It’s time for some vampire stuff running around. Naturally you know that vampires isn’t quite my main genre and this being a romance/slice of life title it doesn’t quite raise the stocks here. Ultimately it is better than the average vampire title but I would still give it a thumbs down in the end. The ending definitely doesn’t work out very well and the characters should have handled things very differently. At least we avoided a decent amount of blood sucking but of course it still does happen sometimes.
The story starts off by introducing us to Ko who is just depressed. On the surface his life seems fine. He is very popular at school and has a lot of friends. His grades are good and so life should be fine but he feels like he has no real purpose. So he wanders around at night and one day bumps into a vampire named Nazuna. She tends to be rather bored with her immortality too and the two decide to become friends. It’s a bit transactional but hey Ko doesn’t mind his blood being drained. Now he would rather hang out with her than continue his daily life but it looks like he’s starting to become part vampire too. Will this complicate his life?
Part of that premise is pretty fun because the idea of walking around outside sounds very enjoyable. In a dream world without crime I’d certainly like to try it sometimes because it’s a whole different environment and the views would be great. I’d never try that in real life though because that’s how you vanish. Yeah statistically speaking you’d be fine but I don’t really take chances like that. So I can see why Ko enjoys this and it’s something different to do. It also feels rather “taboo” in a sense so he finds it exciting since it’s his chance to break the social rules.
The series also handles his depression well. Sometimes you don’t have to be depressed because of some big sob story or a huge event. It could be as simple as you wake up one day and just wonder what you’ve been doing with your life. In a way Ko has been playing a character while at school and has been unable to really be himself. Now with Nazuna he finally has a person who really understands him or at least he feels that way. Of course it does rope him into a lot of trouble but in a way this is what he has been looking for so that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Nazuna is fairly reasonable and won’t drain him dry. That may not be the case for other vampires though so Ko has to watch out. He’s introduced to a whole vampire group of sorts with some girls who think that he’s a liability. Fortunately Nazuna has a lot of clout and physical strength so they aren’t quite able to mess with him in any way like that. Nazuna always has his back which is good. Ko really wants to be a vampire though and may not understand the full gravity of that so a lot of the series is really about this. There are no takebacks after all. Once you’re a vampire you have to avoid the sun and you will be immortal. So if you get bored of being a vampire after 200 years, well that’s tough.
As the series goes on we also find some difficult truths out about becoming a vampire. If the vampire really loves you as you are drained, then they will die so the vampire is turned will be all alone. It’s a risky gambit there especially since Ko thinks he is in love with her but what about Nazuna? You have to assume that the whole concept of love and romance will be very difficult once you have been alive for so long. The feelings are just way different by that point.
The series also spends a lot of time on vampire society as a whole. It’s mainly a big secret from the masses. There are legends and stories but it all gets suppressed rather well and so there are no big wars going on between humans and vampires. This series isn’t really about action so that makes sense although I do wonder a bit how that’s really sustainable. There aren’t a lot of vampires running around as it’s a fairly small group but you still do feel like leaks would be impossible to stop and eventually the government would be aware of what’s going on. Ah well, I guess that’s just how it goes.
The world building is fairly detailed and you could just say that vampires have the edge here. They can drain people in secret and when that person wakes up they likely won’t remember anything. Since the vampires are mainly very responsible the risk isn’t quite as big as it would usually be. If the vampire population starts to grow then this would be more of an issue which is also where part of the concern in turning Ko into one starts to come in.
Akira is Ko’s childhood friend and she is concerned about him the whole time. Ultimately there’s not a whole lot that she is able to do for him so she tends to take a backseat here. I thought she was a good friend though and someone who always wanted to help him out. So I appreciate her dedication there and she was friends with both Ko and Mahiru so she helped keep the balance even when things got a little tense between them. She may not have had the most conclusive ending but her role in the series was certainly rather large.
Mahiru gets a big role too but he’s more on the annoying side the whole time. He is another kid who is really popular at school but is really faking it the whole time. His home isn’t the best environment to grow up with as his brother died a long time ago and the parents never really got over with. He falls in love with one of the vampires named Kiku and that starts him down a dicey path. For starters he wants to really become a vampire and starts to get super jealous of Ko. If he handled this reasonably then I wouldn’t have minded so much but the guy is just super petty about everything. He picks fights and generally seems like a bad natured guy.
