Honourable Mention: Nisemonogatari

Nisemonogatari was the sequel series to Bakemonogatari and follows the adventures of Koyomi Araragi (Hiroshi Kamiya). Before the first series Koyomi was turned into a vampire but was cured. Through the first series and this he is human, but carries some vampiric traits with him – indeed in this series he does refer to himself as a vampire and wonders whether longevity/immortality is a trait he has carried with him.

There is a vampire character in the series called Shinobu (Maaya Sakamoto). In the first series she was silent, in this she appears occasionally, emerging from Koyomi’s shadow, where she now resides. She does speak to Koyomi and also has a fetish for donuts. It appears she no longer needs to feed on blood – possibly due to her symbiotic relationship with Koyomi – but can regain some of her powers when she does feed on blood (in the case of the series, on Koyomi’s blood), and when she feeds she morphs from a child’s form to an adult.

emerging from shadow

Sunlight will no longer kill her, when exposed to it, but will give her a bad sun burn and we discover that she is approximately 500 years old. When we meet some monster hunters it is also revealed that she has been classed as harmless and thus not a target.

bite

The anime itself only covered two stories over 11 episodes and went for a lot of character dialogue within those episodes. There was much play on words – probably meaning more to a Japanese speaking audience – and some self-effacing humour, laughing at the harem style anime, which this could be classed as. There were some incestuous parts to the story also that might make some viewers uncomfortable. The actual animation and art style was as gorgeous as the first series but I didn’t find the episodes as fulfilling. Nevertheless, the series is one of the better anime series out there.

The imdb page is here.