Call of the Night

The Writer here is a loser at best! (I saw a good rating, and went to try this stuff, only to be disappointed.) I have these questions which made me derate this show for good. 1. As a vampire who has lived for decades, she must have a lot of encounters with humans who taste great. Still she chose to be with someone like him. Why? (hypothetical, but why?) 2. Vampires are supposed to be smart. She chose a loser. Women! 3. If he turns into a vampire, won't her supply of "Tasty Blood" cut off? (Still she chose to turn him into a vampire!?)ART cannot always save your as-s. All CHARACTERS are losers, and have kid-like personalities. Also remember guys, losers don't get girls. There are exceptions, but generally this is the case. 06/10.

Pink-haired goth vampire girl grooms a 14-year-old black-pilled incel. Call of the Night is a relaxing vampire anime about an antisocial middle school student named Kou. One night wandering the streets, he encounters a mysterious woman named Nazuna, and she turns his world upside down. As Kou gets to know her, he discovers that she's a vampire who has lived for decades and has been searching for a special connection. Together, the two explore the city's dark and vibrant nightlife and discover a hidden world of insomniacs, vampires, and unconventional love. Nazuna's relationship with Kou is purely transactional, so they say. She drinks his blood; hewants her to turn him into a vampire. The blood-sucking is played up to be sexual and embarrassing for Kou, and the joke never gets old. She is a very mysterious and powerful vampire who can fly and possess super strength. Her true intentions are mysterious, which makes her fascinating, but like Kou, she seems to be looking for a companion. She also acts as a mentor to Kou, teaching him about the supernatural world and helping him learn about love, vampirism, and vibing out at night. Kou is a relatable main character by design. He's antisocial, intelligent, loves big boobs, and feels free during the nighttime. Kou frequently narrates his thoughts, typically his feelings about Nazuna and explains the reasoning behind his behaviors. It's typically apparent what he's thinking, but the way he describes his thoughts is very poetic, so I can't fault the show too much for its wordy script despite its simplistic story. Kou's character arc consists of gaining self-confidence, understanding romance, and embracing his introversion. Through Kou, the show scratches the surface of intriguing subjects like sexuality, aromanticism, and intimacy. What is the "story" of Call of the Night? There's not much, and that's ok. The anime is practically episodic, and each one is about a problem Kou or one of his friends has that needs to be fixed. Making nighttime friends, considering the future, and contemplating romantic feelings are common. Call of the Night is an anime you watch for the vibes. It is designed to be watched on a laptop in bed at 2 am with the lights off. The writing gets dicey when you question the anime's unique supernatural logic. The premise requires Kou to fall in love with Nazuna to achieve his dream: to become a vampire. The rules are shaky; how do you actually gauge love? Is it measurable? A thing I like about the show is how it does develop their romance, and even though the age gap is unethical, they ride the line. Obviously, the author wanted to make an age-gap romance and had to write rules to accommodate that, and the rules aren't solid, so what you get is apparent fetishes hidden in plain sight. The more the characters say, "I'm only falling in love with her because she's turning me into a vampire", the more obvious it gets. Don't look at me like that. It's a fetish. Biting, saliva, domination, do I need to spell it out for you more? They avoid making the relationship creepy by telling the story from the young boy's perspective. He's attracted to Nazuna and tells us so with his narration, but she is only in it for his blood. Things only become a bit suspicious when she becomes jealous of him with other girls. That's when the age-gap bias in the source material pokes through, so if you can ignore a couple of weird moments, the rest is fine. It is a little contrived how they are forced to fall in love within a year, or Kou won't become a vampire. Yes. Does it make sense? Not really, no. But the ticking time bomb plot device adds a sense of urgency. The art style is very detailed, and the backgrounds are beautiful. The characters are all very well-designed and the colors used are vibrant and eye-pleasing—such a visually distinctive galaxy purple color palette. The animation is minimal, which benefits the quality of the background art. There are a couple of fight scenes that are brief but well-animated. The soundtrack combines calming and nostalgic mellow sounds with a relaxed, laid-back feel. It incorporates hip-hop and jazz elements and features low-tempo beats, heavily filtered instruments, and noise-based textures. There's one chill, hip-hop insert song throughout the season used frequently, but it never got old. It always fits the vibe and is a joy to the ears. With a mix of romance, slice-of-life, and comedy, Call of the Night is a must-see for fans of vampire anime.

