The series was okay. Definitely dragged in some points, and the ending personally left me wanting for more.

this manga was a rather pleasant experience. i spent my childhood alone at night very often. it's quiet, a bit scary, but mystical, peaceful and alone. the manga carries that aesthetic pretty well.

the ending itself was a pleasant experience, one that felt kind to the feelings. but on the logical scape, it left a couple plot points dead in the air. almost like, they were forgotten about.

in that way, it's a rather emotional straight shot that weaves far away from any logical conclusion.

it was kind of just a flowerly shounen romance, and in that way i enjoyed it very much.

After a big turning point, the rest of the manga just feels like filler. I dont want to spoil it, regardless though, everything befofe that point was really good

Let me start by saying that i've also read Dagashi Kashi, and i think call of the night is an improvement in terms of both the visual narrative and narrative structure.

Now for the elephant in the room: the ending. The compromise reached at the end was seen a long time coming; it was either that, or straight up never seeing one another again. And it was quite evident that the 'bad end' (turning into a complete vampire) wasn't going to happen.

I can understand some people thinking that this was more like the 'end of an arc' instead of the manga as a whole. We don't know if there will be a timeskip sequel, spin-off or something of the sort. But for now i'll assume it's a done deal: I still think it was successful in what it tried to do: a coming of age story; with enough imagination, the readers can imagine how their relationship pans out in the future (surely not as a typical vampire relation, but that's what made it charming in the first place, right?)

That being said, i don't know if i could recommend his future works. It might be a pretentious, even unfair critique, especially considering how a lot of manga have been drawn out to hell (modern example being kanojo rental) but it's still something of a weak point in my opinion. For what it's worth, in these scenarios it feels like *less* is more, and something that would greatly benefit his storytelling is cutting down on some of the fluff (just some, not all).

Still, being under 200 chapters (around 5 years runtime, give or take?) is still what i consider reasonable, so this gets an okay recommendation from me. We'll see for his next work, maybe i'll just be trapped by his excellent character design once again, who knows.

I liked the ending. It was a coming of age story about a young boy and his first life. It followed a similar structure to the hero’s journey, which I liked. The ending made sense to me somehow. I doubt a simplistic asspull would have satisfied me. I am appreciative of the fact that the mangaka did not treat me like a child.

write a long ass manga just to end it with the most lame ending ever.

... Last updated on January 24th, 2024, 9:24am

Anko is a perfect and absolutely spot on representation of what dedicating years of your life to hunting vampires/ can do to your psych, as well as how hard it is to move on.

Living normally is hard.
Keep living positively Anko!

... Last updated on December 26th, 2023, 2:57am

It started off really refreshing. I was kind of hoping that it would maintain the episodic, slice-of-life and subtle storytelling style that makes you feel, paradoxically, lonely and heartwarming at the same time. The magic got lost after it became a larger story about vampires, and devolved into a typical Shounen. It *is* still a decent Shounen, but I was really hoping it would be something much more magical.

good shit