Manga Review - 'Otaku Vampire's Love Bite, Vol. 1' by Julietta Suzuki

What a fun, wacky, hilarious, and subtly nuanced and heartwarming vampire romance manga!

I'll take this new thing over 'Vampire Knight' and 'Karin'/'Chibi Vampire' any day! I still haven't forgiven the latter's terrible ending.

'Otaku Vampire's Love Bite' - a vampire otaku? It's a great premise, especially for today, and in my opinion this manga delivers very well. It's funny, silly, cute, charming, and surprising.

Hina Arukado is a vampire of the highest rank, in a teenage girl's body, and it takes one vampire anime, 'Vampire Cross' (a parody of 'Vampire Knight'?) for her to become obsessed; to become an otaku. So much so that she moves from Romania to Japan just because she loves anime, and wants to live out her otaku dream (so she isn't Japanese? Despite her name?).

Hina is oddly adorable and relatable. I want her black and pink gothic clothing, and her hair!. She's really passionate, manic, enthusiastic, and one-track-minded. She's not so haunted a vampire otaku shut-in as you might think (she was a shut-in before she watched 'Vampire Cross' - for thirty years). She's in fact an extrovert who wishes to share her anime passion with others - with humans, and be otaku friends together.

She is absolutely fixated on one particular anime character, Mao Ryusuzaki, a vampire hunter from 'Vampire Cross'. She collects all the merch of him, sometimes more than one duplicate, enters anime lotteries for his merch prizes, and goes to anime-themed collab cafés and shops and everything. And what do you know, in Japan she finds that her next door apartment neighbour, college student Kyuta Amanatsu, looks exactly like the hot cartoon boy she's obsessed with. Too bad he's moody, rude, and insults her for being an otaku. He is not like her husbando after all.

Or isn't he? For of course, as the two inevitably (reluctantly on Kyuta's case) spend more time together, and as Hina communicates with more humans who are not online and discovers the true joy of sharing similar geeky interests with them, Kyuta grows and reveals soft parts of himself, as well. He's moody, stoic, and snarky, but can't help helping everyone he comes across. He'd do anything for others. He cares deeply. He's the best version of a tsundere. He's cuter and dreamier than first impressions can materialise.

Hina and Kyuta are both very much contemporary humans. Even the vampire girl. Who is attracted to the human boy for his likeness to a fictional character, and his uncommonly sweet scent (that sounds uncomfortably familiar...). They are in a not-so typical love story. A love story of the supernatural...

Also, Hina doesn't want to bite humans and suck their blood, like she's supposed to, like her father keeps saying she must. She uses blood bags. It's "how her generation feels", as her dad says at one point. I guess she would be the vampire equivalent of "woke" these days.

As much as I enjoyed 'Otaku Vampire's Love Bite, Vol. 1', I must draw attention to one major, non-spoiler-y criticism: Hina is literally the only female character in it. Except for her fandom forum friend, Mugi-choko, who we never see, and who apparently quits her fandom nearly halfway through the volume. She barely counts.

Yet it's still fun! I like the characters as they are. Nothing more needs to be added. Not at this stage, at least.

'Otaku Vampire's Love Bite' is so geeky and dorky. It understands fan culture so well (I also get Hina's attentiveness towards voice actors - they deserve all the praise and appreciation). It has vampires. It is a unique take on modern vampires living and adapting to modern times. How could I resist? How could I not like it?

It is cute! It is funny! It is clever!

So what if it's not perfect, nor feminist by the current era's metric scale?

It's my cute, geek girl's sweet dream.

Adding this, along with 'My Lovesick Life as a '90s Otaku', on my 2024 expressively-passionately-geek girl Japanese manga shelf.


'[...] otaku energy is incredible. [...] When people like something, they're filled with energy.'


Final Score: 3.5/5