Begun as a manga in 2021, Hiromasa Okujima’s Baban Baban Ban Vampire, which tells the story of a vampire who works in a modern bathhouse, finally hit our screens in January of this year. Vampires and sexuality have a long history together, with Bram Stoker’s Dracula giving the modern interpretation of the blood-sucking fiends an erotic edge. But is this BL comedy type A+, or just type O-K?
Premise of Baban Ban Vampire
The star of the show is Ranmaru Mori, a vampire who has been alive for over 500 years, and was a contemporary and lover of feudal lord Oda Nobunaga. In the modern age, he lives in a bathhouse in Tokyo in exchange for room and board. He tells his host family that he is a vampire, but they don’t believe such a tall tale, and to sate his hunger for blood, he spends his nights hunting only the wicked.
However, his true motivation for living in the bathhouse is that its heir, Rihito Tatsuno, is a kind-hearted virgin: pure of heart and pure of blood. Ranmaru decides to stay with the family, having been rescued by Rihito ten years before our story begins, in order to drink the blood of an 18-year-old virgin when he matures, as that is Ranmaru’s favorite vintage of blood.
Along the way, Rihito falls in love with a classmate, Aoi Shinozuka. In order to preserve Rihito’s purity, Ranmaru is determined to scare her off, but that only causes her to fall in love with Ranmaru. As the series progresses, we are introduced to other characters, all virgins: Aoi’s brother Franken, a tough-guy underachiever; Kaoru Yamaba, a gyaru with a heart of g(y)old, and Umetaro Sakamoto, a teacher/vampire hunter obsessed with getting Ranmaru to drink his blood.
As their relationships become more intertwined and the goals of each character conflict then coalesce then conflict again, comedy and hijinks are the name of the game in Baban Baban Ban Vampire. So, does it soar or suck?
Story
I am not alone in being more than a little put off by this from the start. For anyone with more than a passing familiarity with vampires, blood sucking is often a metaphor for sex, perhaps springing from the old belief that it was a literal mixing of blood that occurred during intercourse (please write in if you’ve ever managed to pull someone with the same strategy as in John Donne’s The Flea).
So it made me deeply uncomfortable that our lead character, no matter how sexy, is essentially grooming a child. He has known Rihito since childhood, and goes to great lengths to “protect” him from “corrupting” influences, only because he wants Rihito all to himself. That his favorite type of blood is virginal blood of an 18 year old only furthers the metaphor, and therefore the creepiness, as 18 is the age of consent in many countries, if not Japan.
While Ranmaru mentions that virginal blood is the most delicious, and indeed he and another vampire character have strong reactions to virgin blood, it is more than a little creepy that he is fixated on an underage boy he has known for years. This is especially off-putting when it is revealed that when he was Nobunaga’s lover (Mori Ranmaru is a historical retainer of Nobunaga, and was known for his extraordinary beauty), it was his blood — the blood of someone he was passionately in love with — that tasted the best.
The character himself likens drinking blood to a relationship: when Sakamoto, the virginal teacher and vampire hunter who has kept himself pure for Ranmaru for over a decade is throwing himself at our vampire hero, begging him to drink his blood, Ranmaru gets the ick and says: “it’s kind of like when someone you don’t like won’t leave you alone.” So when Rihito says something kind or thoughtful, and Ranmaru gets a very visible erection, I found myself grimacing, even if the situation was a little funny.
The cast of characters is actually somewhat compelling: Aoi is quite bland, but Sakamoto doing his best Renfield impression is entertaining, and his ad-hoc alliance with Franken, who idolizes Ranmaru’s strength, unaware that he is a vampire, make for some strong comedic moments. Sadly, with the exception of a joke where his sweetness and purity of heart means he has absolutely no poker face, our second billing Rihito has little in the way of humor, besides being naïve to the point of annoyance (for me anyway).
There is a final character, whom I will not spoil, who joins near the end, but the rapid tone shifts of the final few episodes is jarring. By the time our main cast is assembled and together, and we’re starting to get more invested, it’s already over. A longer run to let the show and characters breathe more would have been appreciated.
Look and Sound
Visually, with the exception of Ranmaru, the style and animation feel like a bit of a throwback. Rihito in particular seems to be drawn from a late 90s/early 00s anime, while Yamaba and Franken could have been plucked directly out of Great Teacher Onizuka, which I use as a doubled-edged compliment. Ranmaru seems to have stepped out of a different world, which is not a bad way to emphasize his otherness as a vampire, but I don’t think it quite worked, at least not for me.
The animation is also often sluggish, and the fight scenes have no weight or impact. Occasionally there are some exciting ideas done with the movement of the scenes or characters, but they are few and far between, and don’t really have the energy to pull off the ambition.
In terms of music, the score is forgettable, and the opening and closing songs are workmanlike. Throughout, Ranmaru’s voice actor, Daisuke Namikawa, gives an excellent performance: even the parts I didn’t enjoy were made more bearable through his efforts. Indeed, I can’t recall any poor performances from the cast (except for the finale of one episode that had me rolling in laughter), but they often aren’t given too much to work with.
Conclusion
Baban Baban Ban Vampire is, sadly, a vampire BL without much bite. I didn’t like the implications of Ranmaru’s infatuation with Rihito, and the lack of any real contact between men on the same level — with the exception of Nobunaga in flashback or the rebuffed Sakamoto — meant that there really wasn’t much romantic or sexual tension to get your blood up. For a supernatural BL, it’s probably best to wait for this year’s The Summer Hikaru Died.
