Karin (Anime Review)

Recommended for Mature Audiences : Contains blood, low-level violence, adult themes, sexual references

Also known as Chibi Vampire, Karin is a 24 episode anime based of the manga of the same name. Karin Maaka is a highschool girl who also is the middle child of a family of vampires that moved to Japan hundreds of years ago. Unlike her kin however, Karin is an abnormal vampire in the fact that rather than suck blood, she produces blood. She has to bite someone and inject them with the blood periodically or it builds up until she suffers one of her explosive nosebleeds.

The plot is nowhere near as deep as the manga’s and the anime prefers to just take you for a ride. The story ebbs and flows around many topics and arcs, introducing new characters and creating backstory at various points. There is no real build up or climax, just a journey towards Karin and Kenta’s confession of love. That’s not to say it’s a long, boring love story, rather the opposite. It’s fun and extremely enjoyable all the while having this overhanging sense of despair at the complications of a vampire-human relationship. Characters are deep and meaningful, and even those that aren’t are still lively. In one particular scene, two thugs are beating a character up and although they only get a minute of screen time, you’re still left with some degree of understanding of their characters. The series does eventually peak and the last few episodes were enthralling, but there is no real conclusion, as there was none to be had in the first place.

Despite the intro theme, with a rather lackluster song, Karin has very little fanservice, which begs the question of why they went with that introduction. There are a few scenes that perhaps go a little too far, but the anime was always meant for mature audiences. The art looks great and, although a little gritty at times, the characters look amazing. I can’t say it really performed well on the audio front, there was little more than ambient sound which was sparsely used.

With no real climax, Karin is an anime that you have to just sit back and enjoy the ride. With that said, you have some amazing and well-rounded characters to accompany you, so it really is a ride worth taking. There are no bad episodes in my opinion, some are average and contribute little to plot or characters, but most are fun and enjoyable. It catches you within the first episode or two.