Our Vampires Are Different/Anime and Manga

There are plenty of examples of vampires in anime, but being a cultural borrowing (much like the American use of ninja) their vampires are different. The Japanese Vampire is based almost entirely on the "decadent aristocrat" of later film and fantasy depiction rather than the shambling horrors of European folktales. They are usually "supernatural" rather than The Undead and, Christianity being rare in Japan, any religious elements will be used for coolness and exoticism rather than to show them as unholy and unnatural. Blood-sucking is more likely to be treated as a source of healing or superpowers rather than a physical necessity, and in some cases isn't even included.

The Japanese vampire typically has very pale hair (usually blonde, though white and lavender also work) and bright red eyes. This may reflect the influence of Yoshitaka Amano's illustrations for the Vampire Hunter D series and for the Japanese adaptations of Elric of Melnibone (which stars a handsome Heroic Albino). It may also be part of the idea that vampires are European and will look like it. They are also usually very "beautiful" (see Bishonen and Bishoujo), but, possibly surprisingly, they rarely sparkle.

They also tend toward being (and in some works exclusively are) members of highly wealthy families, and usually reside in a Big Fancy House at the very least, and a massive ominous castle if possible.

Half-vampires are common, and will not be happy about it.

Sometimes a Hand Wave is given towards why they don't have certain traits and weaknesses common in depictions of Western vampires; "I trained" or "I grew out of that".

Occasionally vampires in Japan may be portrayed as a type of Youkai, or something like it. It is interesting to note that the Japanese word for vampire contains the character for oni. As such vampires are sometimes portrayed as outright demonic.

