By Yuuki Kodama. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press.

The second volume of Blood Lad improves on the first, and this has become a nice, solid series. The lead is different in an interesting way, the otaku humor is fit in better, we meet several new possibilities for antagonist, and the fighting and humor are top notch. There are still issues with the heroine, but I can’t have everything – and besides, this runs in Young Ace to begin with.

Let’s start with Fuyumi, actually, as we do get a bit of a hint that there’s more to her than previously thought. Her mother has passed away, and Braz indicates in his usual vague yet evil way that she has a connection with Bell. It would not particularly surprise me if she turned out to have some demon blood in her (related to Bell?), which could possibly lead to new plot possibilities and a cure for her current condition. That said, I doubt it will lead to a cure of being Miss Fanservice. The scenes where she is sucking on the phallic water bottle made my eyes roll back so far into my head I worried I’d have to see a doctor.

That said, I’ve seen much worse fanservice than this, and the rest of the title more than makes up for it, particularly our reluctant hero. Staz’s limiter is removed in this volume, making him even more powerful than before – dangerously powerful, everyone notes. And yet he’s not all that hot-blooded of a shonen hero. Oh sure, during a fight he’ll get fired up, but there’s a passivity and caginess to Staz that really makes him appeal to me. He’s not going to go charging headlong at an enemy – well, not unless there’s a good reason to. Or they have a DVD set.

We also see more development of Staz’s two siblings. Braz is handled better, and walks a nice fine line between being an evil mastermind and being a supportive brother. He’s likely both, so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. As for Liz, every fear I had about what she’d be like after finishing the first volume turned out to be absolutely correct. That said, she’s cute and harmless, so I’ll just roll with it. The scenes of her bonding with Staz and Fuyumi over watching Laputa: Castle in the Sky is sweet and adorable.

Lastly, here’s a rarity for a shonen manga (yes, it runs in Young Ace, but there’s absolutely nothing in this that shouldn’t be in Shonen Ace too); it’s very well-paced. No subplot outwears its welcome, and even the fights seem to be exactly the right length. This could be simply as everyone is very clever here. Staz shows it the most, but there’s a genre awareness here that permeates into all the characters, allowing it to get away with things that a reader wouldn’t otherwise accept. Combine that with a great sense of humor, as well as a worldscape filled with vampires, werewolves and demons, and you have something that should be a can’t miss it over here.

By Yuuki Kodama. Released in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, serialization ongoing in the magazine Young Ace. Released in North America by Yen Press.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this series aside from ‘vampires’. And that ends up being pretty fitting, as I think the series itself is not quite sure where it’s going to go until we get about halfway through this omnibus, at which point it finds its feet surprisingly quickly. There’s some interesting characters, attempts at world building, and some surprisingly vicious backstory, along with a healthy dollop of humor and fanservice. Honestly, I’m not really sure why this is in the seinen magazine Young Ace rather than its Shonen equivalent, unless it gets far more violent later on. It could simply be Young Ace had the free slot for a new series.

Admittedly, after the first few pages I was expecting something far worse than what this turned out to be. The idea of a slacker vampire who’s a secret otaku made me groan, and thankfully this aspect of Staz’s personality is given shot shrift as the series goes on. More to the point, we see that Staz’s seeming apathy towards life stems from his own family relationships, and that he’s surprisingly tough and powerful – and even clever, when he bothers to be. I was amused at one or two points in the volume where he analyzed the situation and immediately gave up fighting, knowing that he would lose and it’s best to conserve his powers. I was also pleased to see that his obsession with Fuyumi lasted only till she died – after which, he really wants to resurrect her but is clearly not enamored of her. Blood Lad is driven by its action and fantasy, not its harem aspects (though those do linger, mainly via Bell).

As for Fuyumi, she’s probably the aspect of this story I enjoyed the least. She should be there to be the audience identification figure, the lone normal Japanese girl among a town full of freaks. Unfortunately, you don’t get very far in to this volume before you see her role is to have large breasts and get captured a lot. There is a bit of existential angst when she and Staz return to Japan, and he uses mind control to make everyone think she’s still there – this horrifies her till he points out the alternative. Mostly, though, Fuyumi seems to be there to draw in readers who want a passive female in their action fantasy manga.

As I noted earlier, Staz does not have a very nice backstory, and no doubt we will meet his brother in the second volume. The idea of how Staz’s magic is suppressed is quite scary, and certainly explains why he’s so reluctant to take any actions. We also meet his sister Liz, who quickly proceeds to torture him, though I have a nagging suspicion that there may be a bit of a brother complex behind all this – possibly as I’ve read too many moe manga in a row recently.

Blood Lad isn’t terrific – Soul Eater handles almost everything this manga tries to do better – but it’s a solid title, and better than I’d expected. If it can do something with Fuyumi next time, that’s be appreciated. But either way, I look forward to seeing Staz break out and kick some more asses in Volume 2.