It’s spooky time so of course I felt compelled to watch some spooky anime. I don’t particularly enjoy graphic horror in any sort of film/tv show form because I’m a huge wuss but I really can get into just those associated monsters and themes (I do love being depressed by my media) as long as there’s not a jump scare lurking to get me. The point I’m trying to make is that I’m watching Rosario + Vampire because it’s all about an average ordinary guy and the spooky scary monster school who goes to. It’s kind of sort of not like Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School if it was nothing like that at all. There’s a school where students who represent a multitude of different monsters/yokai attend and our average ordinary guy goes by mistake but oh wait the one vampire girl is in love with him! So it the succubus! So is the witch! So is this other assorted monster! You get the gist.
My college classmates loved this show. It was constantly mentioned in venerated tones as if this was the kind of show that had changed what we could truly perceived anime to be. They had R+V wall scrolls, they had the R+V DVDs, they had all the merch with the exception of the original manga for confounding reasons. I never gave it the time of time because of an Otaku USA review that, and I am paraphrasing here, so that the manga was a perfect representation of having your sucked by a vampire because the sheer loss of energy was tantamount to the same feeling. Harsh words, nameless Otaku USA contributor. Anyways, I’ve now watched R+V and am barreling through the manga. I want to rant about it. It’s not a new rant but it’s the one that empowered me enough to get on my blog again.
The problem that lies at the root of Rosario + Vampire’s machinations, in spite of a somewhat novel if uninspired premise, is that the anime is unrelentingly horny despite the manga being way tamer by comparison. I felt my brain leaking out of my skull and becoming a thick puddle around my ankles watching the anime. It was so much so that I started reading the manga in tandem with my anime watching. This is something I have almost never ever done before but I had heard just how much the original anime was lambasted by manga readers and had to get a sample of precisely how the anime tried to copy the manga’s recipe only to make a whole different kind of food dish instead.
Rosario + Vampire is HIGHLY formulaic early on in manga form. The first few chapters are almost always as follows: Tsukune, Moka, and company have a typical Japanese school issue (math tests, joining a club). There’s some minor drama between them and eventually a member of the cast is left to fight a new monster of the week be it mermaid, lamia, or ogre. They almost inevitably get backed into a corner during the fight and Tsukune has to remove Moka’s rosario to unleash her full vampire powers which leads to an almost instantaneous curb stomp by Moka. The drama resolves and we continue on. Tsukune eventually can join the fight becuase of the plot and is sometimes the hammer of justice but the deviations are rare. The art is cute enough and the formula isn’t unwelcome just because seeing who and what the new monster is can be enticing.
And the first season usually keeps to adapting the original manga. It rearranges the story to introduce characters sooner (because we gotta get these marketable waifus as fast as we can) but it’s not terrible at the crux of getting the story on to the screen. It does, however, take obscene liberties with how it gets it on screen. Obviously, Rosario + Vampire’s mangaka knew what kind of monster they themselves had created so, as is stipulated in the romance anime contract, there is a pool chapter/episode. It’s so thick with fan service that you would need one of those hot iron balls that all the kids love to watch TikToks of to melt through it. It has water game antic, “my boob your big your boob small” dialogue, and so many shots of girls in bikinis (a surprising majority being nameless background girls) that it’ll exhaust your willingness to even pretend to care. I’m not even a prude; I just actually found my eyes glazing over at another scene of an anime woman in swimwear.
Now the manga had no complaint with a little fan service here and there. There are some surprising examples of restraint such as when full vampire Moka does high kicks and usually something is blocking her skirt in some capacity. Anime Rosario + Vampire could never employ such tact. It feels as if there has to be a minimum panty count that Gonzo CONSTRACTUALLY HAD to fulfill because, just in a single rooftop scene, Moka has her panties dangling out from her skirt. It isn’t an upskirt shot, the wind is not blowing conveniently, there are no stimuli to propel her skirt upwards. Her whole panties are just simple hanging beneath her skirt. If I was generous, I would blame that on some sort of silly character modeling shenanigans but that would imply that Gonzo’s staff just don’t know how even a fictional woman’s proportions work. It’s ludicrous.
What makes this even worse is that all these slams I’m issuing are over the first season. The first season, somehow, restrains itself far better than the second. The second season almost immediately diverts from the manga only to rarely return to the original vision. The fan service is almost nauseating. Season two has more cheesecake than a Cheesecake Factory that also doubles as a Sara Lee factory on the side. I was in a state of shock. This is what my anime club classmates were hyping up? This was the show that was mandatory watching? With that kind of perception, I have to wonder if the amount of illicit drugs they were consuming had permanently altered their brain chemistry.
This kind of thing is always a delightful tale as it concerns the anime and manga community. What makes an anime go rogue? It’s almost always an anime catches up to the manga story but sometimes we have to wonder why to this magnitude? It’s most likely something compelled by the production committee or sponsors if we really dig into reasoning. We have enough money for two seasons but not enough content for two so bada bing bada boom here’s your horny on main and alt second season please go buy the DVDs. It’s just a shame because Rosario + Vampire’s manga is a light fun read. Akihisa Ikeda is adept at drawing the kind of anime women that would pervade Megumi pin ups and that merchandise is just clamoring to be made of. His story telling, thus far in my reading, hasn’t wowed me but R+V was published in a shonen magazine. I’m not expecting the wheel to be reinvented or even improved upon. I’m just expecting it to turn.
I’ll absolutely never return to Rosario + Vampire’s anime unless we involve having my head being held at gunpoint or we implement the threat of physical violence against my loved ones. I didn’t like it at all. I will keep reading this manga though. The original forty chapter run was the epitome of 7/10 and Season 2, or so I’ve been told, amps up the stakes (HAHAHA BECAUSE VAMPIRES I DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE PUNS). I just hate to fully be aware and present at seeing an anime fumble a fresh enough concept for me. Maybe we’ll get a Rosario + Vampire Brotherhood when all the other deserving manga of the world get to have their own rework but I’m doubtful. Until then, you need to read the manga for this. The anime isn’t even good enough as material for the dirtier motivations you might have.
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