• The Vampires in Black Blood Brothers suffer from all these weaknesses -- well, some of them do. Different bloodlines of vampires have different weaknesses; many, for example, can walk around in daylight, but our hero can not, as it is a weakness of his bloodline. Some bloodlines need invitations to cross barriers, but others do not. While the main bad guys of the series are the Kowloon child bloodline, who kill their victims because one bite is enough to turn someone, for almost every other bloodline, humans are lining up to be bitten, as it is seen as very pleasurable (not to mention briefly giving that human vampire senses).
• The Karin anime and manga series has a family of vampires, and they explain that it's not the fact garlic is harmful, they just have much more sensitive senses of smell. They have no idea where the running water weakness came from, can stand short stints in sunlight (which they can then heal with rest), and point out that "A stake through the heart would kill anybody!" They are pretty much all atheists, so religious icons have no power against them. As far as feeding habits are concerned, they don't suck their victims dry or really take over their wills. Instead, in a manner more reminiscent of Japanese Gaki than Western vampires, they suck out some aspect of the person they're drawn to -- stress, lying, pride, sadness -- erasing the victim's memory of that aspect in the process and leaving them less stressed, unable to lie, more humble, and very happy and energetic respectively. (Some vampires are stuck draining things like love, though.) Oh, and they can be seen in mirrors, are the bearers of Cute Little Fangs, can't change into bats (but can control them - and these are some incredibly versatile bats), and animals don't seem to be all that upset about them. It is also very on-the-nose with the blood metaphors: when Karin and Anju's respective first times at biting a victim are shown, both of them have the fronts of their white dresses conspicuously covered in "virginal" blood. Afterwards, both are referred to as vampires and adults.
  • As a double inversion, the eponymous character in Karin is different even from the vampires in the rest of the series. She is called a "blood-maker" by her family (when they aren't calling her "mutant" and "loser"). She produces too much blood, and must bite "victims" to give them her extra blood. As a side effect, the extra blood tends to cheer them up or make them feel better. If she fails to do so, she eventually has a spectacular nosebleed. On the flip side, she can eat normal foods, is immune to sunlight -- she's actually quite a morning person -- and in most respects resembles a normal human girl.
  • In this series, vampires do not transform humans into vampires, instead they reproduce the same way humans do.
  • They can also die naturally, if deprived of blood for extended periods of time (Depending on their age, anywhere between several years and several decades).
  • There are some vampires out there who sell commercial blood flavored after specific emotions. Calerra usually beats the snot out of Henry if he doesn't bring her blood from a truely despicable liar. Henry himself has been shown drinking himself to sleep off of bottled Pride blood.
• Hellsing's vampires diverge somewhat from the norms. Humans who are artificially "turned" via special chips or, in the manga's case, by surgically implanted bits of Mina Harker's remains exhibit "standard" weaknesses. However, more powerful "true" vampires can ignore the rules. This is especially notable in the series' Sociopathic Hero, Alucard, who survives decapitation, holy bayonets and any number of other attacks. He dislikes sunlight, but it won't kill him. (It's also been said by his boss that the organisation has spent 100 years "enhancing" his abilities beyond the normal limits.) In volume 8 of the manga, it is revealed that Alucard contains within him the lives of all those he has fed off of, making him nearly indestructible. He can also summon these souls forth into physical form to fight for him, at the cost of substantially reducing his own power. The only thing that finally stops him is a serious case of existence failure. But even then, he eventually returned after thirty years of reestablishing his existence, more or less pulling the vampire equivalent of a Doc Manhattan. There's also a rule that to be turned into a true vampire has to be a virgin. Otherwise you just become a ghoul. This is how Seres joins the undead.
  • More on Alucard: as noted above, he is practically immortal and has regenerative abilities beyond almost any other character in fiction. He also has superhuman senses, superhuman strength, incredible accuracy with any weapon, intangibility, super speed, invisibility, the ability to defy gravity, the ability to manipulate shadows (literal and figurative) into physical form, weather control, teleportation, telekinesis, mind control, mind reading, summoning an army consisting of souls whose blood he has sucked, gaining a person's knowledge and memories through blood sucking, hibernation, and the ability to sense superhuman activity. None of the other vampires in the series show these traits, implying that it might have to be something you gather over time after leveling up; no one has drunk more levels than he. This might be a case of Power Copying. The demon dogs are a result of Alucard having drunk the blood of the Hounds of Baskerville.
