KARIN
I’m A-positive this series needs work!
Review by: M.H. “Denizen of the night” Torringjan
Length: 24 episodes
Genre: Comedy, surpernatural
Watched: Entire series, subbed
I suppose it’s time for me to weigh in on the moe phenomenon, like every damn other anime reviewer on the internet. It apparently has become a sort of big industry in anime to produce series designed to bring out the slathering pedophile populace into the light. Moe anime, like Tsukuyomi, this series, and others, are intended to induce strong feelings of sympathy or protectiveness in their viewers towards adorable female leads who generally look like they’re ten or twelve. The success of the genre has led to a glut of generic series, all with unbelievably cute heroines (assuming the “hero” label can be applied to an essentially helpless character) that uncomfortably toe the line between reason and loli. Karin, another adorable vampire series, toes the same line and ends up skewing towards the more disturbing side of the spectrum.
Plot summary: While one normally thinks of vampires as sucking blood from virgins and turning into bats or dogs or the most badass thing that Alucard can come up with, this is a story about the exact opposite. Karin Maaka is a young vampire, the middle daughter of a family of vampires in modern Japanese City X. She walks in the light, doesn’t suck blood, and isn’t sensitive to garlic. Oh, yeah, and she doesn’t suck blood. I know what you’re thinking, what sort of stupid, lame-ass vampire doesn’t even suck blood? Well, I’d like to know myself. Anyway, instead of sucking blood, she produces it and has to transfuse people with her blood. She comes across Kenta Usui, for whom she has a particular taste, as he’s depressed constantly, and he kind of figured out her secret because she couldn’t hide it from a mentally handicapped third grader. He avoids having his memory wiped because he can be useful, but now Karin has to deal with the intrusions of vampire hunters, as well as her dogged insistence that she’s not falling for Kenta.
Artwork: The artwork for the series is decent for a 2006 series, with crisp visuals and good use of colors. The backgrounds are decent, but suffer from dull drawings on occasion, making the overall effort slightly less than ideal. The character design is fairly generic and matches the characters well, with the only innovative design coming in the character of Bgi, the possessed doll. Kenta’s character design looks like Monkey Luffy after a couple of years, winning the creepy eyes of the year award. The character design of Karin suffers from EVA-syndrome, making her look about four or five years older than she really is (and she’s not aged much since becoming a vampire). In all, it’s not too bad, although it could be better.
Music: The minimalist attitude towards music is well, and what’s used is nicely fit to the mood of the scene. However, it sometimes feels more like generic sitcom music and does nothing to improve the feel of the show. The opening and closing tracks are really just J-pop, and nothing fantastic at that. While I will say it has a slightly more dynamic feel than most generic series, it’s still nothing I’d go out of my way to download.
Characters: The cast here contains a mix of the two genres of romance and vampire anime, as Karin is the moe heroine and a vampire. She lives to make the hero happy, but is struggling with her attraction to him. She is shy, easily embarrassed due to her vampire-ness, and dependant on others, which inspires overprotection from others. Kenta Usui is awkward, oblivious, and inexplicably drawn to Karin. He has a strong base to his personality, though, which can show up when things aren’t going his way (often), or when he has to protect Karin (also often). Karin’s brother, Ren, fits into the lecher role of romance anime series, as he’s drawn to feelings of anger. He’s a smooth-talker with a girl for every night of the week, whom he seduces and then sucks their blood. He’s very protective of his sister and suspicious of humans, whom he considers cattle. Anju is Karin’s sister, a quiet waif who hasn’t fully awakened to her vampiric powers. She watches over Karin during the day out of concern for her playmate and older sister, and feels some jealousy towards Usui for taking her sister from her. Winner Sinclair is a young vampire hunter who joins Karin’s class and doesn’t realize that she’s one of his prey, possibly because he has the mentality of a mentally-handicapped third grader. He takes pride in his hunter heritage, including nightly patrols for vampires. Not only does he not notice that Karin’s a vampire, but he falls instantly in love with her to the point of ignoring other girls, including Karin’s friend who falls for him. The cast is fairly standard, and doesn’t do much beyond the whole reverse vampire thing to innovate the genre.
Plot: While the idea of a reverse vampire would seem to have a wealth of comedic potential, here all it’s used for here is a bunch of excessive nosebleed jokes. The series takes an entirely episodic approach to the plot, with an occasional bit of continuity thrown in to tie a couple of things together. When the only thing tying the plot together was the romance plot and the subplot about vampire hunters and trying to make Karin into a full vampire, the substance grows kind of thin at times. The nosebleed idea was initially an interesting idea to express the backward nature of Karin’s powers, but with time, it was overused as essentially the only way you could tell her as a vampire. Also, the story feels heavy on fanservice for a series about a high schooler. And while I’m not one to complain about seeing hot scantily clad chicks, seeing ones that are supposedly younger than 18 is disconcerting.
CHICKS!! As previously mentioned, the series makes heavy use of fanservice on the part of Karin. She has features that appeal to the moe audience, in that she’s insecure and needs protecting often. She confides in people she feels close to, and she’s willing to do anything for the man she loves. Her cooking and housekeeping skills back up that desire. In addition to that, she’s got a well-developed figure, complete with Gainax bounce-infused breasts. As mentioned, though, she’s just a tad bit on the statutory side, so you might want to back off for a couple of years. However, if you're not really willing to wait that long, the opening sequence Is just for you. It would fit easily in an ecchi title, showcasing almost every inch of Karin's undead but silky smooth flesh.
Overall: While there are some tender moments in the series, most of it amounts to the standard moe romance series with a cutesy vampire sullying the good name of badass vampires everywhere. While it doesn’t make any half-assed attempts at being an action series like some other moe vampire series we know of, it doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from real romance series. While it’s a real step above a harem series, and slightly better than other moe series, it doesn’t do much for the genre besides being cute. I’d go for something else before watching this.
In a nutshell:
+ Good artwork
+ Not a harem series
+/- Decent soundtrack
-Generic plot
- Flat characters
Final score: 6/10