Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu (Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Moon, Laika, and the Bloodsucking Princess

Japanese: 月とライカと吸血姫

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 12

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 4, 2021 to Dec 20, 2021

Premiered: Fall 2021

Broadcast: Sundays at 01:35 (JST)

Producers: Shogakukan, BS Japan, Bandai Namco Arts, ADK Marketing Solutions

Licensors: Funimation

Studios: Arvo Animation

Source: Light novel

Genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Themes: Historical, Military, Space, Vampire

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 7.31¹ (scored by 51,431 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #2568²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #1516

Members: 146,087

Favorites: 717

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@LAIKA_anime

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Streaming Platforms

Crunchyroll

7.31

Ranked #2568Popularity #1516Members 146,087

Fall 2021TVArvo Animation

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Episodes: /12

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Synopsis

On November 23, 1957, the whole world witnessed the Federal Republic of Zirnitra's monumental achievement of sending the first live animal—a dog—to outer space. Since then, the space race between the confederacy and its competitor, the United Kingdom of Arnack, has intensified; the two countries hope to one day send humans to the cosmos above.

As a dog's biology is inherently different from a human's anatomy, there is no way to perfectly identify the risks involving space travel and its effects on an individual's body without actually sending someone for observation. However, Zirnitra's government has a potential solution: to experiment on vampires, whose biological similarity to humans is too significant to ignore.

Despite being forcibly taken from her home in the mountains, vampire Irina Luminesk shows no resistance and is even willing to train as a test subject. Lev Leps, a former top candidate to become the first human cosmonaut, is designated to accompany Irina and act as her guide. Through their time together, Irina and Lev begin to develop a mutual love for outer space, bringing them closer together.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu was released on Blu-ray from January 26, 2022 to March 29, 2022.

Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu
Other:	Arifureta Itsuka

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Luminesk, Irina

Main

Hayashibara, Megumi
Japanese

Leps, Lev

Main

Uchiyama, Kouki
Japanese

Simonyan, Anya

Supporting

Kino, Hina
Japanese

Plevitskaya, Rosa

Supporting

Komatsu, Mikako
Japanese

Natalia

Supporting

Inoue, Kikuko
Japanese

Korovin, Slava

Supporting

Hashi, Takaya
Japanese

Gergiev, Fyodor

Supporting

Ogata, Kenichi
Japanese

Harlova, Ludmila

Supporting

Ichimichi, Mao
Japanese

Rimsky, Zhores

Supporting

Natsume, Kyouhei
Japanese

Sagalevich

Supporting

Kashii, Shouto
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Maruyama, Hajime

Producer

Kondou, Shuuhou

Producer

Karki, Rajeev

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Hii no Tsuki (緋ノ月)" by ALI PROJECT

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Ending Theme

"Arifureta Itsuka (ありふれたいつか)" by Chima

Reviews

Oct 30, 2023

Jamiex304

Recommended

"Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut" ventures into the uncharted territory of space exploration, blending it seamlessly with elements of supernatural lore and human connection. Set against the backdrop of the intense space race between the Federal Republic of Zirnitra and the United Kingdom of Arnack, the series offers a unique premise that piques curiosity from the very start.

The central focus on Irina Luminesk, a vampire enlisted as an experimental subject for space travel, and Lev Leps, a former cosmonaut candidate, lays the foundation for the anime's emotional depth. Their dynamic is nothing short of enthralling, with the chemistry between the two protagonists evolving organically throughout the ...

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Dec 24, 2021

Mephistofele

Mixed Feelings

"The Vampire Cosmonaut" has a very high purpose from the moral point of view: a reflection on the importance of equality and the absurdity of the concept of race, creating a parallelism between people considered "inferior" and the vampire species, despised and segregated due to the negative propaganda they suffer from humanity. The purpose has been objectively achieved: during the show we see that our protagonist is abundantly denigrated, so much so that she is considered a simple object on which to experiment, and, subsequently, some merits are recognized, as in any story about episodes of racism. . From a human point of view, however, ... the story completely lacks those characteristics that are necessary for the transmission of ideals, such as empathy with the characters. In the next paragraphs, the reasons for my criticisms will be adequately explained.

