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Chibi Vampires Airmail
Manga Review
For every acceptable and probably successful work, a franchise begins, and for some works, there are always going to be more publishing opportunities, until a publishing company or a mangaka decides to conclude a story.
Following the success, and conclusion in the main story of Chibi Vampire, Airmail is definitely a follow up for readers who cannot let the original story go. This is a collection of four short stories, two are not relevant to the main story, but latter two are, and one of them provides a satisfactory epilogue to Chibi Vampire. The other story provides an interesting introduction to a cousin of the Marker family.
 Slight warnings for reading the other two stories; be forewarned of adult to mental child age possession, and a pretty scary looking corpse. The other two stories are as mentioned not related to the Chibi Vampire storyline in any shape and form. The plots for the stories do show an insightful originality in Kagesaki for writing horror stories.
From the many different vampire manga out there, you can use it to pair up with reading with this title, but what I would definitely recommend to readers also checking out this title, then there is Bloody Kiss, which is also a Vampire story. Though, with the horror theme of this story, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Story would be a great pair up. There is no rhyme or reason to what a reader would find enjoyable with this type of story, but just know that there is definitely a good conclusion to the Chibi Vampire story.
Reviewed by Linda Yau, January 2011
Karin
Anime DVD Review
I love this new spin on vampires! Kawii!! If this DVD was a teddy bear, it would be huge and fuzzy and extra-huggable! Yeah, the usual words that associate themselves with vampires would not be fuzzy and huggable but for Karin, it works.
Karin is an un-vampire. Instead of sucking blood, embarrassingly, she discharges blood. She was a simple vampire child before: grow up like a regular human, hit puberty, turn into a bloodsucker, very simple, very normal. Somewhere along the way though, she turned into a mutant. So now, instead of feeling the urge to suck blood, she gets the urge to inject blood. But she did inherit one normal vampire trait (possibly the only one): she has a blood preference. Unfortunately, it's something as uncool as unhappiness. The unhappier the person is the more attracted she is to them. Her body increases her blood supply until she can't hold it in anymore, so she either injects it into her victim or she... ahem... very embarrassingly... has a gushing fountain of a nosebleed, turns anemic, and pass out. Very uncool...
 Her condition of being a un-vampire is a constant nuisance and worry to her family. She's the only one that's afraid of the dark (yeah, she didn't inherit the night vision) and needs the lights on all the time. She loves food (especially garlic because it's very nutritious), sunshine (it makes her feel all warm and happy), and crosses (they are beautiful accessories). Since she is so un-vampire, her parents have decided that she can continue her human lifestyle: going to school, hanging out with her friends, and getting a part-time job. Someone has to pay for the electricity bill that she runs up for keeping the lights on at night. Her family can protect her night if she ever needs to inject blood into people. Karin hasn't inherited the handy erasing memory gene either. Her family hasn't figured out the "what can they do if she needs them in the daytime" issue though...
It's not like they can tell people that they are a family of vampires and need help protecting their mutant kid. Karin has friends that can help her if she gets anemic and pass out. They can take her to the nurse's office to rest or something but they can't find out that she is a vampire or that there is a family of vampires living just a few blocks up. Vampire hunters are supposedly myths but then vampires are supposedly myths, too; it's better to not take chances. So, Karin and her family try to live a quiet low-key existence.
 No such thing as quiet or low-key when you have a mutant kid though. A new transfer student, Usui, joins Karin's class and she is trying very hard not to be attracted to him: he's cute AND is always unhappy. So, Karin gets teased because she spends all day trying to avoid him. Just when she thinks she's in the clear at her part-time job after school, he get a job there as well, she's in charge of training him, and the manager told Usui that taking Karin home after work is part of his responsibilities. It gets worse (yes, it's possible): a duel-happy self-professed vampire hunter shows up as another transfer student, falls in love with Karin, Usui gets protective of Karin, she's getting nosebleeds left and right because Usui is always around, AND while Karin is injecting blood into a new victim, Usui sees everything. Mayhem and more embarrassment ensues when the family finds out that Usui saw everything, Karin's latest victim was his mom, and Karin's psycho vampire grandma comes to town.
Karin doesn't want to know what happens next; it's a lot of blood to clean up and a lot of mess and embarrassment to face up to. She's just a normal high school mutant vampire that wants to live her life as a normal human being. Is that too much to ask?
Reviewed by Carolyn Whu, August 2009
Below: Scenes from Karin.
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