Karin Maaka is the middle child of a family of vampires which immigrated to Japan 200 years ago. Karin, although technically a vampire herself, is very different from the rest of her family. Instead of lacking blood, her body overproduces it. In order to get rid of the excess blood, once a month, she must give in to her urges and find someone to bite. Instead of drinking their blood, she gives them some of hers, leaving both her and her "victim" feeling refreshed and energetic.
Despite these troubles, she still goes to school and holds down a part-time job. Everything is going reasonably well for Karin, until a transfer student, Kenta Usui, joins her class. For some reason, her body instantly reacts to him, and begins producing more blood than she can stand...
Story & Characters
In celebration (or in spite of) of the announcement of Geneon USA's acquisition of this show today, I am going to
post a review to help you decide when the time comes; is this worth a purchase?
Karin can be described by simply using the word; odd. The entire premise of the show is based on our main heroine
Karin Maaka (or Marker depending on your subtitle of choice). She and her family all live in the shadows as vampires.
Everybody in her family is a normal blood sucking vampire as we all know them to be. Karin is what you would call a
reverse vampire in that she produces blood and has to get rid of it instead of suck it. If she doesn't rid herself
of her excess blood, she has what looks to be a cataclysmic nosebleed. Not only that but she functions just fine in the
daytime and lives life just as a normal schoolgirl. Aside from the fact she's a vampire of course.
One day while at school she meets a new student Usui Kenta. When she meets him she finds herself unable to control her
blood production and makes it a point to dodge him at all costs. Her brother tells her that the reason she reacts to
him is that he produces the blood that she likes. In her case it's unhappiness. All vampires react to a certain
type of trait in blood and when they suck (or don't in Karin's case) that blood, they take that trait away
from that individual. Her mother likes liars. The father enjoys pride. Her brother enjoys stress. Eventually while
trying to dodge Usui, she finds herself unable to control her blood production and she bleeds in front of Usui.
Normally you erase their memories but instead the family decides that due to Karin's nature, she needs a daytime
ally. Usui fits the bill perfectly.
It certainly seems like an interesting concept, but one that falls short in execution. Much of the show is simply Karin
and Usui growing closer in a forbidden vampire-human relationship. That and of course Karin bleeding all over the place
and Usui cleaning it up and covering it up. The show winds up being more of a character comedy for the most part with
seriousness interjected on occasion. Eventually into the mix you get one of those terrible characters in Winner
Sinclair. He is an effeminate vampire hunter who obsesses over Karin. Ultimately he finds out her true nature and
around that time is when the serious portions start to kick in, but even that fell short of providing any kind of actual
substance to the show in the end.
Rating: 5
Art
Detail was lacking in every corner of Karin. The biggest foul is the overall character designs. They were all very
unimaginative and lacked any kind of detail outside of Karin's little sister Anju and even with her you could just
consider her the atypical goth-loli character. All that seemed to have happened was they went into anime stock footage,
pulled out faces, changed the hair a bit and called it new. The only part of the characters that received any real
attention was Karin's breasts. When I think back on it, her breasts got more and more attention as the show
progressed and eventually had that gravity defying bounce to them. Aside of that everything in the show screamed
mediocre. The background animations were quite poor and the CG that was thrown in was ugly and standoffish. Granted
the only CG that was used was in the animation of bats, but even still that stood out anytime one was on screen. I just
didn't see the need for that in the first place.
Rating: 5
Sound
When the sound department is the high point of the show, you know there is a problem. All in all the music was quite
solid. The opening and closing songs are two that I've listened to for a while now and had no idea that they were
attached to this show. So when I heard them again I was pleasantly surprised. The background music also does what it
needs to do although there seemed to be very little in terms of variation in the music. There is really only a few
actual BGM's to speak of and they don't play all that often.
As for the vocal portion; we'll call it a mixed bag. Karin's and Usui's seiyuu did a pretty good job
overall and gave the characters a certain chemistry. The entire vocal cast complemented the overall feel of the show
with the absurd, off the wall humor at times. I usually interject who I think did the best job right about here, but I
can't do that this time. There was no real standout great performance, but there was a worst one. Kouki Miyata as
Winner Sinclair. It doesn't help him that I just hated the character overall, but even as the obligatory
effeminate, blonde male that all of these shows have to have apparently, he was a poor one. The broken English and the
nasally sound of his voice was like a chalkboard in my brain. The character was made to be annoying, but when it's
just hard to even listen to them that's not necessarily a good thing.
Rating: 7
Presentation
A substandard plot with ordinary, unimaginative animation did this show in. It isn't to say it's horrible but
it just isn't all that entertaining. The only reason I'm giving this one point up from the plot score is
Karin's grandmother Elda. If Elda was never introduced, this show would have fallen flatter than it did. The way
the show was progressing was just plain boring even with its minor quirks. Elda gave the plot some umph and gave the
show a nice sinister character to follow. She helped push the plot along to its climax. The ending did provide closure
although it was a bit too predictable for my tastes.
This show is going to be loved by a very niche crowd, but I think those who have "been around the anime
block", so to say, will be left a bit unsatisfied. It does have some pretty humorous moments and likeable
characters. There is ecchi humor and cute girls. It is definitely an interesting and original premise. But at the end
of the day it ends up being one of those "been there, done that" types of show. Watch it if you have nothing
else, but for most out there I'd say give it a pass.
Rating: 6
Final Verdict
5.6667 (average)
Reviewed by shoujoboy, Feb 16, 2007