STORY (6/10):
The story takes place within a communist-style dictatorial system, similar to the former USSR. We can therefore imagine the abuses that are made to keep power stable within this state: in addition to this the state is in strong contrast with the Kingdom of the United States, a state with a strong capitalist imprint, and both are involved in what we now consider the "space race". To advance with the progress, Zirnitra decides that an ordinary soldier, assisted by a young specialist, must train a vampire to secretly prepare for the first launch with an intelligent living being in space. Thus begins the vicissitudes of the show, letting us know the ambitions of the characters and the evil of hatred: however, unlike what we can expect, these are the only aspects within the story, as everything else is completely neglected and/or left to the viewer's imagination. With the continuation of the story, however, the theme of politics and its morality is developed, through intrigues hidden from all to the last and their unlikely consequences. Despite this, history proposes realistically, the difficulties and attempts that have been made by all those who, in reality, have contributed to this eternal enterprise.

CHARACTERS (5/10):
The big lack of this anime is the empathy with the characters. They, in addition to being flat, have an incomprehensible mentality, as if their actions were created for the sole purpose of continuing the plot, which follows a rigid order of cause and effect, and is not performed by their own choice if they had been real. The possible love affair, which could have been an immense mine of possibilities to create a minimum of interest in continuing this show, is practically abandoned to itself, to the point that it is left incomplete and almost completely hidden. However, some secondary characters can skillfully move the ranks of the story, maintaining a certain level of suspense until the last episode, in which different plots are revealed.

ANIMATIONS AND SOUNDS (6/10):
The drawings are well done and manage to convey a certain realism, even if the music is not particularly impactful.

OVERALL AND TO WHOM I RECOMMEND IT:
The anime was developed superficially from the point of view of the plot and the characters, despite the beauty of the historical background that is associated and the important themes discussed: I was quite disappointed with the final results, as can be seen in the length of this. review, which is synonymous with little interest. I don't feel like recommending it to anyone, but it might vaguely interest fans of the subject.

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Dec 23, 2021

literaturenerd

Not Recommended

Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut. Just the title lets you know this is going to be a weird one. I went in having absolutely no idea what to expect, but I was still somehow disappointed by this one. I’m going honest and upfront. This isn't very good.

Brought to you from the director of Cutey Honey Universe and a first-time writer, this is an alternate history version of the space race told through the perspective of the Soviet Union. Isn’t that literally just the plot of Royal Space Force? Gainax already did that shit in 1987 during the Cold War. Irina adds one new element to the ... formula by adding vampires. What do vampires have to do with space exploration? Absolutely nothing. However, Irina wants to preach a message about racism and does so in the most tone deaf, incompetent way possible.

When we first meet the vampire girl Irina, she is being used as a test subject by the Soviets. She has fangs and must sleep in a coffin, so you would think the portrayal of vampires will be somewhat traditional. Instead, we learn that vampires don’t have any magical powers. They don’t attack humans or drink blood. They’re just a hated and oppressed ethnic minority who happen to have fangs and sleep in coffins for no reason. During the Bubonic Plague, vampires were falsely blamed for poisoning wells and were hunted down in pogroms. After that, the vampires lived in isolated communities and over hundreds of years many racial myths and negative stereotypes were created about them. This is seriously the route the anime goes in! They basically just made the vampires a stand-in for Jews. It's not subtle about this at all.

We’re told that vampires are just a harmless minority early on, but the same researcher who tells us this still hates vampires for no reason and is completely ok with killing them in medical experiments. In the world of Irina, the leading Soviet officials and most of their scientists still believe medieval era myths about the vampires for some reason. Myths that any semi-educated person would have stopped believing centuries ago in a world where vampires are real. That would be like in our world if all the Soviet Union’s top scientists in 1960 believed that Jews have horns and that’s why they wear yarmulkes.

Despite showing the space race from the Soviet POV, this anime is Red Dawn levels of anti-Soviet. Every Soviet character besides “nice male MC harem lead” is an evil bastard. They want to use Irina as a guinea pig and make her the first person in space, then kill her and send an ethnic Russian into space. This is not only stupid, but incredibly tasteless and insulting to the first cosmonauts who risked their lives for human progress. Why would you shit on some of the greatest heroes in history?

