Vampire Princess Miyu

Princess Miyu is a vampire chosen to act as Guardian of the Eastern World with the task of tracking down shinma (demon gods) hiding in contemporary Japan to prey on mortals. Aided by Larva, her eternal (and masked) Western shinma companion (the name comes from the Latin word meaning ghost or mask) and a cute-ish furry creature called Shiina, Miyu must send the shinma back into the darkness. As Miyu will never age beyond her early teens, the obvious way for her to carry out her mission is to join the local school where she makes friends with three other teenage girls: vivacious Chisato, worldly-wise Yukari, and bookish Hisae. They have no idea of the true identity of their quiet new friend – at first.

Vampire Princess belongs to the ‘monster of the week’ school of TV series as Miyu encounters – and defeats – an astonishing gallery of shinma. Each time the monster reveals itself, transforming from its human disguise into something ghastly (usually with teeth, tail and claws) Miyu and Larva go into their monster-killing routine. Sometimes, her rival turns up; snow spirit Reiha and her mysterious helper Matsukaze, a boy spirit living in a traditional doll that she carries everywhere. Reiha thinks that she should be the Guardian instead of Miyu and there is no love lost between the two. But you won’t find out the reasons why this rivalry exists unless you persevere right through to the last episodes where – somewhat belatedly – the strange (and a little obscure) backstory is finally revealed. It would have helped so much if this intermittent thread could have been developed throughout the episodes, instead of saving it till the end.

There’s everything here from creepy dolls to spider infestations, mysterious cats to mermaids and haunted African masks. What you won’t find is anything much to do with traditional vampirisim; Miyu occasionally takes the blood of victims to give them release into a happier afterlife, but if you’re hoping for a gore-fest like Blood+ or a gothic romance like Vampire Knight, you’ll be disappointed.

Based on the manga by Narumi Kakinouchi and directed by the mangaka’s husband Toshiki Hirano, this re-release from MVM is the 26 episode TV series from 1997-8 and is not to be confused with the slightly earlier OAV.

In spite of the lighter moments of school scenes and girlish banter (doubtless inserted to attract a shoujo audience) the overall tone of Vampire Princess is one of impending doom. This is not the best series to watch if you’re feeling down. It shows its age in several ways, the worst of which is its (sometimes tediously) slow pacing – not that I object to watching ‘vintage’ manga; the edgily brilliant Cowboy Bebop was released in the same year. It’s not just the use of stills (a practice difficult to avoid as it saves money!) but it’s the way we follow a character walking along a street, going into a station, etc. etc. – and to no good dramatic purpose. Fifteen years on, we’ve become used to a far faster pace of storytelling in our anime. And, effectively horrible as the shinma usually prove to be, an icky-looking monster is not quite enough to keep our attentions these days.

Another problem is the unrelieved air of gloom. If you chose to cherry-pick an episode or two from time to time, then the supernatural elements of the tales would be of interest, especially if you enjoy Japanese (and other) folklore. But the lack of an ongoing story until the final episodes (other than the rivalry between Reiha and Miyu) means that there’s little impetus for returning to watch the series through, even though there are mildly interesting paranormal mysteries to be solved. Miyu’s plight should be far more involving but it’s hard to relate to a heroine who is portrayed as distant and detached from the humans around her. It doesn’t help matters that both US voice actresses (Kimberly Brown/Dorothy Elias-Fahn) and Japanese seiyuu Miki Nagasawa all adopt a quiet, uninvolved tone of voice – probably to emphasise Miyu’s ‘alien’ nature – with the result that the main character rarely commands our sympathy. Until the final disc, it’s only in the double episode story ‘The Call of the Sea’ when Larva is in danger and strangers from his past threaten to split the two apart forever, that we get a glimmer of Miyu’s true feelings for him.

On the plus side, there’s a well-crafted and atmospheric score by Kenji Kawai (Fate/stay Night, Eden of the East) and the theme that Miyu plays on her flute to alert the shinma to her presence is evocative and convincingly ageless. The Ending, “Miyu Yachiyo” by Saeko Suzuki, is appropriately wistful and appealingly performed.

The vivid colours used for the backgrounds are often employed to enhance the mood of the story and the character designs, though very much of their time, are not unattractive. Character Designer Megumi Kadonosono was also responsible for the CLAMP OAV Rayearth (also directed by Toshiki Hirano) and there are distinct similarities between the two.

The voice acting in the US dub is only just about serviceable, even though some names in the cast list have become (justly) better known, especially the gifted Mona Marshall who voices Reiha’s irascible spirit ‘companion’ Matsukaze, and Jamieson K. Price who appears, alas, all too briefly in Episode 22 as the magician Kijutsushi.

The only extras are a sketch gallery of the various shinma who appear and the textless ending song.

In Summary
Vampire Princess Miyu has not aged as well as other anime series produced at the end of the twentieth century, like Cowboy Bebop and Gravitation. However, it has a certain period charm and Kenji Kawai’s music helps. Best watched in small doses, using the subbed version.

(MVM note that ‘This Vampire Princess Miyu release uses original masters created by TokyoPop. This was the first DVD release for TokyoPop in the USA and their approach was to merge episodes with the removal of opening and closing credits, to create a longer feature. This only happened for disc one, after which they adopted the standard episodic approach used by everybody else. This ‘quirk’ should be viewed as a piece of DVD history.’)