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To start off with, if you haven't read the manga, this review will contain spoilers, so read really, dont read it, you must have read the manga before you read this review, dont say I didnt warn you.

I will be diving into the basics of a review. The story, the artwork, and of course the characters.

Rosario Vampire is, to begin with, a typical shounen manga, not breaking the norm of any kind when it comes to supernatural beings and humans being thrown into the mix to make things interesting. Aono Tsukune, a 15 year old human, is put into an academy for monsters in a protective barrier from the human world. Upon arriving he meets Akashiya Moka, a vampire of the same age (but a vampire who can go out in the day, so a cool vampire...sorta). The two hit it off in a typical, love at first sight, kinda meeting as she sucks his blood before departing to the school after agreeing to be friends, only later to meet again, and the cycle beign from there for this harem style shounen manga. A small quirk in the story is that humans cannot attend this monster school, so any human there will be killed on discovery as all monsters must wear a human form (you see where I'm going with this?), so Tsukune must hide his true identity, whilst never failing to be surprised by other students true forms.

The story changes well between the whole monster school apect and its customs, to the battles between monsters (protecting the weak human) which always ends in the memorable quote of "know your place" from the inner peronality of our vampire Moka. That's right, Moka has two personalities and forms due to the charmed rosario hung n her neck by a chocker, which can only be removed by our human Tsukune. Upon removing this item, Moka transforms into her full vampire self and kicks major ass, compared to her love struck counterpart.

As the story develops, more girls are thrown into the mix to begin with ( Kurumu a succubus ad Yukari a witch) to make this a complete harem, but not before some predictable occurnces happen which didn't surprise me in the slightest. The remaining few girls, par one which doesnt come for a while, all try to attack and or kill Tsukune to begin with, before coming to the light that he is such an amazing and handsome, and also kind person and then fall madly in love with him, fighting with the other girls over who will have his heart...asides from Yukari, who wants a threesome with Tsukune and Moka, but is much to young for these things and is only in high school due to her intelligence.

Later on, a plot twist occurs (but not really) when a previous enemy returns, informing the schools police that Tsukune is a human and that Moka has been protecting him (the other girls, Kurumu and Yukari, do not know before chapter 10) so both he and moka are taken captive, as Tsukune is beaten and tortured into confessing by the police leader Kuyou, who on upon the arrival of Kurumu, Yukari (who now know he is human, but still love him regardless) and also Gin (Tsukune's only male friend) he attempts to beat them up, but is momentarily subdued by Gin, but then goes super sayen on their asses and beats them all up as well as burning them due to being a fire monster.

Tsukune beocmes desperate in the fact he cannot remove Moka's charm rosario, so things look pretty bleaque. This is the "oh no!" moment of the manga, when you're supposed to think things are going to get really bad, but we all know how these things turn out, so the story isn't surprising still.

Much to my surprise though, when Kuyou wishes to kill all of the others before Tsukune to make him suffer and decides to start with Moka, Tsukune throws his body in the path of the fireball, before falling and catching the rosario by accident, releasing Moka by accident (a constant gag throughout the series, never seems to get old though). Now left thinking things may get bad, another plot twist occurs, when for the first time in their whole relationship, Inner Moka shows caring feelings for Tsukune as she injects him with her blood to save his life from the burns as her blood can heal him as Vampire's are immortal, so their blood has the same properties. When this informaiton was revealed, I almost died with joy at the wonderous plot twist which gives things a "OMG whats going to happen now" facto, especilly after she dmits the ampire blood may also kill him as he is human, and vampire blood is volatile due to its strength (another plot twist).

Other things then go down, Innor Moka tries to fight Kuyou, but for the first time is losing because due to giving up some of her blood, she is weaker than normal (another plot twist). then just before she is bout to be beaten, BAM, Tsukune stands up radiating with vmapire power, because due to the injections, he now has vampire blood in his body forever (plot twist again) but it only makes him a vampire for a short time (and in that time he kicks Kuyou's ass, which was a favourable plot twist form the screaming ans useless Tsukune) until the supernaturl power in the blood is fully used, then he returns to normal, just having cool blood in his body, but not how we all want it (this is where the what if factor comes into it).

