Rosario to Vampire
Rosario+Vampire

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So, a show that's been plagiarized by none other than our great ecchi lords Gonzo, yet everyone keeps praising the manga for not being the same battle harem. Well... too bad, because that's exactly what it is! Rosario to Vampire at its core is a school harem with battle shounen elements. It is Season II where the battle shounen elements take precedence and overshadow the harem so much that you will forget it's entire first season aside from ONE key event.

RECOMMENDATION: Read this as a school harem with supernatural elements and you'll have an okay time. The structure is largely episodic building up to a ... shounen style fight for the climax of the chapter along with a trademark friendship lecture that is expected of Shounen JUMP manga. You won't feel disappointed and you don't have to rush through either. You'll have fun with the likable cast and their quirks, but don't expect much of them as realistic characters, since a lot is covered up by the plot elements, but there is catharsis and tidbits of proper development to be found here. It may be worth your time, but don't expect much, this isn't THAT different from the Gonzo adaptation, it's better, but not by much.

And with that... The STORY:
An episodic school harem where almost every chapter we encounter a jerk villain in one sense or another building up the relevant conflict until the climax where the main character is hurt and enables the One-Shot fix-it plot device to march in and stomp over the problem. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum. Be sure to add some other girls in order to have harem catfights, you always hold off your most badass character. The villains are irredeemable one-time caricatures of school bullying, stalking, obsessions and the like... and you have yourself a "great" story.

Well... until the author gets a hang of how to build up an arc, add some intrigue, change the setting to the contemporary world, have villains with ulterior motives and themes to them. Including Light Yagami wannabe because why not. It's not handled extremely well either, but it was certainly a step forward from the episodic throwaways. Though I wish it had a more proper climax for an ending arc, but it was an awkward enough time for the publisher as well to close one of its serialization magazines.

The ARTWORK is serviceable. It can be attributed to the old scans I was reading, but it just looks plain. But the simple thing is that the mangaka had to appease his edit. No panty shots of the badass, despite her signature move being a kick while dressed in a short school uniform skirt. Comedy is relegated to being a chibi background on small panels.
But it also shows that there is a sense of style when it comes to the villains, they are all drawn as horrors, beasts, heck, even Eldritch abominations later on. Too bad on the heroic side the most stylish thing we have are ominous eyes and a goth girl. The focus on the eyes when important was extremely good, as it is important both aesthetically and thematically to establish the thought process of the characters and what they're feeling. The framing is excellent and adds to the mood of the climactic scenes.
Alas it isn't until Season II where the mangaka goes crazy with well composited, detailed two-page scenes. Here it's like flexing his creativity to get a feel for how they would look like and there are still present here.

The CHARACTERS on the other hand... ugh. The protagonist is your generic shounen harem lead - Tsukune who is always standing up against injustice and putting himself in unnecessary danger... Look you fucking idiot, just call in your overpowered friend and have her deal with it for you, she won't mind, it's not like she cares about irredeemable villains either, I doubt she would listen to your stupid shounen lectures about the importance of others.

Then we have the main love interest- Moka, who is sweet, altruistic, caring and harmonizing. She's likable and the shadow character complimenting her presence make for a good dichotomy from a reader standpoint. But romance wise she just feels disconnected in a sense, just being sweet doesn't cut it for me. A romantic relationship, establishing and going through one takes a lot of effort, compromise and one has to accept the faults of the other. It's just how it is even if we feel something indescribably wonderful and sorrowful at the same time. Yes, yes, the complimentary personality of hers, she's just the badass, but there's nothing more to her, she's cold and distant, but yet so cool and is shown to be compassionate at times, but that's not played up to any significance whatsoever here because the status quo of shipping every girl of the harem must be upheld!

This is where the main contender for the romantic relationship comes in- Kurumu. She's a succubus, she's a creature of deviance and yet she wants Tsukune to truly love her without any cheap tricks she would use in her nature to devour men's souls through intercourse.. ahem... sorry, but that's the essence of her monstrous nature really. Alas it's only an ecchi, there is nothing that resembles sensuality or sexual frustration here, it's all just a high school romance. Kurumu joins as a rival to Moka for Tsukune, she's energetic righteous, emotional, upbeat, her main quirk is loving to throw herself into Tsukune with her (supposed) G-cups suffocating his face. Her monstrous nature get sidelined and she's only able to fly... such a badass!

Yukari, the loli witch. She also likes Tsukune, but she also likes Moka, she ships them, or at least doesn't mind their romance. In the harem, she's just the quirky loli. There isn't much to her, she has her quirks to add to the group, along with being the "school genius" which gives her the power of exposition dumping the reader and the cast at what they're facing.
Mizore is the ice girl stalker... that's it. Her quirk is to always be stalking behind a bush, table, pillar... you get the point. What she adds to the harem catfights are the straight man comments which I personally love. Pointing out the stupidity of of Kurumu's outbursts, and her arguments with Yukari.
And lastly Rubi who is introduced later and just makes appearances here and there not really playing any role as a part of the harem. She's mostly a decoration because she has the most distinct character design out of everyone.

