Blood Alone by Masayuki Takno (vol.4)Blood Alone by Masayuki Takano, vol­ume #4 in an ongo­ing series, rated for Older Teens (+13 and up), pub­lished by Infin­ity Stu­dios, Feb 2008 release, $10.95 US, that is cur­rently on back order at Ama​zon​.com but my local book­store had four copies on the shelf.

This is a series I’ve been avidly fol­low­ing. It’s a story about a young girl name Mis­aki Minato. She’s young (age hasn’t really been men­tioned) and she’s rich. Her father is a famous musi­cian. In this entry, we learn that Mis­aki and her father were tar­gets of vam­pires sev­eral years ago and Mis­aki was bit­ten as a result. Her vam­pire nature has remained dor­mant thus far and she has tightly held onto her human­ity. Her guardian, Kuroe Kurose, is an aspir­ing nov­el­ist who does the odd job on occa­sion (inves­tiga­tive work) since he was a for­mer vam­pire hunter. A vam­pire attack sev­eral years ago, resulted in Kuroe being gifted with “adi­vuarat kurai” which trans­lates to eyes that see the truth. Kuroe is human and an equal match for vam­pires since he is immune to their vam­pire tricks and can see past their glamour.

In this entry, Kuroe and Misaki’s past are fleshed out fur­ther and the story gets much more inter­est­ing. Start­ing with Kuroe, we see that he was a pro­lific vam­pire hunter. Kuroe and his part­ner, Jessie, go after a orphan vam­pire but the intel­li­gence they received from Scot­land Yard was unre­li­able and this slip up nearly jeop­ar­dizes their mis­sion. Jessie ends up injured (bro­ken leg) and Kuroe is sent to babysit Mr. Reiji’s daugh­ter, which is Mis­aki, in her place. That is how the two of them actu­ally meet.

I won’t say any­more with regards to the plot. I will say that I am happy with this entry in that we get to see how Mis­aki and Kuroe met and how past events that has shaped their lives unfold. If you’ve read the pre­vi­ous three vol­umes, you’ll know that Mis­aki and Kuroe have known each other for a long time and share a past his­tory. Also, Kuroe is unaware that Misaki’s feel­ings for him go beyond the affec­tion of being her guardian. What makes this entry (vol.4) so nice is that we see how much Kuroe is devoted to Mis­aki, as he pledges to pro­tect her and take care of her.

Also, there is plenty of sus­pense and vio­lence and vam­pire lore to enjoy. Ren­fields, magi­cians and a cou­ple of bad vam­pires round out the sec­ondary cast while some were miss­ing like Hig­ure (who looks like a kid but is sev­eral cen­turies old and a mas­ter vam­pire). This vol­ume fleshes out the char­ac­ters a bit more, giv­ing read­ers insight into what makes these char­ac­ters tick. I think that is one of the biggest rea­sons why I enjoy this series so much is that it is char­ac­ter dri­ven. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have a few vam­pire bad­dies to kill and pro­vide us with sus­pense along with the usual vam­pire pol­i­tics and power struggle.

Must men­tion the art­work and the beau­ti­ful cover: just lovely. Dia­logue in each of the pan­els are clear and easy to fol­low. The action scenes weren’t bad either. The manga does read right to left. Infin­ity Stu­dios put out beau­ti­ful look­ing books and it is what dis­tin­guishes them from other man­aga titles on the shelf. The only draw­back to this series is the avail­abil­ity. They don’t stay on the shelf long. Blood Alone is not exactly your typ­i­cal vam­pire story. It is a love story between a young girl who hap­pens to be a vam­pire and her love for her guardian, who has sworn to pro­tect her. Their rela­tion­ship is front and cen­ter and I’m enjoy­ing every bit of it. My grade, A. This is a great series that has a bit of mys­tery, a bit of sus­pense, a bit of romance and a lot of the super­nat­ural and I can’t wait to read vol­ume 5.