Animania

Okay, it isn't quite as soon as I'd been planning, but as I mentioned in my last review, in addition to the Chibi Vampire manga series, I'm reading the Chibi Vampire: The Novel series. The novel series is written by Tohru Kai, with the manga's writer Yuna Kagesaki providing the illustrations. The first novel was published a few months after the manga was released. So far, most light novel series I read that tie into an manga and/or anime series are either straight adaptations (like Blood+) or the original source material (Trinity Blood). Chibi Vampire: The Novel is neither. Instead, it is actually neatly tied into the manga, fitting within the manga story line at various points. The first novel is set between the events in volumes 1 and 2 of the manga and the second between volumes 2 and 3. The third and forth novels are set in the middle of the forth manga volume, during Karin and Kenta's summer break. The novels, of course, reference events and characters from the manga, but the manga also does the same. I think its great that Kagesaki and Kai worked so well together to enable the novels to work so well with the manga.

That said, one shouldn't think that Chibi Vampire: The Novel is the same as the manga, just in prose. The novel series was published under Fujimi Shobo's mystery label. As such, in each volume, Karin and Kenta get involved in various strange and mysterious events. In the first volume, Karin bites a rich high schooler named Youichiro Juumonji, but Anju's usual memory erasure doesn't completely work. In order to find the girl who "hugged" him and made his life better, Youichiro begins "kidnapping" girls from Karin's school to test hug them. He eventually gives this up and transfers to Karin's school. After quickly figuring out it was her, he begins pursuing her as his good luck charm. Kenta doesn't like any of this one bit. While Karin thinks Youichiro is an okay person, he also sends her into blood overload even worse than Kenta. When she learns Youichiro was behind the kidnappings, though, she isn't sure what to do, because all the girls who were kidnapped were also raped while they were drugged. Karin and Kenta have to figure out what really happened, before Karin becomes the next victim.

As you might guess, the Chibi Vampire novels are a bit more adult, to me, than the manga. Tokyopop puts cute and silly descriptions on the back, and labels them as comedies. While they have a lot of hilarious moments that had me laughing so hard I nearly cried, they also have some serious events happening, with multiple sexual assaults and harassment, attempted murders, and some rather vicious bullying in the four volumes I've read. So if you want silly, immature comedy, skip these, but if you can get past the bad Tokyopop descriptions and are looking for well-written and relatively well developed novels that expound on Karin and Kenta's continuing adventures, with lots of humor but with some nice twists and quite a few serious moments as well, go get these now. I am thoroughly loving them, particularly in reading them along with the manga series. Kai's commentary at the end of each volume also make for fun reading.

Though Tokyopop uses rather poor descriptions, their releases of the novels are otherwise nice. They only slightly modify the original Japanese covers to match the manga releases and the print is clear and large enough for me to read without my glasses but not insanely huge. I do with they would take a page from Seven Seas, and at least keep the color pages at the front. Tokyopop does include them, but they are all converted to black and white. Can't argue with the price point, with $7.99 a volume being right in line with any standard fiction paperback. I just hope that it doesn't end up like some of their other novels, and left uncompleted. So far, though, they seem to be committed to finishing them, with volume five due in July. I'll be picking it up, of course

Rating: A

Late? Just a little. After the insanity of March, April was back to a more normal size with me finishing off one series, starting a new novel series, and filling in some gaps.

Nana, Volume 09 (04/07/2008)

Ballad of a Shinigami - Momo: the God Girl of Death, Volume 1 (04/10/2008)

Chibi Vampire, Volume 02 (04/10/2008)

Sunflower (04/10/2008)

Blood+ Volume 1: First Kiss (Novel) (04/14/2008)

Chibi Vampire, Volume 03 (04/14/2008)

Passion, Volume 04 (04/14/2008)

The Moon And Sandals, Volume 02 (04/14/2008)

Tokyo Mew Mew, Volume 01 (04/18/2008)