Legends about vampires are pretty common in today’s world. We call know about them, vicious bloodsuckers who come out at night and attack innocent human beings to satiate their thirst.

Karin is a member of such a family of vampires, who moved to Japan and are living in hiding in order to avoid persecution. Karin herself, however, is a little bit different. As a matter of fact, she actually produces blood, she can walk around in daylight and doesn’t suffer from any of the normal weaknesses associated with vampires. In short, Karin is an unvampire.

Due to her differences, Karin lives life as a normal human being, and attends school during the day. Everything is pretty peachy until a new transfer student by the name of Usui Kenta arrives. Kenta is a pretty decent guy overall, despite having a scary expression – unfortunately, something about him makes Karin’s blood increase drastically, resulting in some embarrasing – for Karin – nosebleeds. Even worse, Kenta manages to see one of Karin’s explosions when she couldn’t get away quickly enough. Luckily for Karin, Kenta not only helps her clean up, but also becomes a rather unlikely ally in keeping her secret.

Rather than the typical horror/thriller/suspense combination usually aimed for in any anime dealing with vampire, Karin intead heads in completely the opposite direction – opting instead to be a lighthearted romantic comedy with a few serious moments. Karin’s family does a pretty good impression of the Adams Family, each of them having their own particular quirks and affinities – with Karin’s mother for instance, preferring to drink the blood of lying women.

Karin’s particular blood affinity only becomes apparent a few episodes into the series, although as mentioned, rather than causing her to thirst for blood, it makes her blood increase, resulting in some rather spectacular nosebleeds – usually if not always accompanied by a rather cutish scream.

The standard love-triangle scenario may seem to be missing at first, but the creators didn’t forget that. Not only does the required competition arrive – but he’s a professional vampire hunter. Of course, he has no idea Karin is a vampire, an pursues her religiously with something rather different in mind.

The animation and artwork in Karin tended to be rather basic, with colours tending to be rather single-toned, so I have to say it could have been a little better looking. The music is pretty standard as well, with only the rather lively opening theme really standing out (scarlet by BRACE;d).

Karin first aired in the beginning of 2005 – there is also a 14 volume manga and a series of light-novels (renamed Chibi-vampire: The novel by Tokyopop) which follows the manga closely. No comments about the manga yet, since I haven’t gotten hold of it. I’ll be sure to post a review when I do.

Karin is a pretty good watch if you’re in the mood for a bit of comedy, and luckily they don’t overdo the cuteness factor.