Vampire's Portrait, Volume 1 by Hiroki Kusumoto

While I wouldn’t call this an original story I think it is a decent vampire story.

There’s also a lot of atmosphere which makes Vampire’s Portrait actually feel like a vampire story. Her drawings are so moody and seem to come right off the page. The action scenes are executed well with a good sense of movement and perspective. for putting a lot of energy into every single line. The artwork has its own distinctive style and is superb. However, because there is a plot it seems that Lou is a rather unnecessary part, or should I say he seems like more of a plot devise than a character. It would have been so easy for Kusumoto to have turned this into a no plot basic yaoi story with vampires just thrown in. The story focus is more on the vampire aspect than the boy’s love aspect and I applaud it for that. Hiroki Kusumoto set out to draw a vampire story and that’s exactly what she has done.

I wonder if Kusumoto had the idea for a seinen or guro manga, but due to certain circumstances was asked to make it BL. The would-be-uke aside, the character designs are great and the backgrounds and environments are a bit chilling at times.

I don’t think it would hurt to spend an hour or so on it, because, if nothing else, especially in the 2nd volume, the art is something worth staring at. Also, the emotional cadence was a bit syncopated rather than being oooh-so-unpredictable, it was more like, “wait, what just happened… I don’t get it.” Again, it isn’t bad there’s a decent foundation, but the humor… The funny moments were like cold cubes of cheddar on an omelette-standing out, awkwardly-instead of shredded Pepper Jack melted into the omelette-a pinch of spice that flowed with everything else. I was more impressed with the bits of the vampire mythology that popped up than I was with the story. It has its sexy parts, but it’s more of a light, trippy, guro manga than it is your typical BL. In the mean time you either wait uncomfortably for the continuation because even though it could have been cliffhanger material, it was more like it ended in the middle of a sentence or you end Volume one just kind of ended and, if you notice, volume 2 has the newer Juné Manga banner, so just consider how long it was before volume 2 was released.

The story wasn’t bad, but some of the transitions from scene to scene made me turn back a few pages to double check if I missed something… something like 3 or 4 pages.

Vampire's Portrait, Volume 1 by Hiroki Kusumoto