kanna-chan's cafe

Hey guys, kanna here. And welcome to Halloween-month! Um...ani-ween? Hallo-me? We really need to come up with a better name for this. I mean, the Nostalgia Critic has Nostalgia-ween, and that works, but I can't come up with anything for my Halloween-themed posts. Nothing sounds right. Suggestions? Hm...now that I think about it, nothing really works, so we'll just call this Halloween Anime Mondays (but that spells H.A.M...now I'm overthinking this).

Anyway, I thought I'd start the month off by reviewing something that's more of a comedy, but has monsters in it, so therefore, it counts for Halloween. Say hello to Rosario + Vampire.

So, where to start? Well, Rosario + Vampire originally started out as a manga written and illustrated by Akihisa Ikeda. Inspiration came from the manga series, Kaibutsu-kun (a monster manga series), as well as some works by the the warped mindset of Tim Burton, such as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands (not that those aren't great movies, and Tim Burton is a talented director, but some of his movies are a little messed up).

Like I said, this series is a little more on the comedic side of things. So I'll try to make this as funny as possible, but given my sense of humor, I make no promises.

The series revolves around a boy named Tsukune Aono, a middle school student who failed the exams to get into the local high schools. However, there was one school that he could get into, despite his bad grades: Yokai Academy. The twist: Yokai Academy is a school for monsters, and if a human comes into the picture, the penalty is death. So Tsukune has to keep his human identity under wraps.

The first person Tsukune meets is a vampire named Moka Akashiya, and through this meeting, he is convinced to stay. Moka wears a rosary around her neck that she can't remove herself, but if someone took it off, an "honest to goodness vampire" would come out. Tsukune also meets Kurumu Kurono (a succubus), Yukari Sendo (a witch), and Mizore Shirayuki (a snow fairy). They all become friends, and the girls fight over Tsukune.

There isn't really much of a summary to give, as the show is pretty formulaic. So this is going to be one of my shorter reviews, and we'll just skip right to the rating.

Rating: um...4/10

Why: The show is pretty formulaic. We have a monster of the week that has to be fought, so Tsukune takes off Moka's rosary. Tsukune shows his kindness and acceptance of the other monsters, and nothing of major importance really happens until the end of each season.

There is fan service, but it's geared more towards boys, and most girls (excluding the LGBTQ community) would feel pretty uncomfortable seeing all these up-skirt angles and Tsukune being a total pervert.

This series tries to pass off as a romance series, but the romance is actually sexual harassment. Don't believe me? Look at what someone on MyAnimeList had to say about it: Seven Anime That Pass Off Sexual Harassment as Romance. Rosario + Vampire is towards the bottom.

Additionally, there isn't really anything that defines the characters beyond their physical appearance. While they do have their own personality traits, these are all downplayed by all the fan service that the animators want to give the audience. It's really kind of annoying (but that could be just me, because I'm a straight female, and clearly not the target audience).

The few things that give this series its redemption are the different songs used for the opening and ending, which are all sung by Moka's voice actress, Nana Mizuki. The opening for the first season was "Cosmic Love," and the ending theme was "Dancing in the Velvet Moon." For the second season, the opening was "DISCOTHEQUE" and the ending was "Trinity Cross."

So...yeah. One of my shorter reviews, but the others will be longer (I hope).