So with that I'm just not impressed. Aside from Rubi, no one is fleshed out significantly to understand where they're coming from. The rest are just social exiles for whatever reason accepted by Tsukune so they can obsess over him for arbitrary reasons in order to have comedy skits, yaaaay! There is catharsis to be found in some villain arcs, but they are so few and far between, and in some cases rushed so it lacks impact. But it is a good showcase of spectacle coupled with catharsis. Not great, but serviceable at least, if not for the shounen lectures. Alas I could care less about these archetypes, it's the presentation on the panel framing that makes them powerful, not my dedication or intimate understanding of the characters or their themes. I simply can't empathize with them outside those extreme scenarios whose purpose is spectacle first, not personal drama. And as I mentioned the villains are all irredeemable with a few exceptions, one of them which gets retconned for extra salt.

Thus hindering my ENJOYMENT of immersing myself in these characters' lives and struggles, which are sidelined immediately for the next episodic chapter. The world had potential, but it's just concepts thrown in to add an artificial layer of drama to make up for the lack of actual character drama in order for the reader to root for the good guys. I don't like harem jinks either, there is no focus on each character, all we see are binary relationships between a pair. Moka is the peacekeeper, Kurumu is the bashful, reckless tomboy, Yukari is the smart one, Mizore is the observant straight (wo)man, Tsukune is the self-insert blank slate until the shounen switch in his brain is activated for his death wish each time, but at least that still gives him a character trait.

So in the end it was a chore to read through most of the time and thinking about it, it has ignored quite a few elements, not to mention most of the episodic characters never had significance all throughout Season II, which is what most praise this series for.

A good friend first told me about this manga months ago and it various traits; the vampires and monsters, the school setting and the fact it was meant to have a action sub genre instantly reminded me of the American hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a really cool show that worked really well and I had expectations back then that R+V would be the same. Sadly though I later had a bad experience on how to ruin the same concepts listed above. And of course I don’t think you even need half a brain cell to know what I’m referring to is the ... Twilight series. God I hate it, with its emo, disco ball vampires, to its laughable werewolves, and just plain god damm awful characters and themes.

So when I made the decision to start reading the manga I was extremely cautious. And by the time I had finished reading it I honestly had mixed feelings about it.

Let's get the sticky question that I had hovering over me when I began reading: is the main character, Moka, actually a vampire? The answer, thankfully, is yes... well kind of. She's definitely no Edward Cullen but she isn't on the same level as Alucard from Hellsing, who I feel is the embodiment of a good classic vampire of the night.

I' m gonna have to go into spoiler territory as to why this is the case so if you don’t won't to be spoiled stop reading right now!

When the two leads, Tsukune and Moka, meet, the writer does this really good gag with how Moka's vampire nature burst through and she bites Tskunene's neck , but rather than doing it in the bloodthirsty traditional way, but it’s done with comic effect making it first appear as though she gonna embrace him. This scene is used again and again throughout the series and forms one of the best running gags I've seen. It not only funny, but it serves as a really good twist of the traits of a vampire.

So the comic relief concerning the vampire lead is good, because it actually funny but also stopped me worrying about the issue I mentioned earlier. Oh but we aren’t nearly done yet, because the best is yet to come. You see, Moka' true vampire form is actually sealed away in the form of a rosary. Vampires are weakened by crosses in their mythology, even more points scored for her and the writer in my book. Though not many as I will now sink my teeth into the other issues of this manga

The other main characters, is Tsukune who is the only human in a school full of monsters , and said monsters often try to kill him or his other classmates . Interestingly despite being human, he seems to think he would make an adequate hero or even human shield when trying to save or protect others. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he had some kind of death wish. I mean, here he is, the only human in a school of monsters, and on a daily basis seem to try and kill him. And he just shrugs off any attack. If I was in his shoes, I would run home crying to mummy. But no, simply having a gorgeous vampire potential love interest who likes to feast on your blood will make it all better. In writing it appears funny, but really it’s just stupid.

But of course Tsukune’s idiotic behaviour has a rather unwelcome effect on other female characters, which make up a harem. Yes, a monster harem! Now this could have worked, if the other girls had been even likeable. We have to contend with Kurumu, who’s a succubus or the term slut would be more accurate. She forms the vast majority of the ecchi genre; by often getting her tits out whenever she sees or even thinks Moka and Tsukune are have a cosy moment. Then, there is Yukari, who’s a witch, but sadly also, the loli of the harem. And last there’s Mizore a yukki- onna, which is a being with ice powers. But again she would be better described as a stalker. Though to be fair to her, this attribute of her is actually rather funny, as she would often appear in the most random of places, so she always made me chuckle.

