Manga Review: Record of a Fallen Vampire Vol. 1

I'm not sure what it is about summertime, but it seems to be vampire season in manga-land. With the recent release of noir romance The Reformed, and the upcoming release of the mapcap monster comedy Rosario + Vampire, it seems like there's no shortage of blood-sucking stories out there. And then we have The Record of a Fallen Vampire, the new series from Kyo Shirodaira, the author of Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning.

This new VIZ Media series features a tormented vampire king, but there's not a lot of fangs and gothic gore going on here. Instead, what we get is a lot of fighting, talking and more talking and fighting as Akabara Strauss searches in vain for his lost love and fends off attacks from dhampires, or half-human/half-vampire warriors. The dhampires are sworn to kill Akabara before he succeeds in his thousand-year long lovesick quest to be reunited with his wife.

Check out my review of The Record of a Fallen Vampire Volume 1 by Kyo Shirodaira and Yuri Kimura, and see if its mix of romantic longing and supernatural combat offers a new twist on the blood-sucking vampire manga genre, or if it just sucks.

Image credit: © 2003 Kyo Shirodaira, Yuri Kimura / SQUARE ENIX