I think the series was trying to have a nuanced take about the guy but he just felt really sub par the whole time instead. I couldn’t root for him and while I sympathized a bit with the backstory, it didn’t excuse his actions in the present. So he didn’t have the greatest ending but it’s hard to feel too bad for the guy. He made his choices every step of the way and there’s not much that you can really do about that. At that point it’s really all about what he wants to do.
As for Kiku, you could call her the main villain of the series. Like I said this isn’t an action series first and foremost but when she shows up we do get some real action. She has several fight scenes and proves herself to be one of the most powerful vampires in the series. Her years of experience have really allowed her to hone her skills and it was always fun to see the action scenes happening. As a character I would say she was rather tragic. Basically she really couldn’t understand the concept of love and needed to finally succeed. The problem is that in the wake of this she would keep on turning people and then ditching them which led them to commit crimes and cause a lot of trouble.
She’s irresponsible to put it mildly and definitely deserves to be called a big villain here. It goes without saying that I couldn’t get behind her romance with Mahiru. The age difference is rather massive and while it will eventually get relative once they have turned, it’s definitely not the play right now. This series is all about being a slow burn romance so even Ko and Nazuna’s takes a while but at least that one has a much better build up to it. Nazuna doesn’t have any older memories so she is fairly young relative to the other vampires as well. It makes for a much better dynamic there.
One of the big characters in the series is Anko who is a big vampire hunter. The fact that there is such a profession does at least show that there are a decent amount of vampires out there who re actually evil. I do think this starts to break down the world building about the general public not knowing about these things but for now we will just say that she is super good at her job so she takes them out that fast. She is an interesting character who works as a third party for most of the series. Everyone has to watch out for her.
Her character definitely gets watered down once she turns good but until that point she makes for a very imposing villain. Certainly not someone that you want to mess with. It is a little hard to take her seriously though because you feel like she should stand absolutely no chance against the vampires. They have super speed, super strength, and a whole host of abilities that should be so far above hers that it wouldn’t be a contest. The series does little to convince me otherwise. She would be absolutely blown away as soon as the match started so I don’t see how she has any success here.
The series does invent an interesting weakness system which is that you can destroy a vampire by destroying the item most precious to that person. The main tricky thing about this is it’s really hard to figure this out. In most cases the vampire will figure it out first so they can just hide it somewhere and that’s it. Remember that they can fly and have super speed so finding a good hiding spot will be easy. Just fly to a mountain and drop it off somewhere. Boom, no way Anko will ever find it. So yes this is why I say she’s outgunned.
The first of the vampire cabal is Seri who definitely suffers from the power creep here. She is wrecked in her brief “fight” with Anko which made no sense but it is what it is. She shows up early on to mess with Ko but to give the kid credit he really does only have eyes for Nazuna. I can definitely respect that and it’s part of why I can buy into the romance there way more than the average one. Seri is a nice person though and afterwards acts as a very reliable figure. She treats her followers well too.
Nico is more of a tough vampire or at least she puts up that front. In general all of the members of the group are nice enough. I don’t feel like her role ever got quite as big as the others but it’s fairly relative since again, the series does give everyone their own mini arc during the course of the series. Kabura gets a rather massive role as she is involved in quite a few twists. She can be rather cold to everyone for the most part but Nazuna’s an exception. I wouldn’t say that she’s one of the more likable characters or anything but is definitely useful as someone to deliver a bunch of info dumping.
Midori is another character who tries to mess with Ko at first but quickly gets with the program. She’s not bad although I wouldn’t say her dynamic with her followers is quite as healthy as some of the other characters. In general a lot of the humans who were turned by the vampires really just exist to simp over them now. It’s not a particularly glorifying way to be presented but that’s just how it goes. It’s a rough fate and you hope that more of them can find their own kind of purpose. Like at least one guy know show to talk formally now with all of his m’lady stuff. While he also feels kind of desperate at times, I at least like his personality and that he can even work as a love coach at times.
Kei was a fairly solid character. She may be super busy since she had to raise Ko on her own but she can always tell when something’s bothering him. She is always there for him even without being a hovering kind of character and gives really good advice. Her parenting style works well and I thought she was super reasonable the whole time. If anything Ko’s actions would make most parents panic so she went well above the average there.
