Rosario + Vampire

Tweekums

Protagonist Tsukune Aono can't get into any of the schools he wants to; then he sees an advert for the private Yokai Academy… he applies and is accepted. When he gets there he is in for quite a surprise; it is no ordinary school; it is a school solely for monsters and humans caught on site are killed! Luckily its primary purpose is to train them to pass as human and in the school they are meant to maintain their human form at all times. He befriends vampire Moka Akashiya but soon learns she isn't quite what she seems; when the rosario, a cross, is removed from her neck she transforms into a far more powerful creature. She learns his secret but doesn't tell anybody else as she likes the taste of his blood!.

Over the course of the series they must deal with a variety of other monster students; inevitably at the end of the episode Tsukune will pull the Rosario from Moka's neck; she will transform and defeat the menace… if this menace is female she will inevitably end up joining Tsukune's ever expanding harem. It isn't long before it includes a vampire, a succubus, a young witch and a 'snow fairy'. Early on it is very much a 'monster of the week' show but later, as the group joins the school's newspaper club, we get longer running story lines that lead up to a final battle against the head of the school's Security Committee.

This is a rather fun series with some good characters and an entertaining story. The idea of having the protagonist trapped in a school for monsters is good and leads to plenty of great moments. Being a harem show it won't come as much of a surprise that this features plenty of ecchi moments. These are mostly limited to rather frequent shots of the girls' underwear, the only actual nudity is a brief flash of Moka's backside as she transforms. The characters are distinctive and the animation is okay but nothing special. The series gets better as it progresses and more characters are introduced, including more threatening bad guys. Overall an enjoyable series but not really a 'must see'; good enough that I'd still watch the second season at some point… if you want a monster-harem series 'Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls'; which was still airing when I wrote this review, is more amusing… but be warned it takes the ecchi quite a bit further!.

These comments are based on watching the first series of 'Rosario   Vampire' in Japanese with English subtitles.

score 7/10

Tweekums 28 August 2015

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3306227/