Nov 14, 2019
Alright, it's been a minute since I finished reading Rosario + Vampire so my memory might be a bit foggy and it's my first reviewing anything. Plus, my birthday is in two weeks so please be nice to me. That was a joke. I've been trying to use this site for more than just tracking anime and manga, but that's neither here nor there.
Now, I could go into more of my history with anime, Rosario + Vampire (which I will now be referring to as R+V) being one of my first, but this isn't about the anime so I should save it for some other
...
time. No, this review is about the good manga and how I came to recognize the mediocrity of the anime adaptation. Fun fact: R+V and Berserk are what got me into reading manga.
STORY (7/10):
Don't get me wrong, the story is good, but you shouldn't expect a Miura coming into this series. If you've read the manga you probably know what I'm talking about. This series follows the monster of the week formula (lol) with the conflicts taking around a volume or less to resolve. This wouldn't really bug me all that much, but like with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, as much as I like these short stories there isn't really any overarching narrative to tie it all together.
ART (8/10):
Going back and skimming through the manga has made me realize how much Akihisa Ikeda's art style changed over the course of R+V. The art in the series isn't bad, far from it, but this isn't Sui Ishida we're talking about. In all honesty, the art starts off as good but generic-looking. Thankfully, as the series continues Ikeda develops a more distinct style that continues to look great in R+V Season II, which I am currently 5 volumes in. But one thing that always looks good is the action scenes and monster design. Ikeda's action scenes are probably the best part of the manga with some honestly disgustingly intense artwork.
CHARACTER (8/10):
At first glance, none of the characters are anything special, just some shallow archetypes with no real depth. This is made most apparent the generic brown-haired loser main character #40, Tsukune Aono. And while I did agree with that sentiment when I started the series, the characters get some much-needed depth and go beyond those archetypes as the series progresses. Especially Tsukune.
OVERALL (8/10):
I quite enjoy this series. The story is serviceable at first and only gets better with time granted you can get past the monster of the week formula (lol) that plagues most of the series. Akihisa Ikeda isn't revolutionizing the medium with his art but it is still good art. As I said it's a generic-looking at the beginning, but Ikeda develops a unique, great looking, art style and throughout the whole series has some great looking action scenes. The characters, while not the deepest out there, do have some development that makes them more than generic and are just generally fun to watch.
When I first started getting into anime I was a part of that group that only watched anime and were sick and tired of those "elitist japanese comic-book-loving fucks" that kept insisting I read their silly right-to-left books. I was wrong. I admit that. Don't get me wrong, I don't think you should exclusively read manga or watch anime. Do whatever you prefer. All I'm saying is that if you hear someone suggesting you read the source material, manga or light novel, because its "better than the anime" maybe you should consider it. It might just be.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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