Paranormal romance with painting in the background – review of the comic book “Vampire with a death wish”

Painting

One of the two characters – Yuki – is a painter. However, instead of creating his own works, he is forced by his father – a famous artist – to create in his style. Moreover, the parent uses his son’s pictures as his own – because he is no longer able to paint. It’s hard for me to say how realistic this assumption is. However, there are undoubtedly toxic relationships between parents and children. So we can treat this one here as a metaphor for other behaviors. The author, however, does not devote much attention to this issue. Some aspects are shown, but there is no exploration of the problem. That would be a topic for a rather interesting story in itself.

The second character – Leo – is a vampire who wants death. His character is much less interesting. The manga explains why he wants to end his life, but basically his behavior outside of declarations completely does not match this wish. What’s more, the whole thing is definitely simplified. You could say that Leo is an “empty shell”. It is a pity, because the topic could have been better developed. Although, of course, if the author wanted to explore all the threads that ask for it, the manga would definitely not fit in one volume.

The beginning of an affair

Yuki meets Leo when the latter wakes up after a long sleep. The hungry vampire immediately attacks the boy to satisfy his hunger. Later, the undead asks the young painter to take his life. The protagonist agrees to this wish, but enchanted by the beauty of the bloodsucker, he makes the condition that he first allows him to make his portrait. This is how a romantic, somewhat charming, but also naive story begins.

Pretty soon, Yuki, and us too, learns that a vampire can draw life energy not only from blood, but also through kiss and sex. As you can guess, this form is quite eagerly used by both heroes. There aren’t many relationship scenes in the comic, and the ones that appear aren’t very obscene. However, due to their presence and literalness, the manga is aimed only at an adult reader.

Unrealized potential

A vampire with a death wish has some potential, but unfortunately the author did not use it. The manga is drawn in a pretty nice style and some ideas are very interesting. Unfortunately, the story is extremely simplified and although we can find interesting threads on its basis, they are only licked in the comic itself. It’s a pity, because this story could have been made much more worthy of attention.