Dance in the Vampire Bund

Dance in the Vampire Bund (story & art by Nozomu Tamaki) was one of the manga series I picked up during the Borders store closing sale. I thought the first volume description was pretty cool, so I picked them up. I had not heard of gomanga before this series. Check them out as they have some cool manga series like He is my Master, Afro Samurai, Venus versus Virus & Boogiepop. They even offer a couple pages of volume 1 to preview of each series.

This turned out to more Moe and Gothic Lolita than what I originally thought. It turns out the lovely young lady named Mina Tepes is the Princess of all the Vampires. She is quite a demanding little girl and highly manipulative. I certainly would not like to cross her path on a bad day.

Excerpt from Volume 1 (read right to left)

SPOILERS:
Since vampires have been around for centuries, they have collected an a massive wealth and power. Since they paid off the national deficit of Japan, they were give their own Special District off the coast of Japan. Mina is trying to turn this into a haven to vampires the world over. But not everyone (human or vampire) is happy about this and are trying to kill her and mess things up.

With Akira (a werewolf) sworn to be by her side forever as her protector. He is kept quite busy with a variety of situations. Mina has even owned the school he goes to and took over as Head Master. There is actually a love triangle between classmate Yuki and Mina for Akira's affection (when is there not a love triangle). We also find that little Mina is not all that she appears to be in this series. We see her true adult form in a couple of situations that are an eye opener.

Overall, I have to say that I was impressed by this series so far. There are a number of plot twists in this series to keep me going til the end. Vampires and werewolves lead to a lot of battle and blood letting. This is not a kids book, as it is set to Older Teen (16+) for its adult situations.