The Winter 2021 Manga Guide

Rosen Blood

What's It About? 

After an awful carriage accident, Stella awakens in a gothic mansion in the presence of four impossibly gorgeous vampires!

Rosen Blood is drawn and scripted by Kachiru Ishizue and Viz will release its first volume on December 7

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Have you been craving a vampire story that mixes in elements of the fairy tale Bluebeard? Even if you haven't been, it's a neat combination of concepts that Rosen Blood does decently well, and stands to improve upon in later volumes. In case you've forgotten, Bluebeard is the story of a young wife whose husband hands her the keys to every room in the house and forbids her to use a certain key – which of course she does. But when she opens the door, she discovers the bodies of all of Bluebeard's previous wives in a scene author Angela Carter called “The Bloody Chamber.” While Stella doesn't find exactly that when she's taken in by a group of mysterious pretty boys, she does find a chamber of strangely lifelike stone sculptures, and when she eventually discovers a new sculpture with ragged nails in a large trunk with scratches on the lid…well.

Although the word “vampire” isn't used at all in this volume, it's clear that's the mythos the creator is working with. We don't know how long the young men have been living in the forest of thorns like gender-flipped Sleeping Beauties, but Stella's musings about the paintings on the walls make it clear that they've been there for quite some time. She's not quite canny enough to figure out that she's probably in danger, which is a strike against the book, because there are plenty of signs that all is not as it should be in the mansion – and if Gilbert, who bears the marks of a muzzle on his face and tries to attack her twice, isn't a big enough hint, I'm pretty sure poor Stella may be terminally stupid.

It may not be entirely her fault, though. Stella doesn't remember much, if anything, about the “accident” the carriage she was traveling in suffered; all she knows is what Levi told her, which basically amounts to “I rescued you, but the coachman was dead.” She has vague memories of a kiss, so he may have done something to erase or suppress her memories…or she's just so attracted to him that she doesn't really care, in the fine old tradition of vampire romances. And he is awfully pretty, as are the other young men in the house – the art is a Gothic shoujo delight of fussy outfits, ornate backgrounds, and attempts at sensual bodies. (They're a bit too thin to quite work, and body language isn't a strong suit.) That the vampires eat crystalized human bodies in place of blood (although they can drink blood) is an interesting twist on the typical vampire story, and if Stella has all the self-preservation of a squirrel about to cross a busy street, it doesn't detract too much. Rosen Blood's first volume isn't perfect, but it is a dark, atmospheric tale, and if that's what you're in the mood for, it's worth picking up.

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Christopher Farris

Rating:

There's just something about vampires. Some inherent appeal in those endearing suckers of blood (and any other body parts you might like) that has so many people admitting they're down for the Count. So it's pretty easy to roll with Kachiru Ishizue's Rosen Blood at the outset, as impressionable heroine Stella stumbles into a brood of vampire roommates in some sort of What We Do In The Shadows arrangement, settling in to live as their maid and tempting menu item with a surprising lack of questions asked.

That's honestly the most distracting component of Rosen Blood, for me, in that Stella seems about as low on agency as she's soon to be on bodily fluids. Of course I'm not expecting the cipherous self-insert stylings of such a heroine to be the most take-charge character construct in the world, and indeed, if I found myself in a mansion full of hot vampire boys I probably wouldn't exercise the most sound judgement either. But Stella just comes off shockingly slow on the uptake as we progress through the opening chapters of this story, missing some of the most hilariously obvious tells that these guys are some of those feratu while she lists around waiting for her bodice to get ripped. There are a few moments where it legitimately feels like it's driving up the tension and preparing for dramatic internal reveals, mostly when the story is dabbling in elements specific to itself, like the concept of crystalizing fair young maidens into vampire chow. But for the most part, it comes off like extravagant time-killing.

