Review of Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut

Set in a world similar to Cold War era Soviet Union in 1960, Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut is set during the space race between the Zimitra Republic and United Kingdom of Arnak to attempt launching the first person into space. Lev Laps is part of a cosmonaut candidate training program, who was demoted to a backup candidate due to insubordination against a superior officer. Needing to test how the conditions of space would affect human candidates, Lev is tasked by the Zimitran government to train a teenage vampire named Irina Luminesk to be used as a guinea pig for testing out how humans would farein a space expedition. As Lev becomes acquainted with Irina through their time together, the two come to confront their prejudices toward one another and become closer as the series progresses.

As commented on in my opening paragraph, Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut is meant to be a sort of historical fiction anime as the two major world powers in the space race within the series are obviously made to represent the real-life Soviet Union and United States, the former being given prominent focus through the Zimitra Republic. For the most part, the series is fairly accurate to depicting the historical times within 1960 Soviet Union with the government's oppression, purging, and censorship of anything that makes its country look weak to the world at large, is critical of the government, or threatens said government's authority and influence. Other elements of the country like naming, food, technology, and environmental conditions are also pretty accurate to the time period as well. There are some inaccuracies with elements to the anime's depiction of the Soviet Union through Zimitra that are mostly minor, but one glaring inaccuracy that stuck out was Zimitra having a female cosmonaut candidate with Rosa when this did not occur until 1961 with the Soviet Union months following Yuri Gargarin's launch into space. But whether or not you fret over such minor changes will depend on how fickle you are with the details of Irina's historical accuracy.

Setting aside the details of historical accuracy, Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut is largely focused on its main pair of Lev and Irina, and the series is largely pretty typical fare with how their chemistry plays out with Lev the "nice guy" and Irina acting largely like a tsundere. The series devotes a good amount of exploration on their characters with how both got to their present situations and how both overcome their personal prejudices for their different kinds and has its amusing moments with the chemistry between the two as Lev works to break through Irina's seemingly cold personality. The two become closer as they come to care for the well being of each other, with the series implying things are getting to a romantic point yet the series ends inconclusively before getting to such a point with their relationship developments. While the chemistry developments with the two are nothing new as far as anime titles go, the series still devotes enough focus and fleshing out of the pair to have you come to care for Lev and Irina.

As far as other characters go within the series, they are kind of hit and miss. Many exist to fulfill roles to aid in or deter the efforts of Irina and Lev in their training as test subject and cosmonaut candidate respectively. Some like Anya and Rosa do have development or fleshing out with their characters in regards to how they view their relationships with our two lead characters. Anya's developments come off genuine with the chemistry she has with the two characters and the effort she goes through to aid them. But Rosa's focus in a later episode comes off feeling kind of sudden as her character didn't have much in the way of fleshing out throughout the series beyond being antagonistic toward Lev and Irina in her occasional interactions with them.

In short, Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut comes off feeling like a mostly solid series with the largely faithful historical accuracy of the space race between the Sovi... er, Zimitrans and Arnaks. Lev and Irina are pretty typical as far as characters go, but there's enough fleshed out in their chemistry and developments to have you care for them. Supporting characters, for the most part, don't have much to them beyond largely fulfilling some sort of role to aid or deter the two lead characters. While not breaking new ground to a good degree as far as plot and character developments go, I was still entertained with Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut for the most part and have interest in seeing a potential second season, as the title's light novel source material has yet to be fully adapted and recently wrapped things up with its story from what I gather.