Manga/Anime Review: Rosario + Vampire
Our Hero Aono Tsukune by Chapter 20… not so human anymore, huh?
Rosario + Vampire is a simple Romance/Comedy/Harem anime/manga about Aono Tsukune (a human) mistakenly getting enrolled in an all monster boarding school. Lucky for him it’s a school rule that everyone has to maintain their human disguises at all times to practice living in the human world.
Before Tsukune realizes his mistake he meets a beautiful young girl Moka Akashiya who immediately wants to be friends with him because he “smells good” (like a human). She tells him pretty soon that she is a vampire, as she bites his neck for the first of MANY time throughout the series.
The relationship between Moka and Aono progresses rather quickly, since she is the only one in the school who knows he’s a human (she feeds on him regularly) and he just has a huge crush on her. But, there is of course many things (monsters) that get in the way. For example;
Kurono Kurumu (succubus) who decides that she has to steal Aono from Moka.
Sendou Yukari (witch) who loves to play pranks and picks Aono as a favorite target.
Morioka Gin’ei (werewolf) who is a very smooth pervert who wants to steal Moka from Aono by making Aono out to be into voyeur.
Shirayuki Mizore (snow woman) who is very shy and quiet about her crush on Aono, but stalks him quite openly.
I did mention this was of the Harem genre, right? It’s a very clean manga without any nudity, only some panty shots, but you aren’t going to be able to avoid “fan service” completely if you read shounen (manga for young men) which this is.
The anime adaptation covers about the first 5 volumes (out of 10) of the original series (there is a sequel to the manga currently being made in Japan). It does a pretty poor job of it too. The anime rearranges the story to introduce characters sooner and it really only covers the more boring and repetitive part of the manga.
Aono Tsukune in chapter 1… and basically how he is throughout the anime
From volume 6 on, Rosario + Vampire finally starts to take off after laying a foundation for the first 5 volumes. Although the story never gets very deep, it is still very entertaining and easy to read.
Overall I would suggest not watching the anime at all (or watch it before reading the manga). Still I would give the manga 4 out of 5 stars, which is not that bad.
Here is one last image, this one of Moka Akashiya in her released vampire form as she rips up some Medusa snake hair.
Tags: Review, Rosario + Vampire
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May 28th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Very interesting stuff. Maybe I should get more into this Manga thing, huh?
May 28th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I dunno Mark. You probably wont like manga that much… and if you find that you do, you will end up wasting hours and hours reading them.
On an interesting side note; it turns out that Rebecca likes watching anime with Brandon sometimes. It helps them relax or something.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I completely disagree Paul. Manga is intirely, completely, time-consumingly awesome. But, I’m only on teh thrid issue or volume of the Rosario Vampire U.S. edtion. So please try not to eb a critic.
October 15th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I wonder if you misunderstood something Jennie. I Love Rosario + Vampire and am already starting to read the sequel (Moka’s sister becomes a new freshman in the school and all the characters that we already know are now in the next grade up).
What I DON’T love is the anime adaptation of the manga. It sucked. They are now working on a continuation of the anime, so maybe the second season will be better. Who knows.
Why else would I be blogging about manga if I didn’t waste a ton of time reading it? I’ve read over 50 different manga series (some stank but most were good and some were awesome). At an average of 15 volumes per series, that comes to around 750 volumes of manga that I’ve read. And if you think of a volume as around 8 chapters then I’ve read over 7,000 chapters of manga. At an average of 20 pages per chapter I’ve read over 140,000 pages of manga.
That’s probably an understatement…
April 13th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Can you provide more information on this?