Many pardons for the Spanish cover, but most of the other images were far too small. Despite the underage look of the protagonist, all the actors here are college-aged. I say this in prelude to the fact that Bloody Buddy / Boku no Chi Sutte Kuremasen ka? might be one of the sweetest vampire/human yaoi I have ever read.
SPOILERS
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I think one of the reasons this manga ends up being so sweet is due to the world-building.
The world of Kioi Uzuki is one where he can run a sharehouse (what we might call a boarding house) for “Dark Touched”: werewolves, vampires, and other ‘creatures of the night.’ It is never fully explained how, but vampires and werewolves are just regular people who have special powers. It’s not even fully clear if this is racial (as in one is born into a lineage of vampires), or just something that happens from time to time (as in mothers have a certain percentage chance of birthing a Dark Touched child.) From the few clues we get, it really does seem to be the latter.
In a flashback in chapter two, we see our vampire, Satou Kousuke, explaining to his grandma that he’s fine being alone after have been rejected by an elementary school friend due to being Dark Touched.
Grandma seems shocked.
Our heroes conveniently live together. Kioi is super-excited by the fact that a vampire (apparently somewhat rare among the Dark Touched) will be staying. But this is not their cute-meet. In fact, Satou is a bit put off by Kioi’s enthusiasm for the occult at the beginning, since he imagines himself lumped in with this “hobby.”
Their true friendship begins when Kioi, who is prone to late night strolls despite a general advisement to the general public to stay indoors once the sun sets, meets up with one of his house sharers on the street, Kosaka, a werewolf. Kosaka has never previously had trouble on the full moon, but for whatever reason this one gets him. Even though he warns Kioi to run, Kioi is unable to get away before he transforms. Luckily, Satou is there with some vampiric super-strength and super-speed.
Satou is still fairly stand-offish, but Kioi is always there with a smile and enthusiasm. In fact, Kioi invites himself along to university when he finds out he and Satou attend the same place.
Kioi eventually asks Satou to accompany him on an outing to a haunted spot where there is supposed paranormal activity. Satou initially thinks this is because of his status as Dark Touched, but, no, Kioi is actually just a scaredy-cat and wants someone else there to basically hold his hand if he gets creeped out. Satou still isn’t sure, until they get there and it’s clear that Kioi just wants company as he films his YouTube channel episode. At this point, Satou starts to realize that Kioi’s interest in him is truly genuine.
And then the unthinkable happens.
Possibly due to the uptick in his heart rate with all the doki-doki feelings, Satou gets HUNGRY. He tells Kioi to run, but Kioi is all, “Nah, man, if you’re hungry, just eat me.”
As it were.
But, it is all very innocent, at least in so much as having someone suckling your neck and drinking your life essence is “innocent.” Yet despite this, they stay friends. Or maybe it’s more surprising that they aren’t instantly MORE THAN friends. But, they continue to just hang out while Kioi’s enthusiasm continues to batter at the walls of Satou’s emotional defenses. (As the extrovert in my relationship, I always love to see this dynamic, where friends happen because the EXTROVERT JUST WON’T STOP TALKING and showing up.)
At one point, just when Satou is feeling sidelined, he overhears a plot by some of Kioi’s former high school friends to play a mean trick on him at one of the haunted sites. They want to stage something spook and record him running in terror, in part to boost their own subscriber numbers, but also to discredit him.
Satou is having none of it.
He is unable to foil the plot, but he shows up in time to comfort Kioi and bring him home. Also, more importantly, he is able to use his vampiric powers to get the jerks to erase their footage.
After this Satou tries a love confession. Kioi immediately thinks, “He likes me? He must mean AS FRIENDS” and thus their very awkward, very relatable, oddly wholesome relationship begins.
This manga is apparently on-going, but there are two volumes published. I am hoping they have hot vampire sex at some point, but, honestly, it’s less neccessary for me than is typical. I think what I am actually enjoying the most is the thing I tend to like about any vampire fiction–those moments when the story doesn’t go the expected route.
For instance, when Satou shows up here, Kioi, like me, assumes that he maybe flew or used some special vampiric Spidey-sense to alert him that Kioi was in danger. Nope. He just got worried, talked to Kioi’s grandma who offered a friend’s truck, and he drove out there like a normal friend.
I f*cking love that.
I will warn my trans readers that there is a (minor) trans villain in this. One of the bullies who wants to make fun of Kioi is a trans woman.
She is misgenedered by Kioi throughout (at least as written by the scanlators, since he might not need to use pronouns in the original Japanese), but he rolls with her transition kind of the same way he does with the Dark Touched in his life. So, I guess that’s something. You decide if it’s worth it for you.
Other than that misstep, I really enjoyed this one. As you can see the scans are, themselves, a bit rough, and the art is… decent? This is one of those manga where I sort of feel like I’m rolling the dice, panel to panel, as to whether Satou will look hot and decently grown-up or just like some Emo baby. Another thing that readers will have to decide for themselves.
I do recommend the story though. If you can get past the bully trans woman and the art, I would say it’s worth a try. The story is not yet fully scanlated as of the time of this review, however.
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