As time goes by, Tsukune is injected with Vampire blood on a regular basis, to either give him power to fight, or to heal him when he is close to death, which leads to the first reason. Times like this include when he meets Ruby, who tries to kill him, before he beats her and she them becomes a harem member much lter after some other stuff goes down, and when we meet Mizore (my favourite) because he helps her from a bad guy.

After seeing so much Vampire blood injections, we begin to think there is no side effect right? Wrong. After the Mizore incident, Tsukune still has some vampire power left in the blood, so its not normal vampire blood, its dangerous vampire blood, because the power having not been used, starts to hurt Tsukune on a large scale, and the injection marks form Moka's fangs do not face, and are the main cause of his pain. this returns us to the "OMG whats gonna happen now" factor, because this little side effect means Tsukune can die. Taking advantage of his momentary weakness, a previous enemy form chapter 1, Saizo, comes to try and rape Moka again and beat Tsukune.

Saizo thinks Tsukune is relaly weak having beat him in chapter 1, only for Inner Moka to beat his ass bad. Tsukune also refferes to himself as a vampire to a threatening Saizo in chapter 1 to try and protect his human identity, to which Saizo thinks he is a lying, weaker monster, but not human.

When Tsukune is cut on his chest and left for dead by a gang member with Saizo, Moka is held back from going to the imoblie Tsukune, so she cannot inject him with blood (which they dont know about) and stop him from removing her rosario (which they do know about). So once again we have the what if factor thrown in as well as the OMG factor. When things begin to look bad, Tsukune gets up with vampire powers despite not having been injected (SUPER SAYEN PLOT TWIST) and kicks the other guys asses' before turning to Saizo who shouts in desibelief of Tsukune being a vampire. this is mainly out of fear of Tsukune's appearance, as when in "vampire mode" as it is sometimes reffered to, he takes the image of a vampire, in having lighter hair, and crimosn eyes with slitted pupils (a vampire's biggest trait), so Saizo feels stupid but wants to believe Tsukune is not a vampire (and he's right, but they dont know that) but is still beaten by Tsukune, who then returns to normal, having used the rest of the vampire power in his blood.

come the next few chapters, more emotional disputes between characters (which never seems to cease to surprise me, due to them being supposedly good friends) is all stopped when Moka is kidnapped, and Tsukune goes to save her (its his fault anyway because the bad guys dont like vampires, and they think he's a vampire after he beat Saizo, and he upset Moka, so she was left alone). When he is taken to the bad guy lair, head bad guy (or so you think) starts trying to beat Tsukune up, but When Moka admits she should be the one being beaten, the bad guy turns to her agreeing. In typical hero fashion, Tsukune says nice words to Moka about her ebing of large help to him, and how things aren't her fault, and runs towards Moka, stupidly, still in human form whilst Moka is chained up, so things look bad now.

When the bad guy swings to punch Tsukune (which will kill him in a weak human body) Tsukune suddenly gains Vampire eyes and uses vampire speed to dodge the punch much to everyones, even Moka's, surprise (he doesnt seem to care though). after doing this he releases Inner Moka who stops bad guy, and then tells Tsukune to leave the academy, because his body is breaking apart due to too much vampire blood (shown by the cracking marks across Tsukune's face coming from the bite marks on the right side of his neck).

When things get emotional and sad, the bad guy comes back with a dirty tactic of subdueing Moka using the sprinklers to spray water ( a vampire's biggest weakness) and so the OMG factor comes back as Moka bagins to lose again, and is about to be beaten by a big punch, which Tsukune bloks using the somehow lingering vampire power in his body, but pushes himself to near death in the process. Despite being dangerous as it can kill him, Moka gives Tsukune more blood to save his life, which has the biggest andbest plot twist ever. Tsukune is then no longer human but is instead a ghoul, which is like a vampire and just as strong, sorta, but is mindless, and so just kills everything.

