There’s just something about vampires…

And all the more when they are Japanese.

This is the post where I tell you my favorite vampire anime. There are plenty of top 10 lists out there, but these are the ones that I enjoyed. I hope you do, too.

Vampire Hunter D

vampire-hunter_d

This is the one that started it all. I think the first Japanese anime I’d ever seen was Totoro. There was this girl I met at a bus stop in San Jose and we became friends based on our book preferences. (Go figure!) She invited me to her apartment and we watched Totoro in Japanese while she interpreted it for me. I have loved anime ever since.

Oh, but we were talking about vampires! So, years and years later I was working as a tech writer and there was this programmer who lived over the cubicle wall from me (you’ve seen Dilbert comics right? Office Space, maybe? yeah, so you know about cubicle walls). And he slipped some anime over the wall and it was Vampire Hunter D and BAM. Hooked on anime again.

Vampire Princess Miyu

vampire-princess-miyu

This is the prettiest of them all. The art is gorgeous and the story’s atmosphere so very full of beauty and creepiness. Hard to explain, you just need to watch it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hellsing

Now this is a classic! You gotta love a series that names its main vampire by spelling Dracula backwards. That’s some chutzpah, right there. But besides that, there are some great characters and interesting politics and a lot of great anime action. Miyu may be the pretties, but this one has so many kickass pics that it’s hard to choose just one.

Vampire Knight

Vampire-KnightThis one is pure YA (young adult) fun, through and through, with the love triangle and everything. What to do when you’re supposed to be guarding everyone from the vampires, but you have a crush (maybe?) on one of the vampires… One of the best things about this anime is that it only has two seasons, so you get a complete story (more or less) without giving up years of your life watching hundreds of episodes. Ha!

 

 

 

 

Oh, yeah, and of course I enjoy the classics…

dracula-untold…Even though they aren’t Japanese. There’s the haunting and beautiful story Carmilla, which you can download free from the Gutenberg project. And the original Dracula by Bram Stoker (and the movie version).

Anne Rice has done so much for the genre with her many books, especially with the fascinating Interview with a Vampire and our introduction to Lestat.

The recent movie Dracula Untold was pretty cool, too. Go, Bard! I mean, Luke Evans. Heh heh.

I’ll tell you a secret!

In my own story world, the vampires are called hemavores. “Hema”, meaning blood. And “vore”, meaning that’s what they eat. You know, carnivore, herbivore — and hemavore. Hemas, for short. Of course, it doesn’t really matter what they’re called. They’d suck you dry in a minute if they could get away with it.

So tell me, what’s your favorite vampire story?

Drop a comment below and enlighten me.

from far away

A review of this Japanese manga, with stars in my eyes

WOW.
i’m in love.
again.

perhaps if i were paying closer attention, i wouldn’t be so surprised. i’m somewhat predictable in this area.

i checked out more manga from the library. just finished reading volumes 1-4 of from far away by kyoko hikawa. love it!

i admit, it was a bit of a rocky start, and i almost didn’t read it. the beginning is such a cliche that I had to laugh a little. the drawing style was a little old school (for my tastes), which made me wonder if i’d be able to get into it (without being distracted by these factors).

then there was the explosion and the rescue.
and the good-looking, reluctant hero.
more trouble.
another rescue.

ah, the typical unlikely and at-first-resisted shoujo relationship, with just the right dash of naivety. the girl saying, “i’d never act like this at home, what am i thinking?” and the guy saying, “i’ll most likely kill her in the morning.” (or was that the princess bride?) LOL.

>flips through the book again<

i looked at the copyright, and it’s originally 1991 (released in America in 2004). that explained the manga style. by the end of the second volume, though, i was totally hooked.

and not just by the story! the artist did some great effects, the layouts are solid, the characters very expressive.

i never realized how long certain manga techniques had been around until i read this series. think about it — after 15+ years, manga has been using the same basic look, layout, effects techniques, and visual shorthand. it’s practically a visual language.

