Virgin Blood: Hiiro no Bansan

VIRGIN BLOOD - HIIRO NO BANSAN - 06242018 OVERALL: 7.6 PLOT: 6/10 Vampires sucking blood out of people is kinda cliche. If there is no different twist made, it is highly possible that there will be no impact on the viewers heart. I love to read incest genre, most likely the dad-daughter and brother-sister relationship. This one is a dad-daughter love but the girl is an orphan living along with the vampires. The twist of the story is kinda unique, I guess. But the story is too fast pace it decrease it's capability to make a good story. CHARACTERS: 6/10 There's really no expectation made for a short manga, mostof the time. It's very rare to see a short manga whose characters are well developed. The characters in this story played their role just fine. It's not really something bad, it's just it is also not something that good. ART: 10/10 The art of this manga is really great it make me screenshot it for about a dozen of times? The lines, the clearliness of the drawing is really something. Though the emotions is sometimes not aligned in the face the character is makin', it is a very detailed one. The hair, the face, it is too cool. ENJOYMENT: 8/10 I enjoyed looking at the art, all the time. The character is so cool I wished they're true. Well, a typical shoujo love story is almost always wanted by a girl. Sometimes, enjoyment is not really because of the plot, it can also because of small scenarios and gestures of the character that make the reader enjoy it. ENDING: 8/10 Expected but unexpected. I thought it'll end there. A small twist, a cliche ending. It's kinda common but it's kinda not. The application of the twist makes it a rare one, I think? But it's for the good. The ending turns out into a shock and it's kindof unusual ending that you might like.

I understand that forbidden love is attractive, but I was a little uncomfortable with the slight incest. Granted, the two lovers were not related by blood, but he is her father, the one who changed her diapers! The age gap is negligible because he's a vampire, but I am still perturbed by it. Mimiko was always feeling fluttery after her father touched her, yet mentally slapped herself for thinking of loving her father in another way. And suddenly things changed even more for the worse when she realized what exactly she was raised for: a virgin blood sacrifice for a bunch of vampires. Yeah, theplot seems to throw things at you without warning. To be honest, what little I liked about the romance was each gesture. Smoothing back her hair, touching her lips, patting her shoulder. Little things like that made a big difference to Mimiko and I myself would be thrilled with such attentions. But again, the somewhat forbidden love between an adopted daughter and her father plus the forbidden love between a human and a vampire blew things way out of proportion and made the manga less enjoyable. The reasons for their love not working out were briefly explained and tossed into the story without much thought. I know shoujo manga always ends happily, but it was just too obvious that it would be like that given the way the story was executed. Ah, about Mimiko and her father. They are typical characters to shoujo and I really mean that. Mimiko is the cute and innocent girl discovering romantic feelings for the first time, and her father is the cute guy who catches every woman's attention with a smile, a nice man. I neither dislike them or like them. The selling point of the manga would have to be its art. While it isn't the most beautiful I've seen, the men are gorgeous and the girls are cute. I especially love the way the cafe at Mimiko's place is designed, and school uniforms are crisp. A few backgrounds are prettily drawn and you can see luxury and beauty in different places. Pleasing enough to the eyes even if the story isn't much good. Hmmm. I can't say this manga was something I was eager to read, but neither was it painful. There were no parts where I was super amused, save a little bit of the beginning, but that was it. Once the ending came near and was super predictable, it became bland. I would not recommend this to anyone, to be honest. It isn't because it's that terrible, but because I see it has nothing special to talk about.

I still feel a pang of disappointment whenever I see this title. It had potential. A simple title of vampirism with an absolutely gorgeous male lead and an okay female protagonist but it just fell into melodramatic schlock with a very dissatisfying ending. I loved the art very much. I found it to be quite beautiful and competent and the male lead was competently okay in that he was serviceable for being the charming vampire that he was. The daughter was fine but easily replaceable with any other random girl, and the other vampire butlers could have been done away with. The whole "I can't livewithout you" plot has been overdone and didn't bring anything new to the table: Paint-by-numbers and very typical, with an ending that left my so disappointed for what the story could have been--basically anything but what ended up happening. You know, I don't think there really even was that much potential in the story, I just hate it when gorgeous red-haired bishonen are wasted in a crappy story such as this.