  • It's easier to say that the more powerful Hellsing vampires are less like the traditional concept and more like Humanoid Abominations, with Alucard himself ending into outright Eldritch Abomination territory.
• Blood+ stretches Our Vampires Are Different nearly to the limit by including several different types of vampires -- referred to under the general heading of "chiropterans," from the word for bat -- none of which display many of the traits listed above. The vampires are communal, like bees, the mook Chiropterans are the workers, the Chevaliers are the drones, and Saya and Diva are the Queens of their "Hives".
  • The source of all the various types of chiropterans are the chiropteran queens, of which there are apparently only two at a time, always born as twins. Each queen's blood is lethal to her sister and to any chiropterans created from her sister's blood. The queens need blood to live (transfusions work fine, although drinking it makes them more powerful) and are basically immortal, but that's about where their resemblance to classical vampires ends; they have none of the usual vulnerabilities, and aside from the opposite queen's blood, the only thing that might possibly be sufficient to kill them would be complete exsanguination or decapitation. Maybe. They also alternate between a few years of activity and thirty years of hibernation wrapped in a cocoon.
  • The queens can create "chevaliers" by feeding a human some of their blood; the chevaliers, even more than the queens, are supernaturally strong, fast, and resilient, with the ability to shapeshift in various ways, most notably into monstrous batlike forms or into the forms of people whose blood they have drunk.
  • The application of Mad Science to a queen's blood created a drug called Delta 67, which turns humans into huge, batlike, mostly mindless monsters who feed on the blood of other living things. These are slightly easier to kill than the queens and chevaliers, but still resilient enough that the two best options are either the opposite queen's blood or encasing them in concrete and dumping them in the ocean.
  • Then there are the Schiff, a group of people created via experimentation with chiropteran blood to be weapons; as incomplete beings, the Schiff are the closest thing the series has to classical vampires, mostly in that they're the only kind of chiropteran which is injured by sunlight (it causes them to burst into green flame). They are afflicted with a disease they call Thorn, which gradually crystallizes their bodies.
• The Nasuverse (emphasis on Tsukihime) muddles the meaning of "vampire" quite a bit:
  • True Ancestors are the original vampires, spirit beings so powerful they can manifest in a physical form. They were willed into being by the planet itself as a self-protection program against the spread of humanity. They don't need to drink blood at all, but because the Crimson Moon tricked Gaia into using him as the template, they inevitably succumb to bloodlust anyway.
  • Dead Apostles start out as mindless zombies (created by another vampire injecting some of their own blood into a person) that gradually gain in power and intelligence over hundreds of years as they feed on flesh and blood until they finally evolve into complete vampires. Arcueid gives specific, vanishing odds for undead to make it out of each stage. Of course, if you have the magic potential and/or sheer luck, it is possible to skip a few steps, like Satsuki, who skipped straight to the final stage, complete with a Reality Marble.
  • And then for the wtf-factor, we have: a mobile bloodsucking forest, a phenomenon that doesn't actually "exist", a crow-man/thing, a little boy with demons for limbs, a chaotic composite of 666 familiars that feast on human flesh, and an Eldritch Abomination/personification of Mercury that half got the designation by virtue of killing a Dead Apostle who tried to study it.
  • In any case, neither are susceptible to stakes, or the traditional anti-vampire weapons. While cannon fodder vampires can be harmed by guns and swords, most of the stronger Dead Apostles (and all of the True Ancestors, as well as the strange group of Dead Apostle Ancestors) cannot be harmed by "real" weapons. By the rules of the Nasuverse, this means something mythical on the same scale as a "mythical" being like a vampire. Not to mention, even if they are hurt, the stronger ones can come back to life by reversing time. The most extreme example? Roa regenerating himself after being slashed apart down to his ankles by Arcueid in Tsukihime. Granted, that was only possible because the moon was full.
  • Basically, the one "weakness" common to all Nasuverse vampires (True Ancestors and Dead Apostles) is Nanaya sunlight. On one end are most Dead Apostles, for whom sunlight greatly hastens their bodies' degeneration; on the other end is Arcueid, who during daytime ranges from "somewhat weaker" to "sluggish and lethargic" (on the sunniest of days). Arcueid also seems to have very allergic to garlic, though whether this applies to all vampires (or should even be considered canon) is not clear.
  • Oh, and the first vampire, who made/inspired the others? It's probably easiest to describe it as the Eldritch Abomination Anthropomorphic Personification of the moon
  • Then again you could probably count on your fingers the amount of times the word "vampire" was actually said.