Now is that kind of time-killing all bad when the primary appeal is in watching Stella grow more intimately acquainted with these vampire weekenders? Of course not, and Rosen Blood knows that even as it's setting up story-early scenes of Stella getting to know the boys. Right now each represents an effective appeal to your expected dating-sim types, and all of them notably carry the whiff of that appreciable danger boyfriend energy we expect going into the inherent fantasy of Teen Paranormal Romance. It did cross lines for me personally a couple times – don't get me wrong, I can totally get the controlled fantasization of seeing Gilbert pounce Stella upon their first meeting, but did he really have to throw in extra dialogue insinuating she was 'asking for it' there? But overall I can appreciate the way the artwork in this volume communicates the key appeals of this series: The growing dreamlike, disorienting intensity of Stella learning more about the situation of the place she's in, and the lovely designs of those stupid sexy vampire boys. As well, after all that aforementioned time-killing in this initial volume, the concept moving forward proposed by Stella at the end has even more powerful potential for a steamy supernatural series like this. So Rosen Blood is definitely worth a look if you're in the strike zone it's pitching to – just know you might need to have a little patience with it to start.

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Caitlin Moore

Rating:

Do you like schlocky vampires? Your answer to this question may determine how you feel about Rosen Blood, the newest addition to Viz's Shojo Beat imprint. It's a classic supernatural reverse harem, where one girl ends up isolated with a group of very pretty boys who are trying very hard to resist eating her in some capacity. This iteration of the trope leans hard into the gothic romance aesthetic, as Stella ends up working as a maid for four vampires living in a mansion after her whole family dies in a carriage crash. You probably know by now whether or not this genre is for you; don't expect to be turned around on this if it's not your thing. However, if you're on the fence, Rosen Blood may offer a few pleasant surprises.

To be honest, the character writing doesn't offer much. The four vampires – Levi, Friederich, Yoel, and Gilbert – are all stock personalities: the broody main character, the flirty one, the cute child, and the dangerous one. They're pretty, but not much else, and the setup is so breezy that it feels like more of an excuse to get Stella living with the four of them than a solid concept. Stella as well seems to ease into her situation more easily than you would expect of a girl who just lost her own family, energetically volunteering to become their maid within the first ten pages. Don't expect complexity here.

Still, Rosen Blood has its own charms. For the genre, there is a distinct sex positivity that many other series of the genre lack. I get that vampires are supposed to be scary and sexy, monstrous creatures driven by desire where bloodlust is a metaphor for plain old lust, but too often that turns into sexual menace. Outside of Friedrich's flirtations, however, the boys are generally quite respectful of Stella's bodily autonomy, and she even enters into a consensual physical relationship with one of them. Stella is a fun enough heroine, cheerful, a bit sassy, and as proactive as a girl can be in a situation like this. Even if her suggestion that she feed the vampires using bodily fluids other than her blood begs for crude jokes – after all, what is the fluid the body produces most easily and in greatest quantities – I had to applaud her out-of-the-box thinking. Plus, the art is really pretty.

I was ready to dismiss Rosen Blood after the first few pages, but I had warmed to it considerably by the end of the volume, even if it is still strictly for fans of the genre.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

I have never been the biggest fan of romance stories involving vampires. For the past decade, those types of stories have usually never yielded organically dramatic results. Oftentimes the violent nature of vampires will get used as a crutch for the sake of introducing shocking and borderline abusive material. So the concept of a young woman mysteriously finding herself in a manner where a variety of different sexy vampires of different shapes, sizes, and hair length all looking at her funny didn't immediately grab my attention. But I will admit that as I read on, I began to feel more intrigued with where this story was going when looking at the mystery revolving around our heroine.

Romance doesn't seem to be one of the main driving forces of this manga and actually doesn't really come to play till much later on, which surprised me about as much as the chemistry between our female lead and her main love interest. If anything, I was more intrigued with what exactly our heroine is, how she got to this place, and how it all ties in with the people around her. There's a sense of the author keeping the cards close to their chest as we slowly start peeling back the curtain and I can definitely appreciate the restraint. There is still quite a bit of creepy behavior and borderline abusive implications happening in the background but it doesn't seem like the manga is trying to disturb us. I would say if you're looking for specifically a Gothic-style romance, this checks off the boxes well enough, and there's just enough here to maybe warrant returning visits to this interesting manor in the future.