Review: HUNGRY FOR YOU: ENDO YASUKO STALKS THE NIGHT

 After that last review, we should look at more recent take on horror.  It should be something a little funnier, a little moodier, and maybe more than a little bit gay.

HUNGRY FOR YOU: ENDO YASUKO STALKS THE NIGHT (Endo Yasuko wa Yomayoicho ni Kakureteru), by Flowerchild.  First published in 2016 and first published in North America in 2018.

PLOT:

At a prestigious girls' school in Yomai town, a mystery haunts the student body.  Three girls have gone missing and no one knows who the culprit might be.  Shizue thinks she has stumbled upon the answer when she discovers her classmate, Yasuko Endo, drinking another girl's blood.  A chase ensues, but Yasuko ultimately makes a deal with Shizue: if Shizue will provide her own blood as needed to keep Yasuko's cravings at bay, Yasuko will help pay for Shizue's food and lodging.  Thus begins their strange relationship, one that only grows stranger as it grows to include a hyper-competitive rival, an incompetent vampire hunter from Texas, and a gal with an agenda of her own.

STORY:

I have to give Hungry For You some credit.  Original ideas are hard to find in yuri manga, but this one not only incorporates vampirism into the usual girls' school scenario, but it also treads this fine intersection between drama, comedy, and romance.  It's hard to pin down the mood of this manga, but I'll be damned if it isn't entertaining to read.

Yasuko and Shizue's relationship is emblematic of that hard-to-define mood.  They're not quite girlfriends and not quite master and thrall, but more than just mere friends and roommates.  While at first Shizue is equal parts afraid and curious about Yasuko, she increasingly becomes something like Yasuko's minder.  In turn, Yasuko lays on both the charm and the intimidation early on, but as she gets comfortable with Shizue she comes off as less haughty and more eccentric and old fashioned.  On top of all this is a constant, low simmer of romantic tension that is all but expected with a vampire story and you get a relationship that is most assuredly not the usual 'shy schoolgirls in love.'

That being said, their strange dynamic starts to feel a little watered-down in the second half as more characters are introduced and the story becomes more gag-driven.  The humor isn't awful by any stretch, but it absolutely punctures that curiously compelling mood.  It tries to bring back some tension at the very end of the volume, but I wonder if it's possible to recapture that curiously compelling mood without dumping all the newcomers.

ART:

There were two things about the artwork that caught my eye.

1. Shizue's character design is kind of adorable.  Sure, she's small and spunky to serve as contrast to Yasuko's tall, stately beauty and that's kind of standard for this type of manga.  Yet her glasses and short, sporty haircut combined with her lively poses help her stand out and lends her a certain sort of spunky charm.

2. This series is surprisingly un-thirsty.  This is no longer just a problem with yuri manga made by men - the yuri licensed here has gotten increasingly horny, and more often than not it's done not as part of the gaze of the characters but entirely outside of the characters and all for the sake of the audience.  At most, there's the occasional bit of framing that emphasizes someone's thighs or busom (sometimes Yasuko, but not exclusively), but it's brief and I suspect many readers wouldn't even notice.

There's not a great deal more that can be said for the art here.  For once, it's not due to boredom but merely due to plain old competence.  Flowerchild's art is perfectly fine, but not all that distinctive.

RATING:

If Hungry For You hadn't leaned so hard on the comedy in its second half, it would have been an easy green light.  As is it, it's still a stronger than average yuri series thanks to the strong writing for its leading couple and an easy recommendation for yuri fans wanting something a little different.

This series is published by Seven Seas.  This series is complete in Japan with 2 volumes available.  Both volumes were published and are currently in print.