Review of Vampire Dormitory

Vampire Dormitory - Please don't make this work as the definitive version of a legendary anniversary...let this be a learning lesson for all. Vampire stories are the bane and boon of any industry medium, both in the West and everywhere, and as a guy myself, I do love to take a gander at stories that can actually execute the vampire theme well, with recent examples ranging from the comedy series of Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu a.k.a The Vampire Dies in No Time, to growing modern classics like Yofukashi no Uta a.k.a Call of the Night and Vanitas no Karte a.k.a The Case Study of Vanitas. However, Ireally sympathise for the Shoujo audience, which has been really looking forward to some good Shoujo content for the past few years, to not only be baited by garbage/trash Isekai-esque standards of delivering nothing but the worst, but to feel like anime producers just don't want to gamble on actually good Shoujo works floating all around.

And in this season, Vampire Dormitory is that show, from a female author that I ACTUALLY respect for her past works: Ema Toyama, with 2009-2015's Watashi ni xx Shinasai! a.k.a Missions of Love, being her most prized work, winning Best Children's Manga at Kodansha's 36th annual Manga Awards, and a source work that I'm very closely knitted to being one of my favourite manga of all time. In fact, Ema Toyama got her start publishing stories for one of Japan's oldest Shoujo manga magazines: Kodansha's Nakayoshi, which features the classics of the likes of Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. But to see Ema Toyama go from said manga to Vampire Dormitory, being the best that Nakayoshi has to offer currently, the Shoujo AniManga scene is truly in deep shit and trouble being so out of touch.

I'm not going to sugarcoat things: in the words of fellow reviewer @gingerholic, Vampire Dormitory is truly the "best of both worlds," combining Twilight with Ouran High School Host Club, because having a career of being a mangaka for 20 years be damned to write lots of stories, and yet, have a severe case of writer's block enough to produce this bullshit of a Shoujo work. This is the story of Mito Yamamoto, a beautiful Ikemen whose life is not so blessed by Lady Luck, and after having someone drink her blood but only being told that it tastes bad, he already declares himself defeated by life. The kicker: the same guy who drank his blood, saved him from a near-suicide, and soon reveals that he's a vampire in disguise, trying to seek out his destined partner to become the Lord of the Vampires. As if this plot isn't twisted enough, Mito is actually a girl, being feminine in nature, but with looks akin to those of an Ikemen, which also puts the girls to delight. It's a game of hide-and-seek about hiding secrets, but this game is infested with too many no-shit-Sherlock moments, which is the definition of tropes stacked one onto another with no end in sight.

I already knew that this cast of characters isn't going to stack up to the likes of Ouran High School Host Club, but even with them being a much more BL version of it, just doesn't make things anymore tropey and instead, just fuels for more braindead interactions between a girl who chooses to crossdress just because, and guys who are hot Ikemen by themselves, yet are dense in the larger scale of the picture, especially towards Ruka Saotome and Ren Nikaido, a vampire and a dhampir, respectively, for showering love to Mito in their own ways that only the likes of Twilight can manifest. To that end, I would say that this is indeed Japan's version of Twilight, only more cringeworthy and a clear frustration at the behest of Ema Toyama's crude half-hearted ass of a plot and, presumably, her version of a fiery drama of relationships gone horribly wrong. Again, even along with the co-conspirators of Komori being the cafe owner of a sweets shop that house both vampires and normal humans of Juri and Takara Kagurazaka, I just find myself being so baffled at what a Shoujo of a near-BL-esque this can be, to the point of puke.

Studio Blanc's production is serviceable, I'll give it that, and the same can be said about the OST itself, which is also decent, if not mediocre at best. Also, FANTASTICS's "Sugar Blood Kiss" for the OP song is such a perfect fit for the series, it almost seems like this is the ONLY true standout of the entire show.

Seriously, I was hoping better for the Shoujo market when it comes to anime, but aside from producers having cold feet to just go with the current trend of the Shoujo genre, having works like these just tells you that Shoujo anime is born to die once works get greenlit, and there's just no getting out of this seemingly never-ending winding trope of "bad boys being good for relationships."

For the love of God, AVOID this show at ALL costs. You're not missing much...unless you're a Twilight fanatic and want some more of these cringeworthy BS stories like this.