Arcueid: "Dead Apostiles eat people and True Ancestors are out to hunt them."
Shiki: "Oh, you mean like vampires, right?"
Arcueid: "Yeah, I guess you can call it that."

• • According to Fate/Zero, there are even some mages who experiment on creating Dead Apostles. The only example given of this phenomenon is via the creation of a potion. Even so, the results aren't as planned.
• The Proxies of Ergo Proxy might qualify as an example of this. They have at least one traditional vampire weakness namely, they are supposed to die if they come into contact with UV light, and some of them, particularly Ergo Proxy himself and Kazkis Proxy look a lot like the Crusnick forms in Trinity Blood. This resemblance might be deliberate, as like the Krusnicks, Proxies are on the order of Physical God and evoke Our Angels Are Different.
• Battle Angel Alita: Last Order's vampires have a lot of notable differences from the mythical standard. First, they're more literal representations of The Virus; their condition is due to genetic modification from a factor called the V-Virus, which transforms them via an excruciatingly painful experience called Altered Shock. (They consider "vampire" to be an insult, and prefer the term "Cognate".) Less than one percent of individuals bitten by infected hosts survive this process, and those that do often commit suicide out of inability to cope with the increased carnivorous urge colloquially termed the "thirst for blood". Cognates don't have any particular aversion to sunlight, holy symbols, or garlic (though individual tastes and cultural stigma, as usual, do vary), and they do show a reflection. However, they also lack many of the more fantastical abilities of mythical vampires. They are not truly immortal (aging is halted, however), as their mechanism for fending off physical injury and aging (unlimited cell division) makes them highly susceptible to another means of death: cancer. Their regenerative capabilities can also be overridden with enough damage (decapitation and striking vital points are handy). The shapeshifting and hypnotic powers are also lacking, though individual Cognates that are very long-lived can sometimes undergo second "Altered Shocks", which tend to grant them unique and powerful abilities such as the ability to read minds by detecting neural pulse flow or the like.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is rather... complicated about vampires.
  • For starters, the most powerful ones are created by Mayan artifacts called the Stone Masks. While they have fangs, they feed through their fingers. They are not adversely affected by water, but direct exposure to sunlight means instant disintegration and permanent death for them. They don't need to drain blood constantly, but doing so keeps them young and, if the person they drain was particularly powerful, it makes them exponentially stronger. Those killed by Stone Mask vampires rise again as undead, but are much weaker and are usually called "zombies"; this variety has a simple personality based on their most outstanding personality trait and, unlike Stone Mask vampires, cannot heal wounds. Stone Mask vampires can, however, create other Stone Mask vampires by giving a human their blood (as Dio did to Vanilla Ice). The only method short of sunlight or the Ripple that slays a vampire, Stone Mask or zombie, is grievous head trauma; decapitation merely leads to a living, severed head that can then attach to and take over any handy body, as Dio did to Jonathan Joestar's corpse. While it was never 100% explained why blunt head trauma was deadly to the vampires, it is most likely due to the fact that the vampires in JoJo were originally humans that had specific points in the brain exposed to a severe acupuncture, which awakened what was supposedly a human's "true potential". That being said, getting punched in the head really hard may damage one of the activated brain points. Their powers are also outside the norm, including (but not limited to) the ability to shoot high-pressure liquid metal blood from their eyes, blood freezing, and the ability to walk on walls and ceilings.
  • And that's not even counting the Pillar Men vampires, which created the Stone Masks because their favorite food are those vampires. Needless to say, nothing short of top-tier Ripples can can kill them, and even that takes an eternity to work. Sunlight only turns them to stone for as long as they're exposed, and even if you were to grind up the remains into dust, Ripple is still needed to finish the job. They feed by absorbing anything they touch (typically vampires and humans), and can shapeshift their bodies around to utilize their bones and veins for weaponry or to fit into tiny drainpipes and stretch their body parts. Also, they have horns on their heads, and the number of horns denotes their potential power levels. Oddly enough, vampires and zombies are portrayed as Exclusively Evil, but their more superior and deadly creators the pillar men were mostly honorable warriors.
• Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle features a variation on the standard vampire tropes, although since Tsubasa is essentially a multiverse AU it is not clear whether this particular vampire definition applies to the whole CLAMP multiverse or just the unknown world the vampires in question originated from. So far, the established rules are that vampires can be both "pure blood", presumably by birth, or "turned", by drinking the blood of a vampire. Kamui and Subaru are pure blooded and Kamui is responsible for turning Fay. Vampires are explicitly stated not to be vulnerable to sun or holy water and while they are long-lived and have incredible healing capacity, they are not outright immortal. (This is also basic rule of the CLAMP-verse, everything no matter how powerful dies eventually.) Vampirism comes with a couple nifty side effects like enhanced speed and strength, nails that can turn into massive claws, and golden, slit-pupiled eyes like a cat's. There is also an interesting twist on the need to drink another's blood, at least for turned vampires, as when the turning is performed, the old vampire's blood can be mixed with the blood of a human who will become the new vampire's sole host. Kurogane agrees to become Fay's host in order to save his life. The only on-screen feeding seen so far has NOT gone for the usual jugular-biting, but rather from an intentional wound in the wrist. The relationship between the particular vampire and host may have had something to do with it... (not that it's stopped the fans from imagining the "possibilities")
• Bisco Hatori's manga Millennium Snow features vampires similar to the ones in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle: they are not hurt by sunlight or crosses, and are not really immortal, living for about a thousand years. Millennium Snow's vampires do not strictly have to drink blood to survive, although doing without requires them to eat a lot of food to keep up their energy. When one of these vampires drinks the blood of a human, it forms a bond between them which extends the human's lifespan to match the vampire's, and that human becomes the vampire's sole source of blood. These vampires are also able to fly, and drinking some of their blood can heal a human, although It Only Works Once.
• Mahou Sensei Negima borrows the "Shinso"/"True Ancestor" term from the Nasuverse (though Del Rey may have translated it differently). The primary example, of course, is Evangeline A. K. McDowell. Among other things, she can fly, walk freely in the sunlight, is perfectly comfortable wearing a crucifix necklace, does not appear to need blood to survive (although it makes her considerably more powerful), and seems to be virtually invincible^[1]. She also became a vampire (involuntary) through a magic ritual rather than being bitten and has the ability to control the people she's drank blood from. To top it off, she's a supremely powerful mage who, on the one occasion her powers were completely unsealed, essentially curb-stomped a demon god.
• One of Bleach's earlier arcs focused on the Bounts, a tribe of artificially developed supernatural soul-suckers. Historically, they've been known as vampires although they notably don't conform to many of the usual tales; for example, people simply die after being a Bount's meal. And no one knew about the talking supernaturally powered dolls, all with German names and summon commands.
• How different are the "Vampires" in Osamu Tezuka's Vampires? Well, they're actually werewolves.
• In Vampire Hunter D movie, the mere presence of a vampire noble causes all sorts of minor disasters -- crosses bend out of shape, mirrors crack, flowers die... They must find it hard to make any kind of casual visits.
  • They also have immense supernatural powers at night... and are stoic as all hell, a trait D the Dhampyr has inherited.
  • Killing them, or at least keeping them down can be somewhat difficult, Carmilla was stabbed in the heart by Dracula with a giant sword, it was effective in causing death but the ghost still hang around waiting for a chance to revive itself all she needed was a sufficient amount of human blood and she would have been up and about again.
  • Sunlight is effective however, even on half-breeds (although they have a far higher tolerance but over time it still wears them down and can kill them).
  • Male vampires seem to be able to reproduce with human women and its implied that two pure vampires can also reproduce. Biting also seems to work and only requires that the victim be bitten.
• In The Record of a Fallen Vampire there is only one pure vampire (the rest are Dhampirs); according to lore they came to earth from beyond the moon and over time lost the need for blood (they kept the fangs). They're immortal, very sensitive to sunlight and the shape of the cross can effect them. the Vampire King and his Dhamphir enemies are currently teaming up to fight alien invaders, who are coincidentally hiding behind the moon and only want to kill half the earth's population...
• The vampires in Vampire Knight are ranked by how "pure" their lineage is. Pure-blooded vampires--those that don't have any human blood in them--have all sorts of mystical powers and suffer little to none of the typical weaknesses. It seems acceptable for them to indulge in incest to keep their blood pure. Other vampires, that are descended from pure bloods but have some human ancestry, have some of the weaknesses of traditional vampires but still seem very powerful. Both types crave blood, but are able to satisfy their cravings with special blood tablets. However, humans that are turned into vampires have a much more difficult time controlling their bloodlust, and eventually lose their humanity and turn into nothing but monstrous, mindless killers.