This then leads to a very emotional scene where Tuskune starts going insane and laughing in an evil fashion as he beats a large amount of gang members close to death, even attack his harem as he is no longer himself. This is where another OMG factor comes in. Moka must kill Tsukune as there is no saving him, and she nearly does, before a robed man with Ruby (the person from before who tried to kill him) appears and saves him (who would have thought).

Tsukune is now left with vampire powers and vampire healing, but is back to normal and is "human" again, due to the help of a charmed braclet he has. Downside, when he uses his powers a link breaks, and when all links are broken, he dies (turns back into a ghoul).

If you see where I'm going from here then good. More bad guys appear and the story actually starts to continue on the climb upward, as we encounter the rela leader of the gang, who wants to destroy the barrier surorunding the school, and mke humans and monsters fight in a war against each other. He also sends lead sof bad guys to fight Tsukune, which causes him to brek more links.

Eventually when the others find out who the gang leader is, a whole bunch of stuff kicks off, and everyone is pushed to their limits to fight this guy, as Moka has been kidnapped again. Whe everyone thinks they have won, the bad guy attacksthe headmaster and starts working on his plan, but Tsukune steps into the fight and uses his powers to fight the guy, but this guy is different from the others, he can dodge Tsukune's attacks, so Tsukune get's his ass handed to him, right before he starts losing control despite all the links not breaking (apparently it can happen, I dunno). that's when the OMG factor returns when Inner Moka turns up, despitre not having removed the rosario.

More stuff goes down and the bad guys gets defeated, right before we think he might win in the typical fashion. He even helps to fix his own plan and saves the academy and barrier, before ultimately losing, which is generalaly the onlyinteresting things in the manga, other things happen like Tsukune's school festival, and the harem visiting his home, but if you want to know more, read the manga.

Now to the artwork. To begin with, the artwork is not bad, but its not winning any award either. Its very amaturish, which shows the beginning of the manga, which I thnk holds an almost endearing quality to it, as it progresses and becomes better as does the manga itself. Come chapter 10, the artwork slowly increases on a one way train to awesome street, but misses its stop, and gets off at orgasmic quality junction. the character disigns become more refined and the faces beocme much more expressive, as well as not looking so round in shape. To this day I still look at the artwork in admiraiton of how wonderful it is. By the end of the manga, the artwork had won my heart over compeltely, and it had gone from good enough, to the level that should earn itself an award without even trying.

The characters are a little annoying to begin with, as they are all rinse and repeat chracters, all follwong the same predictable line. Later as they are given perosnalities and such, they are further explored, and although they still retian the usual rinse and repeat actions, for some reason, you just love them for it. Allthe little quirks the have and what they do you smile at or laugh at when you se eit, because its so predictable that hey would do it. ike how a prent would laugh seeing their child eat something because it was predictable they would eat it.

To conclude, I htink this is a wonderful manga, and it is certainlyby far my most favourite, I have read season 1 a dozen times over, and I am still waiting for season 2 to be updated. Despite all the flaws I have pointed out, for some reason they are portrayed so well in this manga. The predictbilities and such are shown in such a way, you almost didnt predict it. The plot twists left me keen to know more, and pleasantly surprised by all of it as I was taken down a street I didn't know, but I liked it.

If you are new to shounen manga, or even if you are a die hard veteran, this is certainly a manga you can read and enjoy with no worries. The story, as well as everything else, sorts itself out as it progresses, and before long this manga is so deep in your heart you cannot bear to part with it, and even if you can, you will still think of it and it leads you straight back to the manga which is so loveable, I myself am always captivated by it, now matter how much time passes. read more