Oct 11, 2019
Harapeko Vampino is a romantic comedy about an ordinary high schooler getting together with the girl of his dreams due to unusual circumstances causing him to grow as a person. It's pretty decent at what it does.
---
Harapeko Vampino cannot be called very original no matter which way you look at it. Our main character is a normal, average, ordinary high school student leading a normal, average, ordinary life where nothing exciting happens, and he very much likes it that way. He gets stuck with taking care of three children, who are vampires from hell and therefore evil in a comedic, cartoonish way. The love interest
...
is a cute, lively, eccentric girl from school to whom our main character has a crush on, and influence of the vampire kids causes their relationship to develop. Nothing out of the ordinary there. This lack of originality doesn't mean the comic is bad, however, as it all works well enough.
The characters are generally likable, with enough personality to make them not feel like they're only walking cliches. The main character Sousuke (Soosuke?) may be your average solitary everyman with a hidden heart of gold, but he can be firm when needed and will put his foot down when things start getting out of hand which makes him rather endearing. His love interest Nene, a cute, peppy, nice, eccentric, popular, oblivious girl, is something of a cliche, but an entertaining one I personally enjoy. The chemistry between them is pretty good, and the way in which Sousuke is absolutely head-over-heels for her while she is completely natural around him in the beginning is fun to read. Their romance works quite well.
The vampire children, after whom the story is named, are of course important albeit a bit cliched themselves. There's Abel, the assertive 'leader' of the bunch, Momo, a smart deadpan character, and Nike, a mellow girl. They are vampires from hell, which makes them used to the evil world of the underworld, but they're also children and therefore playful, needy and scared of a lot of things. Much of the humor in the series comes from this juxtaposition between their evil nature and childlike innocence, as well from all the things that are normal in hell being cartoonishly evil in our eyes. They also have a teacher called Luca, who's a handsome demon from hell with evil tendencies ranging from cartoonish villainy to mundane dickery, but who does seem to genuinely care about the children and their happiness. He is something of an exposition and plot convenience guy for the comic and straddled the line between funny and annoying for me, but did ultimately end on funny side of the line.
Plot is driven by the interplay of the budding romance, children's concerns and vampire stuff. Vampires drink blood and can do magic, which cause hilarity to ensue and plot to happen. They are children and have children's problems, which leads to several chapters revolving around dealing with these problems. Nene gets involved in both, which advances romance. It's a decent dynamic and there are surprises along the way, but it is also ultimately a rather short and simple story that doesn't break new ground. Furthermore, I found the moments intended to be dramatic and heartfelt to be somewhat lackluster. There was rarely enough build up to these moments nor enough weight in their presentation to truly tug at my heartstrings. This applies to the ending of the story as well.
The humor in the comic, however, is able to make up for the lack of dramatic impact. Comedy is the real strength of the comic, and I found the jokes to be usually quite funny. There is a great sense of comedic flow and timing - if comics can have timing - and the jokes are very good at surprise and subversion of expectations. I cannot remember calling the punchlines before they happened, which I think is a good sign. Expressiveness of the art helps drive jokes home, albeit it may have also made it harder for the more serious moments to make an impact.
The artwork in general is quite good, though not very original. The art style of the comic is pretty standard modern cutesy, comedic, digital "moe"-style, with clear lines, round shapes and relatively simplistic designs. Most characters look like your typical animanga designs - Sousuke especially looks very generic - whereas the vampires and monsters are round, blobby and cartoony. The artwork is clean and clear, but not especially detailed, not that this kind of story needs its art to be very detailed. Colorwise the art often combines very dark shades with very light shades, which creates striking contrast and really helps set an appropriate mood for the comic.
All that said, however, I wouldn't call it special in any way. The story and concept are still rather generic even if they were executed well, and while it doesn't do much wrong it doesn't really do anything exceptionally well either. There was a lack of 'oomph', of some kind of substance that could really grab me in its clutches and leave a lasting impact, and the relatively short length of the comic didn't allow the story to really grow on me either. I... kind of wanted to like it more than I did, but I still found it to be well worth my time.
Overall, Harapeko Vampino is nothing too special, but quite enjoyable in it's own genre. It is a competent piece of work that does what it does pretty well and has nothing really wrong with it, but doesn't go much beyond that either.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
.png)
.png)
