K and Noa

 
 

 
 

K and Manami

 
 

K and Akari

Well, well, what do we have here? A Japanese Amazon Prime Series about Vampires?! How did I not know about this?!

Not only that but it is starring Kaho! KAHO playing a tots lesbian character?! You fail me internetz, you fail me yet again!!

 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 

So, funny story. I watched the movie version before watching the series. In fact, I did not know about the series nor the TV and only found out about the series afterword by accident. I have to say though that I am thankful that I got to watch the movie first because both the TV series and the movie had totally different endings! It was the TV series ending that I liked. Not the one that I preferred but the one that I liked of the two.

Not being one to beat around the bush, I will just come out and say it – The movie had a BAD END while the series had a GOOD END! In the movie, all main characters die, and I mean all! In the series K and Manami live, even if they go their separate ways!

Curious thing though, that ending…You see, in the TV series the story goes on much longer compared to where the movie ended, even if the movie comes off as a condensed version of the tv series. The stories converge until about episode 6 of the series and then it is an almost completely different story from there on. Though to be fair, the last four episodes of the series come after the climatic battle and it is more of the other half of Game of Thrones season 8 episode 6 – where it was just laidback story telling about the aftermath for the surviving characters.

Indeed, they even introduce a completely new character, well, two or three in those last few episodes and one of them is…curiously, a daughter of a vampire! She kind of does look a bit like Hashimoto Kanna – the infamous 1 in a thousand years idol (that rap sheet sure ran out fast, huh…)

So, why am I writing about this then? Well, I already mentioned that KAHO plays a lesbian role, or maybe Bi is more appropriate since she herself was more in love (read lust) with Dracula. There are two other people that she does say she loves and that is what most people will consider the main ship, in K and Noa.

The other is the new character I talked about, the daughter of a vampire at the hotel – Akari. She is young, and still human. She is the one who finds K’s prison room and helps her awaken, though she doesn’t save her from her prison (That’s Manami). When Akari’s mother wants the vampires to turn her daughter into one so she couldn’t have to face the hard, human world, K and Manami intervene and save her and when the stare down happens and K says ‘NO’ to their request of turning Akari over, they ask her why not. She says it’s because she loves her (as in ‘aishiteru’).

Now, while she never explicitly says it, she cares deeply for Manami. In fact, she shows more caring towards Manami than she does the others despite not verbally saying it out loud. Actually, it was because of Manami that K decided to change her ways. She clashed against her Sire Dracula, got into a fight with Noa, decided to change her fate, all because of Manami. All so she could save her. Her relationship with Manami I feel, was the true love but I guess to most it would be the silver platter where she says it out loud.

Interestingly, the ENDGAME was Akari, as K ended up travelling with them and her father. Noa met a grizzly end and as mentioned, Manami went back to living as a normal human being, having been a special kind of creature that seemed to have an unlimited blood supply which had special properties.

To tell the truth, I don’t mind the way that things ended. Manami had always wanted to be normal and her ending up with K would have kept her in that vampire world which is the exact opposite of what she wanted in life. On K’s part, she seems like the type of person that lives for a purpose. She is the kind that can’t believe they have value unless they are needed by someone. So her being with Manami, for whom she could do nothing for would be a useless existence for her. Manami does not need protection anymore now that all vamps in Japan are done for. And if Dracula did not attack in the fifteen years since the climatic battle, why would he now? He probably thinks that every vampire is dead.

But then begs the question – what will she do for Akari? Akari has her father, who seems more than capable of taking care of his daughter. Maybe she was telling the truth when she confessed that she loved Akari in front of everyone, including her mother. Maybe K finally found a reason to live for someone not for their sake but for K’s. Maybe she has finally found her value in life. And she is a vampire, so to all those alt rights, she can wait for as long as it takes for Akari to ‘grow up’.

And, even if she did not open her eyes until Manami found her, Akari had already done the Sleeping Beauty thing with her and by then her consciousness was awake so, you know, I am just saying.

But, to everyone the main relationship would’ve been K and Noa, even if Noa did not make it. But really, while she was a good person before she became a vampire, she had some imperfections about her. She was the crazy lesbian cliché so to speak. And while K does admit that she liked her, I don’t remember her saying it to K face to face. Or maybe she did once but Noa didn’t believe her anyway. At one-point K was ready to die with Noa though so I guess there was truth to her loving Noa.

Then of course Manami got in the way and as you might guess, that is what ended up as my favourite ship. K changed because of Manami. She fought her way from the belly of hell because of Manami. She decided against death, against dying with the one she loved, because of Manami. She lived long enough to find her own reason to live because of Manami. Seriously, the only time we saw her humanity after she became a vampire was when she was with Manami. Of course, I just had to ship.

And so, it hurts bad that they did not end up together because I feel like it would have been an earned solution. But I’ll take any ending over the one from the movie where everyone basically dies. Like, they had Manami and K’s severed heads perched on sticks as e y danced, those sadistic humans! And while Manami had visions of her days with K during her last moments, which is where she was killed as she was lost in those sweet memories with K, she still met a BAD END anyway, so it was useless.

Not that K ending up with Akari is that bad. She is after all the one that saved her. Even if not personally, Manami managed to find K because of Akari so whichever way you look at it, Akari saved K. Interestingly Akari is a pure human so I wonder how that future will go. Will K turn her, or will they have that Blood+ relationship where Akari will die a human of old age?

From what I understand, this is an adaptation. I never read the source material so please if anyone has, could you let me know what happens after the series ends with K travelling with Manami and Cody? That is, if the story is Canon and not an original ending.

Anyway, while this was not anything, I kind of liked the idea of K and Dracula’s daughter, I guess? K ended up crushing her throat, probably to shit her up (god that song she was singing was annoying as hell) but really, she also beheaded Noa, so I guess death doesn’t mean anything. But I thought that they would fit together more perfectly than Noa. If this I a manga I am sure they is fan fiction of them so I better get hunting.

As for the story, in a super ultra-mega condensed version, is about a living vampire hotel in Japan where Vampires there go. It is a kind of haven for them. There is war between the local vampires and those that are aligned with Dracula in Romania, where Kaho’s character K went over to do placement and while there, she not only fell in love with Noa, a local girl but she got entangled in with another girl who was already aligned with Dracula and they got turned!

Both factions seem to be searching for a special ‘vampire’ Manami (played by Sion Sono’s favourite Ami). I put it in air quotes because I don’t think she is a vampire and lack of subtitles don’t help. We never see her drink blood at any one time and while she is not completely human (otherwise why would the vamps be interested in her), she is not that type of monster.

As all civil wars end, things end badly. Worse in the movie version because there are no survivors in the Vampire Hotel except the humans. The TV version ends differently where all the vamps die when K opens the doors to day light but Manami being human, survives and K lives on travelling Alucard-style during the day with Akari and her surrogate Dad Cody.

Okay, enough reading. Here are all the caps…

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