The answer is simply to tell a monster girl story. Remember Monster Musume and how it tried to have this shoehorned anti-racism message? Only the MC is nice to the monster girls, while everyone else is ridiculously horrible to them. Elfen Lied is also kind of guilty of this admittedly. This would be fine in a purely fictional setting, but Irina goes out of its way to use real historical figures where only 1 letter in their name is changed and directly reference real historical tragedies like the Nedelin Disaster of 1960. It wants the audience to think this is basically a 1:1 retelling of the space race only Soviet minorities have been replaced with monster girls.

This is especially problematic since the CIA ran a propaganda campaign in the 1960s that the Soviets constantly went through cosmonauts like tissue paper and only achieved historic firsts because they cruelly threw away the lives of their explorers. To back this up, an Italian plant produced faked recordings of Soviet cosmonaut death screams that he somehow recorded off a ham radio. These were later found out to be forgeries. It is absolutely true that the Soviets rushed frantically to achieve their goals and covered up 2 high casualty events that were only discovered later, Nedelin being one of these. Unsurprisingly, the Soviets were not purely innocent. However, they didn't constantly go through cosmonauts, which would be highly impractical considering the time and resources required to train them. The Soviets also never put a self-destruct bomb into their landing capsule in order to prevent the Americans from discovering the easiest part of space exploration and kill their own guys in the process. They also didn't use fatal medical experiments on ethnic minorities. On the other hand, NASA was very confident about survival data such as the exact time humans can survive in zero pressure. That's because NASA had some pretty bad dudes working for them such as notorious war criminal Hubertus Strughold. A man whose best friend was executed at Nuremburg for doing the same experiments.

While the Soviet Union did a LOT of bad things during its history, the Soviet space program was one time they were actually the loveable underdogs. They used their own scientists unlike the US, who kissed some a-SS and made a deal with the devil in order to win. The Soviets started from behind and had a small fraction of the money and resources, but miraculously achieved some of the finest feats in the history of engineering. Yet, here we have an anime that wants to repeat propaganda from the Cold War, completely ignore all wrongdoing by NASA, and portray the Soviets as stupid, brutish monsters. All so it can tell a Monster Musume style love story. Fuck this anime.

When it isn't being clumsy and totally pointless propaganda, Irina does have some sweet moments. If you like Monster girl stories, the romance between Irina and Lev is serviceable. There are some sweet scenes here and there like Irina going ice skating where the anime is allowed to be kind of good. The show also makes a last-minute decision to reveal some of the Soviet scientists were good guys and have them rebel against the Kremlin. So, in the last episode, it decided to not character assassinate Sergei Korolev. The source novels aren't actually finished BTW, so this was an anime original ending. Whoever wrote the anime at least made a last-ditch effort and I'll give him credit for that. I even raised my rating by 1 based on the last episode alone.

Sadly, as a space exploration story, Irina really isn't very good. It's not even comparable to an anime like Royal Space Force or Space Brothers. Both of which are excellent. The monster girl romance detracts from the space focus and the series often veers either intentionally or through sheer ignorance into pretty hateful territory with its historical portrayal. As a monster girl story, it also doesn't work because it's weighed down by its need to tastelessly reference real life tragedies like the Nedelin launch failure that killed around 300 people. It's not quite as bad as when the writer of the Sonic comics tried to tell a 1:1 Holocaust parallel with overly sexualized echidnas, but it's pretty tasteless.

So, would I recommend Irina? I'm going to have to go with no. I thought the premise was unusual enough that it had some potential. I don't normally watch seasonals while they air, but Irina hooked me with its bonkers plot alone. As I've covered in this review, the execution leaves much to be desired. It's possible a lot of the problems present in this 12 episode anime aren't quite as bad in the LNs. I've not read them, so I can't say who is to blame for Irina's issues. Unfortunately, this rocket never quite achieves orbit.

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Luminesk, Irina

Leps, Lev

Simonyan, Anya

Plevitskaya, Rosa

Natalia

Korovin, Slava

Gergiev, Fyodor

Harlova, Ludmila

Rimsky, Zhores

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Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu

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