Vampire Miyu
| Vampire Miyu | |
|---|---|
| Original title | 吸血 姫 美 夕 |
| genre | Horror, mystery |
| Original video animation | |
| Country of production |
 Japan
|
| original language | Japanese |
| Year (s) | 1988-1989 |
| Studio | AIC |
| length | 25 minutes |
| Episodes | 4th |
| Director | Eri Tsukamoto, Toshihiro Hirano |
| music | Kenji Kawai , Kōhei Tanaka |
| Manga | |
| country |
Japan
|
| author | Narumi Kakinouchi , Toshihiro Hirano |
| Illustrator | Narumi Kakinouchi |
| publishing company | Akita Shoten |
| magazine | Susperia |
| First publication | 1988-2001 |
| expenditure | 10 |
| Anime television series | |
| Country of production |
Japan
|
| original language | Japanese |
| year | 1997 |
| Studio | AIC |
| length | 25 minutes |
| Episodes | 26th |
| Director | Toshiki Hirano |
| production | Kazunori Takagi, Shigehito Yamazaki |
| music | Kenji Kawai |
| First broadcast | October 6, 1997 - March 30, 1998 on TV Tokyo |
Vampire Miyu ( jap.
The horror series is about the adventures of the vampire girl Miyu. While Miyu's adventures are told in individual incoherent episodes in the manga series, the anime follows a storyline in each episode that is more detailed than the manga and focuses on a main story.
Plot of the OVA
The task of the vampire girl Miyu is to search the human world for Shinma , beings who are partly god partly demon and cause harm to humans, and to turn them back into the darkness. As a vampire, she is dependent on fresh blood, which she mainly gets from young, handsome men. She gives her victims a choice between death and a dream zone in which people live on in their imaginations. She is accompanied by her loyal servant Larva (cf. Larva ), who is also Shinma, but is absolutely loyal to Miyu. She is immune to common drugs like garlic, crucifixes, and holy water.
She meets the young Himiko, who, as a medium and ghost hunter, tries to save a little girl who has been lying unconscious in her parents' house for some time. Himiko follows Miyu to save her victims from death, realizing that she too has vampiric features.
Anime
In 1988 a four-part OVA was produced by AIC . Directed by Eri Tsukamoto and Toshihiro Hirano (later known under the stage name Toshiki Hirano), the character design was developed by Narumi Kakinouchi. The episodes appeared in Japan from July 21, 1988 to April 21, 1989.
The OVA appeared in Germany under the title Vampire Princess Miyu on Anime-Virtual . There are also translations into English, French, Italian and Dutch.
In 1997, a 26-part television series followed, which is a remake and retelling of the material. Toshihiro Hirano directed the production of AIC . The character design was created by Megumi Kadonosono and the artistic direction was taken over by Yasuyuki Inaba. The first broadcast took place from October 6, 1997 to March 30, 1998 on TV Tokyo . The series was also broadcast in Brazil and Poland, and translated into English and Italian.
Voice actor
The synchronization of the German version was done by Elektrofilm.
| role | Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) | German speaker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| OVA | Television series | OVA | |
| Miyu | Naoko Watanabe | Miki Nagasawa | Rubina Kuraoka |
| Himiko Se | Mommy Koyama | - | Cathlen Gawlich |
| Chisato Inoue | - | Asako Shirakura | - |
| Yukari Kashima | - | Chiharu Tezuka | - |
| Hisae Aoki | - | Kokoro Shindo | - |
music
The music for the OVA comes from Kenji Kawai and Kōhei Tanaka . The credits were underlaid with the title Kyūketsuki Miyu by Namiko Watanabe.
Kenji Kawai composed the music again for the series. For the opening credits of the series one used the songs Dance of Shinma by Kenji Kawai and Shinma no Kodō by Kagura. The end credits are Manmaru Temari Uta by Miki Nagasawa and Miyu Yachiyo by Saeko Suzuki.
Manga
The manga series by illustrator Narumi Kakinouchi and author Toshiki Hirano comprises ten volumes, each of which contains individual incoherent episodes. Vampire Miyu was published in Japan from 1988 to 2001 in the manga magazine Susperia , which specializes in horror comics for girls, and published in anthologies by Akita Shoten Verlag from 1989 onwards. The sequel Shin Vampire Miyu was also published there in five volumes.
In Germany, the complete series was published by Carlsen Verlag from 2001 . From 2012 the 5-volume series Vampire Princess was published by Planet Manga , which is a greatly changed retelling of the story of Miyu. The manga has also been translated into French, Russian, English, Spanish and Polish, among others.
Books
A novel and three art books were also published on Vampire Princess Miyu .
Reception and analysis
Patrick Drazen describes the OVA series as one of the most atmospheric anime and a definite "must-see" . According to him, the series deals with different variations on a theme. It is always about the fact that immortality corrupts people, those who want to reach them or who have already reached them.
The Anime Guide writes of a refreshing limitation in the horror parts of the OVA, which manages to entertain the viewer, but no more.
The anime makes multiple use of stereotypes and borrowings from Japanese culture, such as the curtain and noises from the bunraku puppet theater, which underline the transformation of two characters into puppets at the end of an episode. According to Antonia Levi, the plot shows complex characters that cannot be classified into a simple good-evil scheme. Miyu hunts the evil Shinma, but acts like a vampire herself. She and others often act out of selfish motives. After all, the series states that there is no real difference between gods and demons.
The German magazine MangasZene describes the OVA as a “little masterpiece” that was kept in very good animation quality for the time. The manga adaptation shows Narumi Kakinouchi's drawing progress, who developed her own style from the rather mediocre one. In the later volumes on the melancholy story, she offers images with few shades of gray, theatrical facial expressions and thin lines. The movements that give the manga the flair of a dream world are wonderfully worked out. Kenji Kawai's music is melodic, "dark, mysterious and sad" .
The television series, already controversial in Japan, is rated in the manga scene because of all the changes to the original as an adaptation to current tastes. There are hardly any similarities to the original and the television series is based more on the Magical Girl series that was current in the 1990s, but also relies on more action instead of melancholy. The animation quality is consistently poor and Kenji Kawai's “dreamlike” music is the only good thing about the anime series.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Drazen, 2003, p. 161
- ↑ Drazen, 2003, p. 217
- ^ Trish Ledoux and Doug Ranney: The Complete Anime Guide , p. 55. Tiger Mountain Press, Issaquah (Washington), 1995
- ↑ Levi, 1996, p. 26 f.
- ↑ Levi, 1996, pp. 46-48
- ↑ a b MangasZene No. 2, p. 11 ff.
literature
- Patrick Drazen: Anime Explosion! - The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation . Stone Bridge Press, 2003. (English)
- Antonia Levi: Samurai from Outer Space - Understanding Japanese Animation . Carus Publishing, 1996. (English)
- Susan J. Napier: Vampires, Psychic Girls, Flying Women, and Sailor Scouts: Four Faces of the Young Female in Japanese Popular Culture in The World of Japanese Popular Culture , Cambridge University Press, 1998. (English)
Web links
- OVA and Manga on Anime News Network (English)