (I know this pun diminishes you and I both, but it was truly love at first bite for her). In turn, Aria ignores questions about how she can know certain archaic things, and blatantly brushes off any peculiarities with a hilariously patronizing wide-eyed “Wow, golly!” feigning of innocence. She’s a busy vampire with goals, after all. You almost get the sense that she relates to the humans around her the way most adults do to children: she can’t really be up front about what’s going on, because she assumes most people aren’t ready to have those conversations yet. And honestly, Ichika isn’t just a child compared to Aria; she *is* still a child, full stop.
And what are Aria’s goals? It turns out vampires (Aria prefers the older term ‘Lilu’) in real life don’t resemble the ones from movies very much, aside from drinking blood (which is inexplicably sexy, of course, in a similar vein to how women are shown enjoying chocolate in tv commercials), hypnotizing people, and living a long time. It’s this last bit that Aria wants Ichika to help her with: feeling that she’s lived long enough, Aria needs Ichika to be the one to end her, because…actually she was just getting into why it had to be her, when Ichika interrupts her to explain all the reasons she doesn’t want to just kill somebody.
And thus, we have the main story elements of Vampeerz: girl meets vampire, girl is asked to kill vampire, but girl likes vampire.
Getting back to my earlier question, what is there that recommends Vampeerz over the many other vampire Yuri works? Well, Ichika has a cool Emily King wall scroll hanging in her bedroom, for one. The rad cover, like I mentioned. The artwork carries a certain classiness and charm, and the calm, quiet pace invite the reader to take their time and enjoy how this story is being told. There are microscopic touches of slapstick (Aria has to clobber a manservant to throw off suspicion), mystery and the supernatural (there’s a really cool depiction of how a barrier is preventing Aria from entering a shrine), but Ichicka’s growing feelings for Aria are what take prominence.
Lastly, I understand that the use of modern slang and references to memes can take certain readers out of the story, but Aria channeling Steve Buscemi as she introduces herself to her new classmates is both appropriate and hilarious, and I applaud Molly Rabbitt for going there.
Ratings:
Art – 9 I really like the slightly quirky art style, as well as the detailed tones and excellent use of shading.
Story – 6 One girl likes another girl, that girl is a vampire, and with that comes some mystery.
Characters – 5 Jiro (Ichika’s manservant) is really cool and I genuinely wanted to see more of him. The fact that I can say that about a minor dude character in a Yuri romance, as well as the fact that I keep getting distracted by the cool cover, should tell you what I’m too polite to say out loud: I like our leads, I really do, but I also can’t help comparing them to potato water in terms of being able to hold my interest!
Service – 3 Fairly tame for the most part…but while I say that, this is also probably the first time I’ve been able to make out someone’s labia majora while they were wearing pyjamas.
Yuri – 7 Ichika is definitely into Aria. Ichika’s mom Sakuya is definitely into young women.
Overall – 7 It’s missing a certain je ne sais quois, however, the art carries it a lot, and as far as vampire Yuri romances go, it’s certainly the most coherent one I’ve enjoyed.
Erica here: I didn’t want to detract from the joy of reading the limerick right away, so instead I’m jumping in as a final word. Those of you have been following Akili’s work from back in Tsubomi days under another name, will remember that this artist started with porn and this manga has all those hallmarks, without the actual porn part. Sexualizing Yuri vampires? No one has ever done that before! ^_^ Seriously, though, we could do worse than having Akili turn his hand to it. Maybe, also better, but definitely worse. ^_^ Thanks so much to Christian who will be back next week with Volume 2!
