Title: Blood Alone Volume One
Mangaka: Takano Masayuki
Serialized in: Dengeki Comics (Media Works)
Genre: seinen, supernatural, romance, slice of life, mystery
N. American license: Infinity Studios
Rating: 13+

Blood Alone revolves around a shoujo vampire (about 10 – 13 years old) named Misaki, and the man she lives with, Kuroe. His age is indeterminate so far, but he’s clearly past school age, a writer and part-time private eye. Despite this rather obviously lolicon situation, their relationship is a chaste one, even though they sleep in one bed together. Compounding the oddness of their arrangement, she has not made him into a will-less slave, a “Renfield” — which makes them unique in this milieu.

There is a lot more to Kuroe than meets the eye, however. Mysteries in his past and regarding his abilities are revealed slowly throughout the chapters. Although Misaki is “newly-turned”, a young vampire, she is protected by Higure, another child-vampire but one who is extremely old and powerful. Sainome, a police pathologist, is an old friend of Kuroe’s who sometimes asks him for help with odd or difficult cases.

This story is fun because it doesn’t focus solely on the action, nor does it sacrifice the action and mystery for the love story. Both are used effectively, sometimes one side in one chapter, sometimes the other, and a couple of times both are wound together in the plot.

Takano’s artwork is obviously influenced by shoujo style, but unlike some shoujo it is graphically clean, both when it confines itself to panels with borders and when it shifts to border-less pages. I thought this shifting quite innovative. Too often in shoujo manga, I find some scenes — especially action scenes — drawn too densely to see clearly what is happening. This is not a problem here. Misaki is always shown with a hint of her fangs, never letting the reader forget what she is. I would likely continue with this manga for the art alone, even if the story weren’t interesting.

Blood Alone volume two continues to develop the characters of, and relationship between, our adorable little vampiress and her detective-cum-writer. Takano continues to deftly balance the story on the edge of action and romance.Kuroe is taking on clients as a detective while Misaki visits Sainome. While Kuroe, once home again, is dreaming of his dead sister, Sainome tells Misaki other details about him, mixing into a delightful narrated look at his past. Misaki is jealous, but not nearly as jealous as the next chapter when it looks as if Kuroe has forgotten her in favor of an actress at a cocktail party. Higure, the child-like ancient vampire, makes another appearance, giving Kuroe some doubts about Misaki’s hunting habits. After a delightfully cute valentine’s story, Takano gives us a three-part story, that delves deeply into the various forces at play in this nighttime world the two lovers live in.

We are introduced to the “Einseigrad Sparuda” (The Crimson Sword), a group of vampires who are assassins for hire. They have been hired to kill an ex-assassin and Kuroe is hired to protect him, but the vampires have made the man’s own daughter into a “Renfield” (see my review of Blood Alone Vol. 1). By the time this extended action story gets going, both Kuroe and Misaki are involved. There’s no way I’m going to spoil it for anyone, but it’s exciting and well-worth the read.

Infinity’s production of the book is quite good, with no typesetting problems that I could see and the binding is top-rate — they didn’t skimp on the binding glue! I also appreciate that Infinity took the trouble to make a dust cover like the Japanese tankoubon have. The full-color cover and frontispiece add delightful touches. Blood Alone employs one break with manga tradition: black background borders do not indicate the past or flashbacks, but rather nighttime. Those borders fade from white to grey to black as the sun sets and vice versa in the morning, highlighting the danger to Misaki when she is inevitably caught outdoors.

I recommend Blood Alone highly. If I have any complaint, it’s perhaps that the 13+ rating might be a bit young — not due to violence or sex, but simply the subtlety itself. This runs in a seinen magazine, after all — college-age men’s publication. The story is delicate and most issues are handled subtly. Despite the lolicon situation, it is not played up at all, with zero use of fanservice whatsoever, which I appreciated. The action is actually exciting and Misaki is completely adorable.