• According to Rosario + Vampire, a vampire is an S class monster, and as such one of the most powerful monsters in existence. Vampires have super strength and super speed, and a huge ammount of youki or spiritual energy. Sunlight does not seem to bother them, nor garlic. Religious icons onlyweaken/limit them. They are, however, extremely vulnerable to water due to its purifying properties; even touching it will cause immense pain. To compensate for this, water used for bathing and cooking is treated with herbs. Vampires do not need blood to survive, but they find it a delicious treat and can consume it alongside regular food. Human blood is supposed to be especially tasty to vampires, compared to that of a monster.
  • Vampires are capable of having children. They can donate their blood to a human, giving them a temporary Healing Factor and super strength and speed. However, the human risks turning into a ghoul, a mindless, souless berserker that cannot be restored except with powerful magic. If the human is restored, their strength, speed, and other attributes will be on par or even greater than a vampire, and they are not affected by the water weakness. Vampires can also shapeshift, but most consider it a lost art due to vanity.
  • Nothing said blood isn't required, just that Moka hasn't bitten anyone before. The neck bite isn't the only way to get blood.
• In A Certain Magical Index, their vampires aren't different. Not from normal people anyway. Presumably, we haven't met any since they're apparently in hiding, but we're informed that they're just like normal people; They love, live, laugh etc. Aisa Himegame is rather horrified with her natural ability to draw them in and then simply kill them due to something about her blood.
• Trinity Blood has vampires called Methuselah, the result of humans being infected by a extra terrestrial bacterium; they are living creatures, look almost totally human and at puberty develop a weakness to sunlight. They are able to breed with each other. They are naturally faster, stronger and more resilient then humans, although some humans can match them in combat with enough training. Biting humans results in the death of the victim.
  • Then there are the Krushnik, the results of test tube babies being infected with nanomachines. They feed off the blood of the Mesthuselah (they are to vampires as vampires are to humans), have no known weakness, and at full power are basically unstoppable death machines. There are thankfully only 4 of them.
• Yami no Matsuei featured a vampire girl who turned out to be something closer to a zombie.
  • In the manga, Muraki is described almost like an energy vampire of some kind.
  • In the anime adaption of the Yami no Matsuei manga, the singer Maria Wong (who was brought back from the dead and turned into a vampire by Doctor Muraki's sorcery in the Nagasaki Story Arc) has brown hair and eyes when she is human, but while possessed her hair and skin (and clothing) turn white, her eyes bright red, and she grows fangs and sharp fingernails. Once the spell is broken, she returns to her normal appearance... Unfortunately, she's still (un)dead, having killed herself months earlier after cracking under the abuse of her stepmother. In the anime, Maria still gets a Bittersweet Ending: she has some bits of energy left for a brilliant and very successful last performance before she truly dies.
• The vampires in Junji Ito's short Blood-bubble Bushes feed on the fruits of the titular bushes. An arch-vampire implants the bush into the wounds of human victims, and the plant will continue to grow and bear succulent globes of blood, until the victim's body is reduced to a dry husk. The only way a victim can save herself is to consume the fruit sprouted from her own wound, but that will turn her into another vampire.
• Master of Mosquiton is a perfect example of this trope.
• Hazuki in Tsukuyomi Moon Phase.
  • Like in Black Blood Brothers, each lineage of vampires have different special powers or don't posses a weakness. If another vampire sucks the blood of another, they temporary gain that vampire's powers, or permanently if they drain them completely. This is the reason why everyone wants Hazuki's blood. She is the only one who possess the ability to walk in the daylight.
• Miyu of Vampire Princess Miyu. Also, in the setting, vampires are a form of Eldritch Abomination called a Shinma, who police the rogues of their race and return them to their own reality when they escape to torment humans: Miyu is the one who carries out this mission.
• Nightwalker.
• Soul Eater has Mosquito, whose appearance, depending on the amount of blood he's consumed, varies from a little old man, a giant insect, something kind of resembling a gorilla, to a black suit-clad bishounen (each form older and stronger than the last). The kind of blood seems to matter, as Mosquito is very interested in Death the Kid's 'D-type' blood. He doesn't get to drink it, merely cause the boy to lose quite a bit through (temporary) loss of limb.
• Svetlana Chmakova's Nightschool plays with the "no reflections" rule a bit; a vampire who's been very recently turned still has one, which means that they can still regain their humanity if they're taken to a healer quickly enough. They also face losing their minds and turning into "Rippers" as they get older, which are little more than withered husks with a ravenous desire to feed.

