Vampire Dormitory 1

Do you love vampire stories? Or are you a sucker for shoujo romances where the main guy doesn't know the main girl is a girl?
This is a not a well written manga series. It is as generic as the title "Vampire Dormitory". If you've read a few series, you have seen all this before. It requires no thought or investment from the reader.......But hey, fluff is fun sometimes! So if that's what you're looking for here it is! Have fun!

This is literally one of the best mangas I have ever read!! Hot guys? Hot vampires? Love? The scenes with vampire bites that are incredibly hot!! Ugh! It’s got everything and I am now ordering the next volume! I cannot get enough!! 10/10

I gotta admit, I'm over the crossdressing trope when it comes to cisgender characters. It's just kind of tired at this point. It was a fad over a decade ago and the synopsis of this manga feels a bit overdone. I don't even understand why the main character in this manga is disguising herself as a boy. The only purpose it serves is for her to get a job among other male staff at an all-boys café. But! Everything else about this manga, I loved.

The vampires of this manga aren't the typical. There's no mention that they can't go out in the sun (which, to me, is half the point of the character being a vampire), but they don't eat human food, at least. To them, though, human blood changes flavor depending on how much love the person has felt in their life. As a general rule, girls taste better than boys. Blood from someone who is deeply loved will taste like strawberry juice, but an unloved person will still taste disgusting. That's where main character, Mito, comes in.

Mito is a girl but dresses like a boy. Girls flock to her because they think she's a very attractive boy. (Creepy old men also flock to her, thinking she's an attractive boy...) Her family never loved her and kicked her out. She has no family anymore, and no friends. And when the manga begins, she's just lost her job because the restaurant where she works was tailored for old men to gather and eat but young girls keep coming in to flirt with her. I don't understand why (a customer is a customer, right?) but the restaurant owner is angry about the change in clientele and fires Mito.

Mito ends up at a café where a vampire named Ruka works, and they come to an arrangement. Her blood is disgusting, but she's willing to let the vampire feed from her in exchange for room and board and a job at the café. She doesn't seem disturbed or scared by the vampire at all. (Well, I mean, he is gorgeous...) And he has a secret of his own, a reason why he can't feed from girls, so to him drinking the disgusting blood of a "boy" is still better than feeding from a girl. And he vows to love Mito until his blood tastes good.

The other guys at the café don't know Ruka is a vampire, but there's someone else who does: Ren, a boy who hates vampires, because a vampire stole his mother away and turned her into one of them. Ren warns Mito about Ruka and vows to protect her from becoming a vampire, even if he has to drag her away.

The art in this manga is absolutely stunning. I love male characters with beautiful faces (all of the guys in this manga are pretty!) and especially with long hair like Ruka's. The characters have depth and complexity to them, but for the most part this manga reads like a romcom and it's very lighthearted and comical. I like the worldbuilding, but the story did feel a little bit rushed. At least it's going to have several more volumes! I like the relationships between them all. There's a pretty boy who seems infatuated with the vampire, Ruka. Ruka has a manservant who changes into a bat, and he's also gorgeous. Slayer-wannabe Ren keeps trying to stand in Ruka's way. And a love triangle seems to be developing, with both Ruka and Ren crushing no Mito, whom they think is a boy.

The author also did some cute side-panel comics about unrelated topics, like their cat. lol I enjoyed this manga a lot and look forward to more!

I am super happy I requested this book. It is a neat take on Vampires and blood. The small twist with the protagonist was a surprise and a tad amusing. I can't wait for that to come out and how everything unravels from there. It looks like there could be a love triangle in the future which is a tad disappointing. That trope feels overplayed so much but there's nothing set in ink yet, just a feeling. The author did great with the ending, leaving us wanting more. I will definitely be getting more of these asap!

This was such an enjoyable read to kick off 2022. I found this take on vampires so intriguing and something I haven’t come across to often. I love the the secret identity aspect of this book. The only downside I really had is I felt like there was something missing in fleshing out of this idea of vampires and a thrall and how Ruka could only feed from a fated women. Maybe that picks up in the next book and I’ll definitely be reading it, Im just in no rush.

[[VIDEOID:4c12183582f5412a789d1b5929684bdf]] I didn't get to read it yet but I feel like I read it before but I'm pretty sure I know it's gonna be good

Overall: 3.66/5
I read through this in a breeze. I was very entertained felt like this was a great introduction to the story and characters.
It felt like maybe a little more time was needed to flesh out some of the ideas, but that's fairly common with mangas in my experience. It did a good job of introducing all of the pieces I think we need going forward which is really the most important thing.
It still feels like the world is a bit of a blank slate for me but when there were specific settings I wasn't lost. I knew exactly what was going on and where the characters were. I think there was just enough world-building done to ground the reader but not detract from other important aspects of the story.
I enjoyed our introduction to these characters a lot. I felt like I understood some motivations more than others and am looking forward to getting to know the characters better in future books.
I liked that there was a bit of internal conflict in addition to the external. I felt they related to each other well.
I love/hate a good cliffhanger. I definitely need to know what happens next. I just hope there if future resolution and that not every volume ends with a cliffhanger.
I enjoyed the pacing. It might have been a touch slow for me, but I find I like faster than average pacing.
I enjoy Ema Toyama's style and have read several other of their works.
Beautiful manga illustration.
CW: Blood, classism/homelessness, pornographic or sexually explicit content (light female outlines), self-harm and suicide

So I usually don’t go for a manga with a fantasy creature in the human world, but this one is actually intriguing! I really like the concept of the “fated partner” and how the male love interest doesn’t like women.I also love the gender bender aspect to this! I was SO excited at the end of chapter one when it was revealed!

As always, Toyama has stunning artwork. I seriously can never get over how beautiful it is. And the translation for this manga was very well done too!

I think I’ll be picking up more of this series!

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this manga in exchange for a review!

Overall...this one wasn't that bad. It was a bit too cheesey, but it also had all the basics you could want. So if you're looking for vampires, two cute boys as competing love interests, girls secretly dressed as boys, and lots of close proximity scenarios, this one may be for you.

Thank you to NetGalley, Kodansha Comics, and Ema Toyama for the opportunity to read this manga in exchange for an honest review.

Mito doesn't have a home. She dresses as a boy to avoid attention as she is living on the streets. When she catches the attention of a vampire, Ruka, he asks her to be his thrall (or blood slave, as it were). The catch? He has no clue Mito is a girl! Ruka, believing Mito to be a boy, finds her blood distasteful, as she seems to be unloved (that affects the blood taste).

The two seem to start to like each other, not knowing why. Bad boy Ren enters the scene, a possible romantic rival. He finds out about Mito's secret right away. Some aspect of his past drives his need to protect her. Somehow Ren knows Ruka is a vampire, but none of Ruka's other classmates know. What part might Ren play in the grand scheme of vampires and thralls?

I absolutely loved this manga. Beautiful art. I love the girl-dressed-as-boy-but-boy-doesn't-know-he's-actually-a-girl trope. Love it. The characters and relationships are interesting. This is a must read for vampire fans and shoujo readers.