Call of the Night: Volume 1 – Sexy Vampire Nights

Have you ever read something that had an excellent first chapter and then just kind of flat lined in terms of how it executed its story ideas afterwards? Not that it was completely bad, but it was kind of unsubtle about what it was trying to do and it trying to build some kind of conflict by the characters saying things at each other instead of having any sort of human conversation with each other? Yeah, that was Call of the Night for me. Every build up of conflict felt kind of wrong for me because it was superficial and awkward? Maybe that was the point? I’m very unsure.

Anyway, the premise of this manga is centered on the first adventure of a high schooler named Ko being unable to sleep and walking the streets. A very relatable thing considering that I suck at sleeping too. This time, he runs into the vampire named Nazuna who was very energetic, very in with the night crowd, and just having a good time. She, of course, decides that Ko is a target to suck his blood allowing him to sleep. (Would be open to this solution.) It’s one of those openings which is pretty exciting, a little horny but not too horny considering the nature of vampires, and you could see why Ko would be so interested in a beyond understanding being like Nazuna and want to be one.

I mentioned this before in my first paragraph, but it really feels like the manga hit the breaks afterwards. Nazuna is still very energetic and amazing, but she becomes a little too generic romance interest and becomes a little jealous when Ko ‘s friend from his past shows up here like she was called to do it. It’s very robotic in how it inserts conflict and then deals with it which is what i think a lot of romance anime or manga do instead of doing it organically. I would have liked to see the Nazuna and Ko relationship explored a bit more because there is some interesting things happening. How would a relationship with Nazuna happen, tells us more about what Ko has to do to turn into a vampire besides fall in love with her, and what about his family life? The manga doesn’t seem that interested in doing that right now.

I still had a decent time with this manga though. It was good. I love how the panels were drawn because they had some much energy and romance into them. Look at the panels above for instance? Can’t you feel something from how the top panel and bottom panel are drawn? A certain chemistry really does make it through the panels with the character designs and the facial expressions. I think that and the fact that the manga artist wants to make Nazuna as cool as possible in every moment got me through the manga. (Might have some other…reasons for that too, but you know….). So this manga was ok. Very decent and pretty fun to read, but just nothing natural or substantial.

If you want to read this for yourself, it’s available for pre order from Viz Media right now. Click this link to know more: Link.