Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood.

Regardless of how I approach shows about vampires these days, I often try to keep my expectations low. It’s not uncommon that so many vampire tropes relates with horror fiction, romance relationships, and survival dramas. Most of them feels like watching some cartoon with defiled couples in a telenovela. However, watching Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san (Ms. Vampire Who Lives in my Neighborhood) gave me a different impression. Based on a 4-koma, this anime is easy to recommend but not may not be so easy to appreciate. It’s essentially a slice of life series that focuses more on making fun of the otaku and vampire culture rather thana complex story. I’d say the plot is forgivable at best with each episode tying the overall themes together. But really, don’t try to look for any sort of real story development. The storytelling is more about the misadventures of the character cast than anything else. With that out of the way, several things to also take note is humor and character connections the cast establishes with each other. From the first few episodes, it became obvious that schoolgirl Akari Amano takes a liking to a 360-year old vampire named Sophie Twilight. While this strikes as an oddball formula to set up for the series, it works with the fact that the creators wanted to establish an important relationship from the start. Not only does Akari and Sophie develop a close bond, they also begin to share similar interests. The most evident involves with otaku culture. But what evokes hilarity is a lack of common sense from Sophie considering her nature. She still has the mind of a child despite being over 300 years old. The creators made Sophie into an antithesis of a vampire. She’s not violent and has no desire for human blood. While she shares common traits of a generic vampire (like being weak to sunlight), Sophie also enjoys interests of an otaku. These include going to comic conventions and collecting otaku goods. It’s something you’d never expect a vampire would behave but the bottom line is that Sophie is nothing like the vampires you’d see in traditional horror flicks. Oh and she’s not the only vampire. Later in the series, we meet Ellie, a vampire girl who has known Sophie for a long time. One thing noticeable about Ellie is her characteristics that relates more closely to how vampires would behave. The show also pokes fun of Ellie’s personality by making her behave like a brat on many occasions. Still, she’s not malevolent and often acts more like a child similiar to Sophie. Thanks to her new friends, Ellie does learn more about the human society. Beyond that, we also get to meet Akari’s best friend Hinata as she also gets involved with our lovely vampires. There’s probably not many reasons to watch this show altogether but if you’re looking for a humorous slice of life anime, this is one to aim for. As I mentioned before, character chemistry is important that shows how close characters grow together. Akari and Sophie is the most prominent pair as the two become what seems to be more just friends. While this show isn’t truly a yuri, there are definitely moments that suggests a bit more than subtle romance. Akari’s attraction towards Sophie is obvious that even gets played for laughs when she gets nosebleeds. There are also many moments when Akari makes excuses to see her. For the more distinctive humor, the show plays around a lot with otaku context in particular with Sophie’s hobbies. She’s pretty much an indoor girl who spends her time watching anime, reading comic books, and buying otaku merchandise. As she is a vampire, the show also injects humor about her nature such as drinking blood (non-human), being weak to garlic, or sunlight. But as the title suggests, Sophie is pretty much a neighborhood vampire who really is harmless. As the art style also suggests, this anime is decorated with fluffiness and charm. The main female character are made as cute as possible with Sophie being the primary example. At someone her age, she looks like a doll that even other characters comments on. Similarly, Ellie retains a youthful appearance that will be deceptive to the naked eye. However, do take notice that the show has some fan service. While it’s nothing explicit, it exists and some scenes can raise some eyebrows considering the appearances of these girls. As someone who has read portions of the manga, the anime does manage to capture the overall look of the show. This series is probably one that people won’t be talking about for a long time. That’s okay though as I don’t see there’s much really to talk about beyond the character connections and comedy gags. The story really isn’t very impressive from the start and there’s little overall character development. Watching this anime is mostly aimed for those who want to experience a slice of life comedy and a dose of vampiric otaku culture.

Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san is a nice slice of life CGDCT. It is not wildly humorous, it is not filled with fan service all over the place, and it does not have any big overarching story around it. It a nice simple slice of life with four girls as our main cast. The story is that Akari meets a vampire while wandering around the woods. She gets to know the vampire, Sophie, and decides to live with her. We have 4 main characters and 2 lesser characters. The main characters are Akari, Sophie, Hinata, and Ellie. Akari is fond of dolls and keeps a lot with her.Upon meeting Sophie, she instantly falls in love with her doll-like appearance. This leads to her sometimes doting on Sophie, sometimes to Sophie's annoyance. Sophie is a 360-year-old vampire. She is generally calm and she is an otaku. She has lost almost all common sense about living as a human instead of a vampire. Hinata is Akari's best friend. She is overly fond of Akari. She wants to dote on Akari but holds back. But aside from that, she is just a normal girl. Ellie is another vampire and is Sophie's acquaintance. Due to being asleep for over 100 years, she does not have the common sense of the present society, but instead still has common sense from that of 100 years ago. The other two lesser characters hardly appear on the anime, so it is not worth mentioning them. A lot of the comedy uses the misconception of the characters, and of being a vampire. Like about they only drink blood, goes to sleep at the day, and turns into ash when exposed to sunlight. The comedy in this anime is light. Most are just thrown not for big laughs, but a few chuckles here and there. What's great is that it doesn't feel like it is trying too hard to make a joke. This anime keeps a good flow of atmosphere and the jokes do not interrupt that flow of events. This is one of the strong points of this anime. The relaxing atmosphere it gives is soothing and the music compliments this flow perfectly. Along with the flow that is not broken by forced jokes, this makes it a delightful slice of life to watch. Just to let you know, there are some slight yuri bait and minimal fan service. This is a great light-hearted slice of life to watch. It is simple and fulfils its role to be relaxing and induces you with joy. There are not much to talk about in this anime, just a good slice of life done right.

I've watched a lot of CGDCT. I've also enjoyed a lot of CGDCT. While the best shows are able to not only be cute and provide wonderful characters who are a complete joy to watch but also provide something more to it, something that resonates and feels noteworthy, the mediocre shows usually manage to do some gags and have some fun but not excel with their characters or the things built with them. Vampire is in a weird middle ground. It's characters are good but not great, and the fun they have is decent but also not exceedingly cute and fun. And the show managesto both be insightful while also being fairly gimmicky and bland at other others. The interest point of Ms. Vampire is the different lifespans of humans and Vampires. This is a big point of the show and something that it explores in an interesting way. Rather than have heavy drama based off of it, it is true to its slice of life roots and shows the issues with it, and the issues the vampire's have due to it, without belaboring the point or turning it into melodrama. And while I would have liked the show to focus more on this point, it ultimately did well. However outside of that the characters aren't really notable. They are cute, and I do enjoy the very strong yuri tones throughout the show, but they don't have much depth to them, and they don't come across as anything notable nor do they make me love them with the sheer power of their character. They're fairly standard moeblobs. And while that plus the vampire angle is fine enough to make them decent characters it is a far cry from a great characters, which with some developing they could have been. The show also likes to rest on its gimmicks to much. While at some point it does tone them down the times where it focuses on it can get very tiring. There were a couple of scenes where they went out of their way to make the gimmick come up and have a joke around it. Many times the gimmick implementation suffers from poor writing and it feels like the show is trying to shove it in. Overall it results in a standard CGDCT with something extra. The art is nice, the sound is nice, and while they aren't notable they are perfectly fine for the story the show is telling. It isn't the most notable of CGDCT, and there are lots of things it could have done to be better, but ultimately it serves it's role in the genre well and adds that little bit more that makes it unique. And personally that's good enough for me to enjoy.

I really enjoyed this anime. I found it when looking for similar anime to YuruYuri. After having completed Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san I would say that I actually like this more. It is not as funny by a long way but the relationship between Sophie and Akari really resonated with me and seemed somewhat more realistic. It feels more like a romance. As the shoujo-ai genre goes, I think of this as one of the best I have seen. Not too serious, not sad or full of drama. It is light hearted, funny but has some real warmth. This a slice-of-life comedy with little plot other than thedevelopment of a relationship between Akari, a school-girl with a love of dolls and Sophie, a vampire who despite being several hundred years old still retains the appearance a girl of Akari's age. The music in this anime is very good with some very catchy OP and ED songs. Artwork is effective. There is Interesting use of color with lots of reds in Sofie's house. Character designs are memorable. Considering that there was at least one volume of the manga released after this anime aired, I am hopeful that their might be another season or perhaps an OVA for this anime.