Vampire Princess MiyuMore than meets the eye…
Vampire Princess Miyu is a series that tackles a difficult subject in an anime way… with mixed results. It is a tale of personal sorrow… the depth of which is exposed rather slowly… episode by episode. On the surface, the show is not as cool as an animated Ghostbusters or as feisty as Neon Genesis Evangelion . The art and music are average for an anime production. What makes the series interesting, and what draws you in, is the peculiar sadness that is being offered to the viewer. In order to enjoy Vampire Princess Miyu , you must decide to “go” with the emotions of the characters… open yourself up to the “trip”
as you watch the little stories unfold. The plot is simple. In episode one we watch as a “spiritualist” (an explorer of the supernatural) investigates some vampire-like attacks. She has a run-in with Miyu and watches as Miyu apprehends and punishes the vampire-culprit. We learn that Miyu is The Guardian… charged with watching the border between the Light and the Dark.
Miyu is eternally youthful… when still a young teenager, the Dark came for her. Her mother, the previous Guardian, had not told Miyu of her heritage and had hopes of hiding Miyu from the Dark. However, the Dark came before Miyu’s mother had prepared. The mother grabbed her daughter and tried to make a break for it… but the
Dark was victorious and Miyu was crowned as Guardian. During that chase, a huge number of dreadful things slipped into the Light and disappeared into the population of our world. As punishment for allowing this to happen, the Dark charges Miyu with the task of catching and returning each Dark escapee to his Dark home. Miyu’s age is frozen until she completes her task. As further punishment, her parents are imprisoned in Miyu’s home… suspended in time and physically encased in a room-sized cube of solid glass!
One of the sorrows exposed in the series is Miyu’s eternal loneliness. Because of her situation, she can have no closeness. Through her vampire’s bite, she can bestow “eternal life” upon her chosen victim. But, as we see, it is more like a living death. The victim faces a never-ending future of a pointless existence.
He has no reason to “be”… nothing to look forward to… nothing to hope for… nothing. During a flashback episode, we see that Miyu’s father was one of her mother’s victims. This man had only one obsession… art. He would sit and stare at a painting for hours on end. Something, deep inside him, was moved by the images in the painting… images frozen in time, as he was. In this episode, a little-kid Miyu comes home from school full of the day’s discussion of careers. She tells her father that she would like to become an artist and paint pictures for him. “You can’t… it is already decided.” Father knew of the Dark.
There is an episode that takes place just before the Dark arrives in which we see the terror that engulfs the little girl when she has had a vampire experience (!) at school. A student is found limp in the yard and is taken to a hospital.
The classroom is a-buzz... who or what could have happened? Miyu is not sure, herself... but… later a classmate visits Miyu’s home. She says she saw what had happened to the fallen classmate and taunts Miyu into biting her on the neck! After much reluctance, Miyu succumbs and is actually about to bite the friend… the friend panics… and Miyu’s mother slaps Miyu aside. Later… Miyu, still in a daze, can’t believe anything that happened. How weird were today’s thoughts and experiences! Her mother sobers her up… “That girl who collapsed at school today… died.”
Miyu has a partner to aid her in her dealings with the Dark escapees. He is Larva… a handsome young man(?) who is being punished by the Dark for having had designs for a personal conquest of the Dark. Larva had intentionally arrived on the scene to seduce Miyu before the Dark could take her. Miyu reversed his advance and left him defenseless. He was captured by the Dark and, as punishment, forced to be Miyu’s servant. Whether through a trick of Miyu’s bite or through actual infatuation, it is clear to us that Larva is dedicated to Miyu.
He and she can not “be close”… though both he and she would like to be. Larva protects Miyu and often enshrouds her in his flowing robes as she hides from the world.
Even with as much of the actual story and detail as I have spelled out here, I do not think that this article is a “spoiler”. The individual episodes drift by with their own peculiar charm. The sing-song of the events is secondary to the somber mood developed by the production. After watching a particular episode, I found myself to be embarrassed to tell someone about the detailed story line… but the thought provoking sadness of the episode would stick with me for days.
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Aside from the video episodes, there are few collectibles available for Vampire Princess Miyu but the marketing seems to be increasing! Ironcat has released a long series of Vampire Princess Miyu and New Vampire Princess Miyu comic books. These are fine art with an unusual style. Check out eBay for T-Shirts, anime cels, and soundtrack CD's.
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