Susuki is a random vampire who shows up later on once the series went into its battle phase. She was a prodigy in combat who was really doing good in her opening battle. It’s a shame that she didn’t stick around, I actually think she would have defeated Kiku. Her role may have been small but it definitely left an impact. Azami is another vampire who showed up during the action phase. He can fight rather well but I wouldn’t call him a top tier. For example I think Kiku and Susuki would definitely be able to take him out. He’s a good training mode type fighter though.
Then we have Haruka who is rather desperate. I was glad Ko beat him up. He definitely misuses his vampire abilities and while he may have changed his ways, it’s hard to say. I suppose all of the vampires misuse their abilities in order to feed but the way Haruka did it just feels particularly devious with his mind control going on and everything. That just seems to be something that only a villain would do under normal circ*mstances right? That’s just me though.
We learn about Haru, Nazuna’s mother later on. I wasn’t a big fan of hers. She is certainly very outgoing and talkative but I do think she could have handled things way better so that Nazuna wouldn’t have been in the dark about everything. Haru is someone who plunged ahead into new adventures and fun all the time without planning ahead and that’s something that can and will often be a big problem the longer you do it.
So there’s quite a large set of characters here. Some interesting ones to be sure but the best ones who came in during the action segment just don’t last long enough. It can also be easy to mix up some characters occasionally because of the art style. In particular a few of the vampires from the cabal look kind of similar. The art is very rough, I would put it under most other manga titles that I’ve read but it’s still readable of course. Since there aren’t many fight scenes it’s not like there is a lot to worry about here.
The ending is one that I was not a fan of as I mentioned before though. It’s just not very satisfying at all and I would have handled things way better. I think you gotta either go with the full sad ending or a very upbeat one but this tries to do a little bit of both and sort of fails on both sides. It’s not one of the worst manga endings or anything like that though, it just could have been a lot better.
In 20 volumes a lot of story certainly happens so you don’t have to worry about a lack of content. There isn’t always a full ongoing plot but there are mini arcs here like different school trips and of course the battle with Kiku. In general those arcs were more fun than the standard slice of life stuff but I suppose it depends on the arc. It’s an interesting slow burn but the vampire stuff just messes it up more than help the series. Some characters like Anko should have held onto the grudge against Kiku the whole time. Bumping her off in a full fight would have been nice considering what she did to Anko’s father. I don’t see how you really get past that.
The series is about emotions a lot of course so I suppose grief and rage are just more examples of those. If the series had fully committed to being an action title then I think things would have gone better. Ultimately it just wasn’t really up my alley. Maybe if they threw in some more comedy that would be another way to go up aside from action scenes. The series takes itself rather seriously and there’s no problem with that necessarily but in general I do prefer rom-coms to rom-drams. Any scene of the characters getting drained or Ko pressuring Nazuna to drain him can be annoying. It’s like peer pressured blood draining. The world also seems like a depressing place in general with vampires draining people at night without their knowledge and the victims who get turned are stuck for eternity in a rather sad existence. In a way because of how seriously all the themes are played, the series isn’t quite able to spin this into a positive.
Ko and Mahiru definitely do their part in bringing the series down a bit. Mahiru because he’s just a pretty bad character and the whole romance is one that just makes you shake your head. Ko because he’s really not that interesting. That may sound harsh for just not being all that interesting but I would have liked him to have had more goals or some kind of definitive character ending. It just feels like he didn’t move on much and in some ways may have regressed with having to keep up a front again. Maybe have him be able to handle Nazuna’s constant stream of suggestive dialogue with some banter. The only time he stops her is when he tries to be romantic which isn’t really the same thing.
Overall, Call of the Night is a fairly big romance title and it’s impressive that it lasted for 20 volumes. Each character gets a whole lot of development so even though the cast isn’t huge, you get to know all of them rather well. If you were to remove the vampire aspect entirely I think the series would work better. Ko would meet people during his nightly adventures and in that way discover a whole new world. The vampire stuff just adds more blood sucking which is never a great idea as those scenes tend to be rather gross. The art can be really rough but it’s not as if that’s a dealbreaker. If you can get past the vampire stuff then you have a reasonable slice of life title here. It may not always be the most engaging but it is a very calm series so you can pick it up and read at any point. For the most part you should be able to easily understand what’s going on.
Overall 4/10
