HomeAnimeKarin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review

Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection – Review

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Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review 1Title: Karin: Chibi Vampire
Published by: Madman Entertainment (Australia / New Zealand)
Based on: Manga Series under the same title by Yuna Kagesaki
Genre: Vampire, Supernatural, Romantic Comedy
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic Widescreen (16:9)
Runtime: 600 minutes
Cost: $69.95
Classification: This title is rated M for Mature Themes, Violence, Nudity and Infrequent Coarse Language.
Blurb: Chibi Vampire is a Vampire series that goes down the “Romance” storyline path, however provides some comedy and a unique look at vampires, with the lead character being an unvampire that produces a copious quantity of blood whenever someone who matches her blood affinity is present.That being said, the storyline does not deliver itself to be anything but average. The design quality is average and whilst having satisfactory music and a great opening theme, the dubbing leaves much to be desired.
Special Thanks: Madman Entertainment PR Team for providing me with a review sample of this title.

Ever since Twilight has started to move its way into becoming the definition of what Vampires truly are (Heaven forbid it actually happens), I have been able to have a greater appreciation for any series that brings back to us what the true definition of Vampires are – Blood Suckers who cannot handle the sun and have a close connection to bats and so-forth. While the manga has also been released into English – and more recently in Australia by Madman Entertainment, I am starting this anime with a clean slate with nothing to compare it to. However, this is your general vampire romantic comedy with a slight twist – that  brings a unique look into the vampire world that does not involve an emo depressive teen and a several hundred year old vampire who does a mixture of seduce her and sparkle when in the sunlight. 

Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review 2

Karin Maaka leads an ordinary life in spite of the fact that she is from a family of vampires. Unlike the rest of her family, she has no problem with bright ligts, sleeps in a bed instead of a coffin and loves to eat garlic. She is such an abnormal vampire that she doesn’t even suck blood – she makes it! Everything begins to unravel when she gets uncomfortable urges every time she gets near her classmate, Kenta Usui. Will she hold back the urge to purge or give in to her need to bleed?

Over the last decade or so – we have had a number of different vampire anime series hit our shelves, often resorting to having a certain twist to help progress the storyline along… such as Moon Phase having Hazuki who is a day walker, Rosario+Vampire having the lead vampire character suppress her vampire instincts whilst at school and now we have Karin: Chibi Vampire, where Karin is an un-vampire who can create blood instead of draining it. This is a rather simple sounding idea – but it is surprising how no other series has used this concept before. The vampire culture in this series also differs in ways such as pickyness of blood due to the victims affinity, age of vampire onset, and a few vampire hunters thrown into the mix. Sure this may be a romantic comedy first up, but everything else is rather novel in ideas.

Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review 3

The storyline revolves around two primary characters – Karin Maaka and Kenta Usui. Whilst Karin only has to deal with hiding the fact she is a vampire, which was relatively easy prior to the events of this storyline, Kenta has had a troubled upbringing due to his mother being unable to hold a job for too long (Due to a different reason then you would expect) and that has left him with an unhappy mood. Every vampire has a different affinity towards a certain mood of a person – such as stress, pride, envy et certa, and the affinity for Karin just so happens to be unhappyness. Therefore, the first part of the series is dedicated to Karin attempting to make Kenta happy in order to avoid spurting blood in every instance they are around each other (Such as making boxed lunches and the like) as well as Kenta working out that she is a Vampire after witnessing her bite a random man and his mother (Who ends up extremely happy-go-lucky afterwards). These are most probably the better episodes in the series as I believe they are both more solid in storytelling then the more sporadic nature of later episodes, but as well are apparently closer to the original source material that spans off in the later parts of the story to facilitate the new characters and a unique ending.

If there was not as heavy a vampire-oriented plotline in this series, I do not think it would have proved as successful… as for example, making a boxed lunch for a guy more to gain his support and to stop blood spurting out of your nose is a much better premise then “OMG! WHAT A CUTE GUY! I SOOOOO MUST DATE HIM!“. The introduction of Karin’s vampire family – each with their own traits also makes for interesting (back)stories that interweave themselves through the storyline well. The other two characters in the storyline – Winner (An eccentric vampire hunter who is unique to the anime series) and Maki (Karin’s best friend) also prove to provide interesting takes that elevate them past the “friend” role in similar storylines – with one episode for example dedicated to Winner doing a class-wide vampire hunt whilst Kenta and Karin try to avoid being caught. Maki on the other hand does not have a major role in the first parts of the storyline, but holds a much stronger role in the final stories which are successfully implemented. There are a few episodes that are irrelevant to the storyline, including the obligatory swimsuit fanservice episodes – however you will find more fanservice in the opening sequence then in the actual series.