>stares off into space, remembering little artistic details<

okay, maybe i’m getting carried away, but still! i guess that’s part of the beauty and tradition of the manga medium. 15 years seems like a long time to me (compared to my lifespan so far), probably because even the Web has only been around for barely ten years. if i really looked into it, they’ve probably been doing manga like that for lotsa decades.

whew! i’ll stop thinking about years and decades now. my brain isn’t hurting, but the room is starting to spin a bit. ^_^

so, back to the story.
the japanese schoolgirl gets thrown into a fantasy world where she is the key to everything. hmm… sound familiar? everyone is after her, actually trying to kill her. not to mention the random forest monsters. what’s a girl to do?

trip and fall to the ground, scream in fear, cry a little, and cling to the hero, apparently.

about the only thing special she has going for her is that her dad is a sci-fi author. that’s gotta count for something. it’s probably the reason she’s able to pull herself together and start learning the language of this new world. (a nicely realistic addition to the typical multi-dimensional story — how does the whole universe manage to speak english in all those other stories, anyway?)

i love how hikawa keeps the identity and true nature of the hero (anti-hero?) secret for several volumes. peeling back layers of backstory is always nice.

so i haven’t finished the series yet, but for now i give it a solid OH, YEAH, READ IT BABY!

if you like fantasy-style shoujo manga, that is.
or want to find out if you like it.

>grins, shrugs, picks up the book and keeps reading<

polly and the pirates

a review of Polly and the Pirates comics

i love the drawing style for polly and her strange water world. are there any buildings actually on land? there are docks, i guess, but most of the buildings seem to be boats. towering, three and four story, sprawling victorian boats (or whatever the time period might be, i’m no expert).

beneath young polly pringle’s dull, proper, rule-abiding schoolgirl surface lurks a bold, clever, sword-fighting pirate.

and it doesn’t take much to scratch the surface.
a few threats to harm her good reputation and her friends.
and her pirate self leaps onto the page without ado.

a swash-buckling good ride.

on the critique side… i gotta wonder if ted has trouble drawing hands and feet, because the characters are a bit short-changed on those items.

but there is a panel or two with very. detailed. gnarly. old. sailor. hands…

so maybe it’s about artistic shorthand (um, pun intended, i guess) and not lack of skill.

i can relate to that.
artistic shorthand, that is.
(well, i can relate to lack of skill, too… but that’s another story)

i’ve been thinking about what it takes to keep a webcomic going regularly, and how much time it probably takes for those that post more than once a week. my time on the computer is kinda limited. no, no, no–not by a straitjacket! well, not exactly. but there are… restrictions.

so how will i find time to keep such a thing going? as a reader, it’s really hard to wait when you get hooked on a webcomic and then the author doesn’t post regularly.

>turns a half-hearted frown in the direction of caroline curtis<
>but can’t keep frowning at a favorite storyteller…<
>the frown morphs to hopeful, puppy-dog eyes<

after all, we’ve all got real lives to live outside the Net. well, most of us do. so… one of the things i’d probably do is pick a style that i can draw quickly. not heavy on the details. not too busy in the layouts. because, hey! (imho) it’s all about the story, anyway. as long as the art is good enough to get the story across, you can survive if it’s a great story.

not that i want to do sucky art.
uh-uh.
but i’m not one of those artists that’s super picky about certain details. at least not with a webcomic. i want a rollickin’ good story, that’s all. artistic shorthand is a-okay.

anyway, back to the polly review. ted naifeh is a GOOD artist, for sure. didn’t mean to imply otherwise. just noticed that the hands and feet were sketchy. the story is great, characters interesting, i loved looking at the details on the ship buildings and even the spirals he used in the wave foam.

conclusion? a pleasure for the eyes and the imagination.
is there more on the way, ted?
coming to a library near me?

what are you waiting for?
go read it already!

skip-beat manga

a review of Skip-Beat Japanese comics

Skip-Beat Volume 1 Coveri’m reading Yoshiki Nakamura’s shojo manga “Skip-Beat!” the layouts are sometimes a bit confusing (and therefore the whole series seems less polished to me). it’s often hard to tell whose thoughts you’re reading, and she likes to span several pages with a single thought separated into several words at a time — PLUS you have to read the dialogue, and cute little action notes, so my brain gets full trying to follow all those fragments. BUT nonetheless, the story caught my interest.

a girl who has been self-sacrificing and boring and normal is transformed into someone of passion by a traumatic incident. it’s not a good thing, in some ways — her dark side is unlocked by a cold-hearted rejection. but even that is interesting to watch.

the art includes illustration of the evil spirits that are given freedom to operate in her life when she lets rejection lead to anger, hate and bitterness. these spirits, labeled “grudge” and “hate” and such things, fly around her. even other characters notice this dark aura.

but she quickly realizes that she has lost something precious by letting this dark side run free. and she seeks to restore the “human emotions so precious to life” that she lost. it isn’t easy, though. a small angelic “pure self” spirit flutters around at times, fighting with the illustrated evil ones. but her “pure self” gets womped quite a bit. no telling how long that battle will go on.

i’m interested in stories that bring the invisible, supernatural side of life into visibility through various manga or movie techniques.

here, put on these 7-D glasses and tell me what you see. heh. yeeeaah… i wanna do that.