Bloody Kiss Volume 1

Kiyo is a poor but spunky gal inherits a decrepit mansion and a pair of vampire tenants. One of the vampires, Kuroboshi is a sensitive soul who decides that Kiyo would be make a perfect blood-donor… uhr, "bride" and the two immediately fall in love. Well, they kinda do, when these teens aren't bickering and slapping each other around.

Like that other currently popular teen vampire, Kuroboshi is a sensitive soul who'd rather wilt than suck blood without his girlfriend's permission. But that's where the similarity ends, as this romantic comedy is more about laughs than swoon-worthy supernatural romance.

Kiyo is a poor but hard-working high school student who inherits a mansion from her grandmother. But her windfall is less than wonderful when she finds out that the once grand estate is falling to pieces and on top of that, she also gets two roommates who just happen to be vampires. To make things even more complicated, one of them is determined to make her his bride.

From this description, you might think that Bloody Kiss is a sweeping Gothic romance full of drama, turmoil and supernatural suspense. Well, guess again. Bloody Kiss has some of these things, but it is mostly a goofy romantic comedy about a sensitive vampire, his flirtatious servant and his spunky would-be bride who'd rather smack her supernatural swain upside the head than donate blood to quell his hunger.

For starters, Kiyo is not your typical vampire romance heroine. She's brave, honorable and fiercely independent but she's also a horrible cook, a practical-to-a-fault penny-pincher and a bit of a tomboy.

Kuroboshi the vampire isn't a totally cookie-cutter character either. Stubborn, stand-offish and somewhat anemic (because he hasn't been getting his minimum daily requirement of blood), Kuroboshi often comes across as weak and distracted in contrast to Kiyo's never-say-die enthusiasm. Somewhat like that other chaste teen vampire of bestselling young adult novel fame, Kuroboshi would rather suffer and wilt than feed upon his would-be girlfriend without her permission.

All this 'will they or won't they' tension would be pretty monotonous if it wasn't for Alsh, Kuroboshi's servant, a long-haired androgynous vampire who's a hopeless flirt. To Fruits Basket fans, Alsh will seem awfully familiar, as he looks and acts like Ayame Sohma, Yuki Sohma's foofy older brother.

On one hand, it's fun to see Furumiya add some giggles to the predictable vampire romance formula. There are moments when the banter between Kuroboshi, Kiyo and Alsh are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny.

Other times, the jokes throw a bucket of cold water over what should be a sizzling romance between Kiyo and Kuroboshi. As the two teens banter and bicker, slap, slug and kick each other for a few cheap slapstick laughs, one can't help but think that this would-be couple is acting more like feuding siblings than two teens in love.

Furumiya's artwork is likeable enough, but her visual storytelling sometimes suffers from gaps that leave readers wondering, "What just happened here?" It also doesn't help that TokyoPop's edition suffers from some sub-par print quality, as if it was reproduced from second- or even third-generation photocopies of the original artwork. In more than a few scenes, Furumiya's most delicate lines noticeably bleed, break or disappear.

Bloody Kiss isn't the kind of love story that will make you swoon, but it does offers vampire romance fans a little comic relief from the usual Gothic angst. Given all the super-serious supernatural series out there now, who couldn’t use a few laughs every now and then?