Publisher: Yen Press
Release Date, October 27, 2015
Price: $13.00
Creator(s): Gakuto Mikumo (writer); TATE (artist)
Format: 176 pgs., Black & White, Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-3163-4560-6
Age Rating: 13+
ICv2 Ratings: 3 Stars out of 5
Vampires have been everywhere over the last few years and it seems like you really can't go very far in any direction without running into one. Enter the first volume of Strike The Blood, an adaptation of the vampire light novel series about a boy who has inherited the powers of one of the most powerful vampires in the world and the junior high school girl who has been sent to monitor him.
Right off the bat there are plenty of things about this debut volume that are going to rub people the wrong way. The story is a little complicated to try and sum up in just a few panels of exposition but that doesn't stop them from trying their best anyway. Sadly they just come up a bit empty in that regard as I found myself only slightly better informed than I had been before I started the volume.
The artwork is also going to bother a few people in the audience. While the character designs are all quite well done and very nice to look at, the junior high school panty fan service is going to irk some members of the audience who don't really care to see that sort of thing and one can really hardly blame them. Teenagers who aren't sick of vampires yet are going to be the core audience for this series.
Ovverall the series is off to a slow start and lacks any real hooks towards keeping the readers engaged and interested in seeing more. There are lots of vampire stories out there and this one is just not really a cut above the rest. You can skip this one and not worry too much about missing anything grand or special.
--L.B. Bryant