Rosario + Vampire by Akihisa Ikeda

[The Lizard]

I just recently discovered this cute, well-drawn manga in Shonen Jump when I was in Japan, but it first started in 2005. It's a supernatural high school comedy/adventure about an average human boy named Tsukune who accidentally gets sent to a private school intended for supernatural monsters disguised as humans. The first student Tsukune meets is the beautiful girl Moka, who takes an immediate liking to him. However, her main motivation is the sweet smell of his human blood, as she is actually a vampire!

Now admittedly there's a lot of derivative elements in this manga that we've seen a million times before. The average high school boy who gets paired up with a gorgeous supernatural girl, a second sexy girl who competes with the first sexy girl for the attentions of the dorky boy, an annoying bratty younger girl with a quick temper, and the usual melodramatic repressed romantic longings.

There's also a certain "freak of the week" element similar to X-Files and Smallville in the form of various monster students and teachers who cause trouble for our main characters. The first several chapters are quite formulaic as various misbehaving mythical monsters secretly cause trouble, then threaten Tsukune in some way (without knowing he's actually human and not just another monster in disguise), and Moka comes to the rescue by turning into a "super vampire" (sort of like the "vampire noble" seen in fantasy novels) after her rosary choker is removed to save the day.

Yeah, this is aimed squarely at the high school boy audience, and there are plenty of sexy girl characters and gratuitous panty-flashing upskirt scenes to prove it. So what makes this manga worth reading? The art is a big notch above the usual quality, particularly the monsters and the female characters.
Although I'm not the target audience, I'm reminded somewhat of a manga I enjoyed a lot back in the '80s when I was in high school, Urusei Yatsura, by Rumiko Takahashi (also creator of Ranma 1/2 and Inu-Yasha), and I thought Rosario + Vampire was cute.

Fans of vampires, supernatural monsters, and high school comedies should check it out.

Read the first 13 manga chapters translated into English here: http://www.onemanga.com/Rosario-Vampire/


An anime version is coming in early 2008, and the teaser trailer can be seen here:

 

[The Lizard]

Well apparently nobody cared when I posted this last year, but now that the entire first season 13 episodes of the anime are on YouTube and Veoh, I'll bump it again.

If anything, the anime is even more slapstick and pervy-teen-boy oriented than the manga, but the art and animation are both pretty good. I was kind of hoping that the presentation would be a little more spooky and gothic like Vampire Knight or something, but apparently the animation directors decided not to go that route.

Also, the "2nd year" of the Rosario and Vampire manga has started in the Jump Square manga. The first 8 translated chapters can be seen at Onemanga.com.

 

[Sloth7d]

I liked the manga up until it got too serious in the middle. I couldn't read anymore after the "mix breed demon" (I can't remember the proper term) arc started. This is a book I never expected to take itself too seriously, and I pretty much was hoping it would be light hearted fun all the way through.

 

[The Lizard]

I liked the manga up until it got too serious in the middle. I couldn't read anymore after the "mix breed demon" (I can't remember the proper term) arc started. This is a book I never expected to take itself too seriously, and I pretty much was hoping it would be light hearted fun all the way through.

Yeah - the overall atmosphere of the manga is pretty uneven at times. It's like the writer can't decide whether to stick with the slapstick bop-on-the-head and bouncing boob comedy, the melodramatic romance or the serious supernatural adventure, so they all get wedged in there. I think it's sort of trying for a Harry Potter-meets traditional shonen comedy vibe.

Year 2 is pretty much the same so far. I actually like the more serious monster vs monster storylines, but there's still too much goofy fan-service stuff that gets thrown in there too. The most recent translated Year 2 story (Chapter 8) has all the main female characters get magically turned into little girls for no apparent reason other than to show them as cute little girls.

I like the sort-of-goth character Ruby (the older witch), but I was a little disappointed to see how much pink clothing she wears in the anime.

 

[Johann Krauss]

Who's tha artist?

 

[The Lizard]

That would be.........................^

Who's tha artist?