Teresa: It's not even blood they want. It's life. A taste, any taste of what they once had.

• The male crossdressing vampire Lady Bat from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is rather mysterious; it's said that he feeds from memories instead of blood, but in a later manga chapter he said:

Lady Bat: Ah, the sweet scent of mermaid blood emanating from your necks...

• • He also can sing a song which cause hypnosis to anyone who hears, which enables him to suck memories/blood without resistance. Oh, and he can also turn into a swarm of bats.
• One character in Speed Grapher compares the Euphorics to vampires, noting how in modern works, vampirism is often made "scientific" by being transmitted through virus. Euphorics likewise get their powers from a virus, and like many vampires, possess a Healing Factor. Also probably important is the sexual violence element of vampires, which is mirrored by the fact that Euphoric powers are their (sexual) fetishes weaponized.
• Seraphim, Maelstrom/TomonoriYuki and Sarasvati/Kirara from Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? are ninjas. All they need is to occasionally suck blood; their kiss helpfully makes it painless for whoever they're feeding on. Also being kissed by the opposite sex equals marriage.
  • Maelstrom even uses fire as a weapon.
• In Shiki, vampires can only drink up to one bowl of blood per night, are subjected to the daylight/VampireInvitation weaknesses, and are scared to, hum, undeath by religious symbols. They have some kind of Mind Control over their victims, and all of them do not transform into vampires after death. Those of the Jinrou subspecies are not affected by any of these weaknesses.
• In Digimon Adventure Big Bad Myotismon was clearly a vampire, right down to causing a massive fog to cut off the area of Tokyo his was terrorising, and actually drinking the blood of young human women. Suprisingly enough, his blood drinking habits was kept in the American dub.
• In Lotte No Omocha, Elika is a vampire, which, similar to succubus and their semen diet, must drink blood to survive once puberty hits. But until then she can make do with just tomato juice as training.
• The vampires in the Madhouse adaptation of Blade are vulnerable to sunlight, silver and White Magic, but not to holy symbols, garlic or running water. There are also a large number of sub-species (enhanced by genetic tinkering courtesy of Deacon Frost), able to change shape between human form and creatures from the mythologies of the regions where the show takes place.
• The vampires of Satou-kun to Tanaka-san are cold-blooded, like reptiles, and cannot stomach human food without having to regurgitate it later. They also have two seperate kinds: first generation, which are stronger and can withstand sunlight, and vampires who have been bitten as a human, and are therefore weaker.
• The Protodevlin from Macross 7 which can be best be described as Alien Space Vampires, who suck life energy out of people and can do it from a distance.
• The Count in Gankutsuou isn't called a vampire, but clearly seems to be one, and a very traditional one at that, in a literalization of a theory raised about the Count in the original novel. He does not show up in photographs, has fangs, in one instance displays the vampiric teleportation ability, and is basically incapable of normal eating (although he relies on drugs rather than blood). He is not soulless, but is essentially possessed by a demon, which allows him to regenerate from injury. However, he is still ultimately killed by the traditional sharp object through heart, and experiences Dying as Yourself. The only really non-traditional thing about him, is that he's blue.
• In Suehiro Maruo's "The Laughing Vampire" vampires are created in two ways. The first way is by being "rejected" by the earth when you're buried. The other way is to drink the blood of a vampire. They possess vampire powers like flight, super strength, and immortality. It is not said whether or not they will die without drinking blood, it appears that drinking blood makes them orgasm. They can be killed by sunlight, being staked, or beheaded. Also while they are immortal, drinking blood causes them to age physically.
• Of course, there are no real vampires in Ichigo Mashimaro, but when Miu randomly dresses up like one:
  • She's picky about the youth of the person she "bites". 11-year-old Matsuri is a viable target, but she figures 16-year-old Nobue would have "old lady blood", and declines. (Nobue takes offense, of course.)
  • A cross Chika draws has no effect... mainly because it went a little crooked at the top. Chika goes for some garlic, but by the time she returns, Miu has the costume off, so we never find out how she would've reacted.
• The short film Kigeki is about the Black Swordsman, who is heavily implied but never outright stated to be a vampire. Case in point: devouring the corpses of an army he annihilates, skin, bones, blood and all. Not only is he more thorough than traditional vampires, he also shows no signs of having fangs, or a weakness to sunlight, nor does he seem to rely on blood to keep himself alive. He is, however, implied to be several centuries old, yet appears young, tall, dark and beautiful.
• Method Acting, Yurika Todo from Aikatsu! merely plays the role of a vampire. According to her vampires drink blood, but are also capable of sustaining themselves on rose tea, red wine, and tomato juice. They are rebelled by silver. Sunlight harms them if they are exposed to it for more then three seconds (clothing will not protect them from this), but it not necessarily fatal. Furthermore, they can be outside during the day as long as they stay in the shade, but they will be temporarily weakened.

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1. ↑ She explains at one point that she had all the traditional weaknesses at first, but eventually overcame them