The odd thing is that even though they oppose each other at first, they do come together as friends. But this doesn’t change the fact they all want Tsukune , the human shield, and will just bitch at each other. Never mind the bonding we share throughout the series. Let’s just bitch about a man rather than do the honourable thing and just get over their feelings for him. It seems clear as day that Moka and Tsukune will get together, so much that the other characters do is just hindrances to these two least annoying people getting together. I could try to see that the writer was trying to be funny with the concept of harem, but I barely laughed at any of these scenes.

And now finally there’s the plot, or the lack of it be precise when you do read the first chapter, expect almost the exact same thing to happen almost endlessly. It’s so formulaic and repetive down to the scenarios, to the generic school bully villains, the really frustrating combat, that just so dull. Inner Moka just seems to get an instant knockout with a single kick, in fact sometimes I would feel she just wants the reader to see up her short skirt rather than fight generic henchmen.

Now that I got the bad stuff out of the way, I will admit that the design for many of the monsters is very good, many of them ranging from many different mythologies all over the globe. This I quite liked, making it only one of the few things I liked about this series. I mean even when this series does slightly improve along the way it only really very average, and just very predictable. Moka was the only one I actually liked, both her true vampire form and her general personality. It a real shame it’s not enough to compensate for a manga series which at its best is average and at its worst is terrible and frankly rather annoying.

Sometimes I wonder how any series on MAL gets anything below 7.00 score.
Rosario + Vampire is a fine example of a manga which suffers from wrong tagging.
It has ACTION tag, but all the action is done in the first chapter, and all the following chapters are reenactments of that one fight. Oh wait, the villains were different each chapter, so there's that. Honestly though, I believe there's no lower low for action manga.
It also has COMEDY tag, and I don't remember laughing, smirking, or reacting anyhow beside cringing at hearing Tsukune point out ONCE AGAIN at the beginning of the chapter that "moka, while a ... cute and pretty girl, actually is a... VAMPIRE!" .This is the moment when retarded kids are suprised at the big font, since even they caught up by now who moka really is. Anyway, back to comedy. THERE's NO COMEDY, STUPID.
Well, if there's nothing for people seeking action, or wanting to laugh a bit, maybe FANTASY, magic or paranormal in general fans will find something worthwhile? WhaaaaaAAAT? You already know I'll say fantasy here is shit? c'mon now, let me at least elaborate! So. From this manga, I've learned that witches are actually monsters. AND lycanthropes are monsters also, not diseased/cursed/whatever humans. The werewolf form is their real shape. Yup. Bullshit explanations of phenomena taking place, ways new monsters are introduced and explained(half of them are, of course, one-time appearances of bully monsters, and the other half: the bullied monster girls, whom tsukune rescues by siccing his faithful vampire-dog at the bullies, and the girls fall for him because of his selfless heroism. oh, that's the harem tag done as well, i guess), and overall the understanding of mythology is so pathetic it's like listening to japaneese speak english.

There is only one tag that I'd let this manga have, a GARBAGE tag. It'd at least prevent the people looking to read something interesting from trusting the score entry in question has. If this trash gets GOOD/ VERY GOOD score as a MEAN from all the deadbrains AND people angry for wasting their time(the unlucky ones money), then anything can get 8.
Once again, if you didn't catch it. This manga is trash. And moka is a... VAMPIRE!!!

complete trash, not worth at all of your time.

Story 3/10: almost non existent, the story is so cliche its not even wothr mentioning, from the get go it gets on an infinite loop of, bad monster, take off mocha's rosario, end of arc, that changes midway into tsukune saving the day instead of mocha, but it still in the same loop, that gets boring and super predictible really fast.

Art 7/10: i guess this is the only part of the manga that its actually not terrible, at the begining it has some problems, but with time the art gets really good.

Characters 3/10: its good enough that ... it has different qualities and personality for each character, but that's it, there is no developement at all in the 40 chapters, the characters are almost the same in the begining and in the end.

Emjoyment 2/10: started reading it weekly wise on the manga plus app, and it was kinda bearable, but i got bored quick so i was gonna drop it, changed my mind when i saw there are only 40 chapters and im trying to finishit, but i find myself forcing my way through the pages hoping to just end this quick so i dont have to continue reading.

Overall 4/10: as i sayed before the only good quality i find here is the art and maybe the fact that is only 40 chapters long, after that there is nothing that is worth your time, you are better off reading some other manga... Anything from Naoki Urasawa for example.