Karin is your typical teenage girl as far as everyone at school is concerned, but she's got a secret, she's actually a vampire and she is anything but a typical vampire. She enjoys the sun, attends school like a human, and she has way too much blood! Instead of drinking blood once a month her body has to expel all of her excess blood through nosebleeds that look like a crime scene! Thanks to this she's an outcast in her own home and after the arrival of transfer student Kenta Usui her condition grows worse, instead of just once a month nose bleeds the poor girl gets on every time, she sees him! Karin is certain she can kiss her normal life goodbye if she can't figure out how to control herself around Usui!
I've wanted to read this one forever, so I was pretty stoked when my local comic book shop had four copies of the first four volumes. Honestly, so far, it's pretty much what I expected, and I am totally okay with that because it's adorable.
Thanks to Karin's condition she is treated like the odd one out in her family, so you've got some pretty interesting interactions with her parents and her siblings. What I found interesting though is while her parents definitley seem to be against her being so "human" at first as the story goes on it's pretty clear that the do support her, they just don't know how. It's a pretty great reference to both parents and children dealing with the teenage years. As a parent I have to admit that I'm super lucky in that my kids are very much like myself and my husband, so we've never really had to deal with having a kid that just made no sense to us. However, I have several nieces that are just the exact opposite of my sister in every way possible and there's a scene in this where Karin's parents have used a tv show as a reference as to how to deal with their "weird" child and honestly, I could see that happening in my sister's home. And there's nothing wrong with that, I think if anything it shows how dedicated her parents are to trying to meet her on her level and I love that. I also enjoyed how her relationship with her little sister seems to be reversed. Not going to lie since I watch almost strictly animated shows, collect plushies, and have been known to make a blanket fort to spend my days coloring more than a few people have assumed that I am the younger sister so it's just kind of nice to relate on that level.
We don't get to see a lot of Usui in this one, mainly because Karin spends most of the book avoiding him but what I've seen of him I've enjoyed. He's the only child of a single mom who has problems keeping a job due to her employers sexually harassing her, Usui of course feels like he needs to step up and contribute more to the household because of this, while his mom absolutely believes he should spend as much of teen years being a teen. Honestly, this is a pretty common theme for both male and female characters during this time period for manga and anime, so he is very stereotypical for the time. But I think for the younger generation this gives a pretty accurate glimpse of several issues in Japan during the timeframe. Being a single mother was (and is still just not to this extent) frowned upon in not just Japan but many parts of the world during this time, her employer even makes it clear that she shouldn't be working but be at home taking care of Usui. I think it really shows how far we've come in equality rights that this isn't a theme that comes up as much as it did anymore. Obviously, we have the conversation regarding his mom being punished for unwanted sexual advances as well. Something that most definitely still happens.
The one thing that really surprised me though is how little Kagesaki compares Karin's once a month nose bleeds to a period. The implication is there of course but at least in this volume she doesn't pursue it as much as I thought she would. To be fair I think the only reason this stood out to me is that I just kind of assumed that there would be some gods awful jokes about it so it was nice when they never appeared. At one point a classmate even explains that because Karin is anemic, she has fainting spells every once in a while. As a person who is anemic and does actually have side effects when I am on my period I figured she'd at least grab that low hanging fruit, but she didn't and I gotta say I respect her for it. Again, it's volume 1 so that may not last, but I am hopeful!
I think it's safe to say that I will be continuing this series, unless it goes sideways in the next three volumes, which I just don't see happening.
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