Vampire Rose

ElyOfIce Nov 20, 2012

5

I don't expect one shot mangas to be anything extraordinary, heck I may be the most biased one shot reader on the planet. But with certain authors it is wise to maintain high expectations and Arina Tanemura is one of those authors. However Arina, whom I found to have written some of the better one shots out there, really disappointed me with this one. Really what is up with the vampire craze? Has Twilight spread seas too? Dear lord help us all. Now without any further ado let's dive right into this rather short review for a short manga. Story: Mira is a young girl who is constantly being pursued by a young man named Hikaru. Desperate to get her to join the Super Natural club Hikaru goes to no ends to convince Mira who still firmly stands on her rejection. Vampire Rose's weakness to me is that I feel like I have READ this manga before...no let me think it is on the tip of my tongue...ahh yeah! Vampire Knight? We got the Hikaru who actually turns out to be a vampire, and Mira who actually turns out to be a vampire to. Sound familiar? While I may have only read a few volumes of Vampire Knight, reading this manga really felt like that I was just reading another volume with different characters for some reason.  While it may be a stretch to say the story is exactly the same, it was very similar in important aspects that made the whole rest of the story suffer. I did like the idea of a Super Natural club though, and the writing did run very smoothly without feeling like things were added that were unnecessary Art: Arina Tanemura who is known first of for her beautiful art, and second for eyes larger than the rest of their faces. All of those traits are here, and boy are they wonderful. I am a huge fan of the artwork in this story and one thing that especially pleases me is...we FINALLY have a female protagonist that looks different! Arina  Tanemura, while is a great artist, suffer from what I would like to call artists block. It is like she cannot come up with different character designs and thus we got Maron who looks like Haine and Haine who looks like older Mitsuki. This manga was absent from that however, and none of the characters couldn't really be compared to anyone else. Wonderful! Characters: While the plot may have suffered, I actually thoroughly enjoyed the characters in this manga. Each of them was relatable and often times could you make you laugh. Hikaru may have been one of the best male protagonists out of Arina's one shots to date. And Mira is a strong female character because while she was weak in the beginning, she shows a huge change of character towards the end. Character development is very strong in a manga that is really short and that is a rare trait to find. Overall Excellent! Overall: While this may have suffered from some key weaknesses Vampire Rose can still be enjoyed for what it is. I would recommend this to Arina fans and Shojo fans.