The Fall 2023 Manga Guide

The Black Cat & the Vampire

What's It About? 

Blanc College is a prestigious all-boys boarding school where the sons of well-respected families from all over the world study and learn to be independent.

​Yuki, a first-year attending Blanc College on a scholarship, is the perfect student: at the top of his class, quiet and polite. He's a bit of a loner, keeping others at arm's length — except Jean, the devastatingly charming Head Boy, who seems entirely immune to Yuki's aloof attitude.

Their school days are peaceful until, one day, a student gets attacked, and ends up with a wound on his neck that looks suspiciously like a vampire bite! Yuki doesn't have time for this nonsense. And besides, vampires aren't even real... right?

The Black Cat & the Vampire has a story and art by Taizan 5. Translation by Christine Dashiell. Lettering and touch-up done by Vibrraant Publishing Studio. Published by TokyoPop's LoveLove imprint (October 10, 2023).

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

This is one of those stories that builds up slowly. Not too slowly; there's plenty to enjoy here even before the twist in the third act, especially if you're a fan of BL set in remote all-boys high schools. Yuki Hasegawa has just transferred to the elite Blanc College in the distant mountains of generic Europe, and he's having a hard time fitting in, possibly deliberately. Classmates, such as Marius, the inevitable kid in glasses who would run the school newspaper in almost any other series, try to interact with him, but Yuki prefers solitude. The one person who continually gets to him is Jean Michel, the preternaturally beautiful second-year student who heads up the student council. Yuki really can't figure out what Jean's deal is, but when rumors that another boy, Aula, has been attacked by a vampire start circulating, Yuki begins to wonder.

If you're a regular reader of this genre, the twist probably won't be that shocking, although the spice content here is more in line with something like Black Bird than Vampire Knight. What's more interesting is the emotional storyline; Jean is a very conflicted young man in ways that are easy to understand and entirely out of his control. His vampiric powers (not a spoiler; look at that cover) are related to sexual desire, and a flashback shows us that it has resulted in encounters that may not have been consensual – on his part or the part of the person afflicted. He feels immense guilt, especially since he's found someone he could honestly care for. Although he doesn't say as much, it seems like he's of the opinion that he doesn't deserve to be happy or to have love because of who he is. He's also very alarmed by an in-world bit of lore about “star scales,” a quality some people have that makes a vampire lose all control – think of it like how “fated mates” work in werewolf romances. Jean is so afraid of himself that he can barely get past it, and that's a far bigger hurdle to happiness than any piece of vampire mythology.

With its apparent mid-century setting (the only technology we see is a record player, and attitudes feel pretty rooted in the 1950s) and attractive art, this is an easy book to recommend for fans of BL and vampire fiction. It drags a bit at first, and a couple of the guys look similar (I thought two of them were the same person for a few pages), but the emotional throughline makes this worth it.