Review: BLOOD LAD

It's not just BL that can get spooky - shonen manga can too.

BLOOD LAD (Burrado Raddo), by Yuuki Kodama.  First published in 2009 and first published in North America in 2012.

PLOT:

Staz the vampire has a reputation for being one of the toughest bosses in the demon world.  You'd never guess he was something of a nerd, obsessed with all the tech, video games, anime, and manga of the human world.  He's thrilled when a human girl accidentally wanders into his realm...until she accidentally dies.  The two are now on a quest to regain the girl's humanity, one where they will have to fight their way through both the human and demon world.

STORY:

Blood Lad is a perfectly respectable take on a spooky shonen story, but its strength is not in its main storyline but in Staz's backstory.  He is fairly entertaining as a lead, as he shows himself to be relatively smart and capable and his geekiness is weirdly endearing.  Sure, he's prone to the sort of last-minute power-ups and ass-pull strategies that a lot of shonen heroes are, and he also tends to talk about the human world like it's one big video game, but he's also capable of doing more than just punching his enemies to death.  

Thank goodness he's interesting because the same cannot be said for his companion: the human-turned-demon girl Fuyumi.  She's a true plot device, there to get dragged around by Staz or his latest opponent for the sake of the plot.  Her most proactive moment is when she stops a fight by crying and giving a speech on the Power of Friendship (tm).  Staz is clearly smitten with her (even if he would never admit to it), and she tends to bring out feelings of moe in just about everyone she meets.

The rest of the cast are pulled straight from the shonen manga handbook.  You've got the old frenemy who works together with Staz whenever it suits him (and the plot) best.  There's an elder who serves as The Giver of Exposition (who comes complete with a token cute critter), along with a secondary romantic rival with a magic bag from which she can pull a plot point or two as needed.  The rest are just interchangeable goons.  The world around them is marginally more interesting, where the afterlife is basically just one giant web of never-ending gang wars.  I just wish there was a story worthy of that concept happening within it.

ART:

Kodama is definitely above-average for a shonen artist.  The character designs are fairly grounded (despite most everyone being some sort of supernatural being), dressed in stylish clothes with only one or two features hinting at their supernatural power.  The action scenes are powerful and fast without needing to drown them in speedlines.  The backgrounds are nicely drawn too, even if they tend towards a lot of mundane interiors and dingy industrial neighborhoods.  The color art looks especially good, particularly the pieces where the demons' colors are washed out save for their glowing red eyes.  Amazingly, fanservice is almost nonexistent despite some of the girls here having larger-than-average bustlines.  I hope it can keep that up - there aren't a lot of shonen series that do.

RATING:

Blood Lad is a solid shonen series with a neat lead, and interesting setting, and attractive art that all works in its favor.

This series is published by Yen Press.  It is complete in Japan with 17 volumes available.  All 17 volumes were released over 9 omnibuses and are currently in print.