Yofukashi no Uta is a brilliant tale of teen angst, depression and anxiety and one of the best examples of artistic storytelling I have seen in anime. By now, everyone has seen Nazuna memes and gifs floating around the internet, and while Nazuna is without a doubt a great waifu with some really funny moments. What makes Yofukashi no Uta so good is how it works as an allegory for mental health issues. Ko, the MC, avoids going to school by staying up all night and wandering around a gorgeously rendered nightscape environment. On that journey he meets everything from vampire families to other studentssuffering the same type of insomnia. Their character interactions act as the cornerstone of the series. Each person Ko meets on his journey each night provides a unique story and lessons. That’s the obvious part of the story. What people might miss is how the literal tone and colours in the show gradually change over the course of the story reflecting Ko’s perception of the world. At the start he’s obviously alone, then when he meets Nazuna his perception changes to become more optimistic. His quest to fall in love with Nazuna and become a vampire motivates him and gives him purpose. Those honeymoon phase episodes feature much brighter and more eccentric lights. When Ko finds out his wish may not be quite what he thought it to be initially in episode 12, the show takes on a more solemn and neutral tone. Within in the various episodes there’s mini examples of this as well. When Ko and Nazuna are having their nightly joy rides, the background art becomes an explosion of colour. While this may not seem like a massive deal to some, I personally found it incredibly refreshing and unique. Some anime will have things like this on a small scale, but I can’t think of one that legitimately uses colour to compliment the story to this extent. I really loved the symbolism of having these random strangers run into each other each night. Everyone’s got their own reasons for being out at night, whether it’s vampires hunting for food and “partners” or teenagers who want to escape their mundane and boring lives. The night is a means for people to be something more than they are in the daytime. Whereas Ko felt isolated and alone at school, he’s able to make a variety of connections and find purpose at night. I think that’s something that everyone can relate to. Everyone wants to find and be accepted by a group of like minded individuals. Humans are by nature social beings who need community. The night provides that community in Yofukashi no Uta. Symbolism and philosophical stuff aside, this is just a genuinely great show with some genuinely hilarious, but also heartwarming moments. Nazuna is so popular for a reason. Every scene she’s in just feels so alive and fun. But there’s some other great characters in the show as well. I personally thought Akari was the best girl and enjoyed the relationship she and Ko had. My one complaint with the show is that there wasn’t more of her. The vampire family’s introduction really got the story going after a couple of relatively stagnant weeks too. I wish we would have had more time with them, but I guess that’s all the more reason for a second season. Yofukashi no Uta, like the rap song that it’s inspired by is a really eccentric and colourful experience. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen in recent memory and its hype is very much warranted. While the actual plot of the show didn’t really get going until episode 8 or so, the character moments and stylistic direction choices make it a very enjoyable time throughout. Yofukashi no Uta gets 9 out of 10.

Monster movies has been a source of entertainment that has been around for a century. Iconic monsters such as Godzilla, King Kong, and Kajiu are recognizable by their reptuation alone. However, vampires has always been in an oddball position. There are some iconic vampires such as the infamous Dracula, but the sheer amount of vampires in the media today has been oversaturated. It's a market that hardly strikes as unique even when translated into anime. Thankfully, Call of the Night is one such show with vampires that I grew fondly of this year. Based on the manga of the same name, we have another adaptation createdby Kotoyama, who previously put themselves on the map with Dagashi Kashi. Call of the Night begins with protagonist Kou Yamori, a character with a lack of interest in school. Suffering from insomnia, he meets a strange girl named Nazuna who offers to help him with his insomnia problem. One thing leads to another and he eventually learns that she's a vampire. After being bitten, he doesn't turn into a vampire like in most monster movies because of the circumstance that he has to fall in love with her. A catchy twist, right? Call of the Night's story has a somewhat unique premise although the standard vampire tropes still apply to some characters. Nazuna for instance, still has an appetite for blood, although she doesn't hunt humans like a predator. Instead, she is protrayed as an outgoing and graceful vampire who acts like a teenager. This clashes with Kou's personality, who happens to be more reserved. He treats school almost like a prison and walks around at night believing it's his expression of freedom. A key selling point is the character chemistry between Kou and Nazuna. Seeing a human (well, in more sense, a half vampire) and an actual vampire interact with each other with contrasting personalities is no short of entertaining. Every episode protrays them like a daily adventure where they get to know more about each other. With each progressing episode, Kou also begins to open up more and feels less glommy when around others. Meanwhile, Nazuna's personality blends the line between a human and vampire. You could say that she behaves like a human but has the curiousity of a vampire as well. Remember, in order to be a full vampire, Kou has to fall in love with her. And at the center of this plot, these two will have to learn what love really means. If there's anything to learn from Kotoyama's works, it's that they provide a character roster with charisma. Funny enough, this is usually for its female cast while the main male protagonist is protrayed an Average Joe. Watching Call of the Night gave me a similar impression when we meet characters such as Seri, Kotoyama, Nico, among others. Perhaps the most similar character related to Kou is Akira, a normal girl with a self disciplined attitude. On the vampiric side, we meet Seri, another prominent character with a sarcastic attitude and just as playful as Nazuna. However, it's noticable that Seri is much more flirtatious and seems to always finds opportunities to tease Kou. Watching their chemistry feels like a test of love it's obvious that Kou doesn't have romantic feelings towards her. The fact is, this show main character pair is hands down, Kou and Nazuna. When you combine genres with supernatural, drama, and romance, Call of the Night fits with all those categories. But what about mystery? This show doesn't require Sherlock Holmes to solve cases related to vampires but we do meet a detective by the name of Anko Uguisu. Introduced late in the show, Anko is protrayed as an intelligent person but also an agenda against vampires. Let me just say that if there's anything close to an antagonist in this season, it may be her. On the supernatural romance, the anime doesn't develop any deep storytelling between Kou and Nazuna. Both characters remain relatively the same throughout each episode and the anime protays their everyday adventures like sitcoms. As mentioned before, vampire in this anime are protrayed in a much lighter tone. They act more like teenagers than monsters hunting for food. This is what seperates the show from generic Monster themed movies. Too often time these days, we see monsters protrayed as violent creatures but the vampires here are much more carefree. So in essence, Call of the Night is a relatively harmless anime that practically anyone can watch. Call of the Night often feels like mini-movies because the quality of its coloring, chereography, and overall designs. The animation studio went above and beyond by illustrating lustrous backgrounds especially during nightimes. It looks surreal and fits perfectly with this anime's theme. The nighttimes in this anime express a feeling of freedom, something that Kou deeply desires. Similarly, characters in this show always act carefree and enjoy the freedom of expression and life. And don't mind the character designs because they fit very well with Kotoyama's works. You don't need to be a fan of monster movies or like vampire to enjoy Call of the Night. In fact, you hardly need to. This anime protrays itself as a lighter supernatural drama than most genres. And truth to be told, I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed this anime from start to finish. To protray vampires in this matter makes it all too entertaining than seeing it being protrayed like some monster movie.