Otaku Vampire's Love Bite
Some vampires love drinking blood, while other vampires are huge nerds who love anime.
Disclaimer: Volume 1 of Otaku Vampire's Love Bite was sent by Viz Media and Bookinfluencers for a promotional TikTok video, all thoughts in this post are completely my own and the other two volumes were purchased by myself.
If you could pack up your bags to move to Japan, what would be your reason? To learn more about it’s history, connect with different people… perhaps learn a new language? For Hina, she moved to Japan because she simply loves Japanese anime. Honestly, I’d probably do the same if I could. Otaku Vampire's Love Bite by Julietta Suzuki is the latest fantasy romcom by the creator of the beloved series Kamisama Kiss. In this new series we meet Hina, she’s your typical otaku who obsessively supports her oshi. She spends too much money on blind bags, makes ita bags, and speaks about her oshi as if he was real but Hina is not a regular girl. She’s a vampire!
Genre: Fantasy, slice of life, romance
Age Rating: Teen
Publisher: Viz Media Shojo Beat
Status: Ongoing, three volumes currently out in English
Synopsis:
Hina is a modern day vampire who had not left her house in 30 years. She had become a shut-in who showed disinterest for being a vampire. She rejects the idea of drinking from humans and instead opts to consume blood bags. She showed no interest in anything until one day her father showed her the anime Vampire Cross. For the first time, Hina immediately showed interest in something. She became obsessed with the anime and the supporting character named Mao who became her oshi. As many otaku living outside of Japan know, it gets challenging to collect merch and the chances of going to events or pop-ups is virtually impossible. So what does Hina do? She packs up her bags and moves to Japan in order to live out her otaku dreams!
Just when her life couldn’t get any better she then discovers that her next door neighbor, Kyuta, is the spitting image of her oshi Mao. Although they look the same, Kyuta doesn’t care about otakus at all. He actually really despises them! Despite that Kyuta finds Hina’s childlike enthusiasm for her favorite character to be quite endearing. His soft spot for Hina causes him to get dragged to anime collab cafes, arcades, and other otaku places. Along the way, Hina does get to meet other fans of Vampire Cross and gets to try out more otaku things such as cosplaying! She also learns that she’s not the only vampire living out in Japan.
Favorite Things:
Hina: She is so damn adorable and super dorky. I really love how much she truly enjoys being an otaku and doesn’t really care about what others may think of her. She is truly living her best otaku life and part of me is a bit jealous that she is living my dream life. Also her fashion choices throughout the first three volumes are so good! It makes me want to cosplay her but which iconic look would I choose? There are too many choices.
Kyuta: At times our male lead does remind me a bit of Tomoe especially when he lashes out at someone. He’s also quite a grump as well, and just like Tomoe he also has a really big heart. I really do enjoy how far he’ll go to make Hina happy, and how much he cares for his friend Hoshino as well.
Fashion: I already spoke a bit about how great some of Hina’s outfits were but literally every character in this series has great personal style. I really love Kyuta’s outfits as well since they’re not as plain as male outfits typically are in a shoujo series. I really enjoyed seeing all their different outfits and accessories in all three volumes.
Notable Things:
Otaku culture: I really enjoyed seeing locations that I visited in Tokyo in this series. Seeing Hina getting excited about visiting Animate Ikebukuro took me back to when I went to that same location and also felt like I was going into heaven. I also really enjoyed seeing anime collab cafes and the arcades.
Ensemble cast: Much like Kamisama Kiss this series also has an ensemble cast of recurring supporting characters. From Hina’s vampire bodyguard Viktor, to Kyuta’s shy and weak friend Hoshino who becomes Hina’s otaku friend. Each character in this story is unique and add onto the insanity that is having vampires coexist with humans in modern day Japan.
Rating: ★★★★ / 5
This has been a really fun read so far! At this point of the story we’re still just seeing how these characters exist in Japan and their crazy daily lives. I do hope we get to explore more of Hina’s past, as well as Kyuta’s past. I don’t have an issue with lighthearted fun, but I think there is more than meets the eyes with both of our leads and I personally want to crack their shells and get to know them a little better.
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