Overall, I think the story works well with what they have, and that it does not decend to a bland teen romance series, instead using the “true” vampire and un-vampire elements successfully. The cast of characters is suitable to the plot however a number of them do not receive the ample character development that I would have liked in a series – such as being characters that are there every few episodes for the sake of being there.

Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review 4

This anime was released at the end of 2005, so I am not expecting graphical brilliance as to that of more modern series, however in comparison to series that were published around that time-frame, I would say that it was only satisfactory at best. Whilst the quality is improved upon at some points in the series, the environments are usually just that, background designs with a simple design and nothing more. Character designs are varied depending on the character – such as Karin’s younger sister Anju who is most probably the most detailed out of the rest – but most of the non-Vampire characters could have used a bit more detailing. Whilst they are not included in most recent anime series, this uses a nice collection of Eyecatch segments to indicate the beginning and ending of a commercial break (Generally around the middle of the series).

Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review 5Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review 6Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review 7

Opening Sequence
scarlet by BRACE;d

There are officially two opening sequences in this series, both with the same animation and music however for the first four epiosdes, Winner is blanked out for the purposes of being a new character to the story. Overall, I enjoyed the song which was a rather upbeat J-POP track that complemented the animation well. The actual quality of the animation was appropriate, with the use of more still clips and clips with light animation then anything overly active.  My only qualm was with the degree of fanservice present in it when only a limited portion of the storyline involves any fanservice at all.

Ending Sequence
Mou hitotsu no birthday by Fm.θ

I didn’t enjoy this sequence at all. Whilst the ending song was a slower paced song which wasn’t all that bad, the animation didn’t have anything to do with the series other then Karin making a cake with Anju for Kenta.

Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review 8

Overall I was impressed with the quality of the music in the series, with a nice diverse soundtrack that worked with any setting posed by the series. However, the voice acting leaves much to be desired. The dubbing was not undertaken by Geneon (Who were the original distributors for the title) but instead relied upon the assistance of Odex in Singapore – which means that this series does not incorporate any of the normal voice actors you would hear in most English dubs. After the first 10 minute of watching Episode 1 I was tempted to stop watching and base my review off “Painful English Dubbing”, however I continued on, and by the end I will say that I found the dub improving episode by episode and thought it was satisfactory by the end of the series… On the plus side, the other vampire characters besides Karin really did a good job at getting across the Vampire tone of voice.

In terms of packaging, they have included a reversible cover art – with one being the anime style graphics of Kenta and Karin and the other (inside) cover being more aligned with the manga design of the two characters. The cover is bright with much detail and not a single space seems to have been neglected with either the floral (Blood) design, screenshots or the normal blurb covering most of it. Disc designs are seemingly unique to the collection, with three of them having anime designs of Kenta, Karin or both on them, and one containing the manga design of both on it. In terms of extra content, they have included the following:

  • Textless Opening #1-2
  • Textless Ending
  • Trailers for the following series: K-ON Volume 1, Vampire Knight Volume 1, Tsukuyomi Moon Phase Collection, Evangelion 2.22 You Can (NOT) Advance and Eden of the East Movie 1.
In other words, nothing special in terms of extras.

Karin: Chibi Vampire Collection - Review 9

In the end, I am more then welcoming to anything that keeps the spirit of true Vampire-ism alive! The storyline may be your ordinary romantic comedy with vampires included into the mix but I think with the interesting start and conclusion, the series gets itself across the line as a satisfactory story that managed to keep me glued to the television a disc at a time. The series would have however, benefited from a more solid voice cast that perhaps might have not tempted me to stop at the first episode.

Final Score

Storyline/Character Development: B-
Design: C
OP/ED Sequences: B
Music/Voice Acting: C (Music brought this score up)
Packaging/Extras: C+
Personal Opinion: B-
Overall Score: C+

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

1 COMMENT

  1. It was good, wasn’t it? Even the fanservice was good-natured and tolerable. Winner was annoying, but that’s about the only thing I disliked about Karin, and Kenta was a great foil for her. Definitely an underrated show – one that sets modest goalos & achieves them with grace –

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