English Dub Review: Vampire Dormitory “Love 1. The pretty boy gets picked up.”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Down on his luck and out of a job, the beautiful Mito Yamamoto has a chance encounter with Ruka, a young cafe employee who turns out to be a real-life vampire in search of a thrall! But Mito is hiding secrets of his own…

Our Take:

Love is pretty complicated, especially when you’re affectionate toward someone pretending to be a different gender. Oh, and you’re a blood-sucking vampire seeking a thrall. So far, I’ve seen a couple of shows that take different approaches to the romance genre, whether it’s fantasy-related or something supernatural. Vampire Dormitory looks to be another example as it takes the romantic route down a vampiric path. It appeared to be another series with LGBT representation, but after looking at its synopsis further, it’s singing a different tune than it looked.

The reason is the series’s protagonist, Mito Yamamoto. The episode has Mito fending for himself when he gets fired from his job and loses his parents in a house fire. He also harnesses a huge secret: He’s actually a young woman disguising as a boy, with her boyish wig being one of the sources of her coverup. Most shows have female voice actors play male characters, especially in the world of anime, so having Nia Celeste voice a female protagonist pretending to be a man was a pretty unique approach to this tradition, at least in my eyes. He eventually comes across a cafe full of handsome waiters, one of whom is Ruka Saotome, a young man who’s actually a vampire devoid of love. After saving Mito from a suicide attempt, Ruka decided to make her his thrall to make her feel wanted. Unfortunately, Ruka doesn’t realize that Mito is a girl pretending to be a boy, setting up a possible love story full of secrets and blood.

While watching the episode, I couldn’t help but describe Vampire Dormitory as a mixture of Twilight and She’s the Man, with the latter resembling a female protagonist pretending to be a man. I would’ve chosen Mulan since the Disney film also featured a woman disguised as a man, but I figured the 2006 film with Amanda Bynes would be a better comparison since Ruka lives in an all-boys college dorm. The episode also provided some interesting world-building regarding the vampires, including love being the source of a human’s blood’s taste. In Mito and Ruka’s case, they’re devoid of any love, making Mito’s blood taste bitter for Ruka. So, Ruka decides to teach Mito about love to make her blood taste better for him and assume his place as ruler of all vampires.

Regarding the romance formula, Vampire Dormitory may seem like another romantic anime with a vampiric twist. However, the first episode provided enough interest in its characters and world-building to get me curious about how the plot progresses. The voice cast seemed to be doing pretty well so far regarding their performances, and the animation by Studio Blanc was decent regarding its presentation. Whether it’ll be another worthy romance series worth sinking your teeth into depends on how the later episodes keep its blood from being too bitter.