Vampire Princess Miyu
Encyclopedia
is a Japan
ese horror
manga
series by Narumi Kakinouchi
and Toshiki Hirano
, as well as an anime
adaptation by the same creators. The anime was originally presented in a 4-episode OVA (Original Video Animation) licenced by AnimEigo
in 1988, and was later adapted into a 26-episode television series licensed by Tokyopop
and released in 1997.
girl named Miyu and her demonic companion Larva. Miyu is the daughter of both a human and a shinma (demon) and as such she was awakened as the guardian whose destiny is to hunt down all stray shinma and send them back to the darkness.
Most locations in the series are evocative of traditional Japan.
Shinma
The first DVD volume of Tokyopop's release of the television series is notable for cutting the ending credit sequence from the first episode, the beginning and ending credits from episode two, and the opening credits from episode three. This practice, which was fairly common in the VHS era of anime releases, apparently received a significant amount of criticism as the remaining five DVDs were released with all episodes featuring the opening and ending credit sequences.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
series by Narumi Kakinouchi
Narumi Kakinouchi
is a female Japanese manga artist, animator, director, character designer, and an animation director. Some of her work has appeared in the adult manga magazine Lemon People....
and Toshiki Hirano
Toshiki Hirano
is a Japanese anime director, animator, and character designer. His wife is animator and manga artist Narumi Kakinouchi. Some of his works have appeared in the adult manga magazine Lemon People.-Character Designer:...
, as well as an anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
adaptation by the same creators. The anime was originally presented in a 4-episode OVA (Original Video Animation) licenced by AnimEigo
AnimEigo
AnimEigo is an American entertainment company that licenses and distributes anime, samurai films and Japanese cinema. The company was founded in 1988 in Ithaca, New York by Robert Woodhead and Roe R. Adams, III. It is now based in Wilmington, North Carolina, and run by Natsumi Ueki, Robert's wife...
in 1988, and was later adapted into a 26-episode television series licensed by Tokyopop
Tokyopop
Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
and released in 1997.
Plot
Its central characters are a vampireVampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
girl named Miyu and her demonic companion Larva. Miyu is the daughter of both a human and a shinma (demon) and as such she was awakened as the guardian whose destiny is to hunt down all stray shinma and send them back to the darkness.
Most locations in the series are evocative of traditional Japan.
Characters
- A beautiful girl who appears to be around 13 (in the OVA) or 15 (in later volumes of the mangaMangaManga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
) years old but in fact is much older, being a vampireVampireVampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
. In Japanese, "Miyu" means "beauty of the evening", "beautiful evening" or "evening beauty". She can teleport ,levitate , open dimensional portals and use fire attacks (which also come in handy when sending a Shinma to "The Darkness").
- In the OVA, she is the child of a human father and a vampire mother in post-World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. In the TV series, on the other hand, her mother is human and her father is a shinma guardian in pre-World War II Empire of JapanEmpire of JapanThe Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
. In both cases, Miyu becomes the Guardian (also referred to as the "Watcher") after losing her parents. In the OVA, Miyu is depicted as childlike, manipulative and playful, and very flamboyant in talking, especially when having a conversation with Himiko, while the series' Miyu is more reserved, straightforward and composed.
- Even though she is a vampire, Miyu is not harmed by sunlight, holy water or crucifixes, and her reflection can be seen. This is because she is technically a Daywalker, having one human parent and one vampire. She needs to drink blood to survive, and she chooses her 'victims' carefully, since she apparently cannot take blood from others unless they actually give it to her willingly. So, Miyu picks people whom she believes to be "lovely" (either in looks or personality) who have usually suffered a tragic loss, and offers them their greatest wish – to be with their lost loved ones, at least in their dreams – in exchange for their blood. These people live an endless dream state, which she calls "being in happiness" in the OVA. Miyu is protective of Larva and has great concern for him.
- In the TV series, when posing as a human, she goes by the name Miyu Yamano (山野美夕 Yamano Miyu).
- In the OVA, she is seen to wear different clothes in every episode she appears in. For example, in the first OVA, she wears her typical short kimono that is familiarized by all fans, and in the second, she wears a uniform during her stay at school, and wears a bright red yukata when speaking to Himiko and confronting Ranka. In the third OVA, she wears a winter kimono, which seems to cover her body more than the other two garments. Finally, in the fourth OVA, she wears a very heavy black kimono and also wears a mask. However, in the TV series, she only wears two types of clothing, the typical uniform and the kimono known by all fans and that is shown on box covers.
- A Shinma from the western world. In the OVA, LarvaLarvaA larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
comes to prevent Miyu's vampire blood from awakening, but it does anyway, for she drinks his blood when he drops his guard. As a result of this failure, Larva's face and voice are sealed behind a mask for all eternity. In the TV series, Larva faces Miyu after she has become the Guardian. After he has struck her down, she drinks his blood. In both cases, Larva starts out as an unwilling ally, but later pledges to be by Miyu's side because of her sorrow, something he was able to glimpse at during both blood-bond scenes.
- Larva can use his nails to slash things and (in the TV series) he can also wield a scytheScytheA scythe is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass, or reaping crops. It was largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor machinery, but is still used in some areas of Europe and Asia. The Grim Reaper is often depicted carrying or wielding a scythe...
. He is very powerful, as he is seen to win against every shinma without getting mortally wounded.
- Unlike in the OVA, in the TV series and Manga, Larva can speak and will occasionally remove his mask. The name "Larva" is taken from Roman mythology, which like "Lemures" refers to a restless spirit of the dead. Many of the Western Shinma appearing in the second manga series also follow a naming convention drawn from various European demons and spirits. Larva's name and signature mask may also have been inspired from the white, ghostly Venetian Carnival mask "Larva," also called "Volto." In Volume 1 of the TV series, Larva was called Lava in the English dub and subtitles. The following volumes referred to him as Larva.
Shinma
Shinma
The Shinmas are the name of demonic creatures in the Vampire Princess Miyu anime series.-History:Shinmas are god-demons that wreak havoc on the human world. They tend to haunt weak-hearted people by luring them to illusions that are supposed to achieve the dreams or desires of those people only to...
- Shinmas are god-demons that take advantage of human souls for their own gain. Escaping from a dark world, they hide in the human world, and Miyu seeks to return them to it.
OVA
- She is a beautiful, cynical spiritualist who encounters Miyu during a job. Their paths cross throughout the series as Himiko searches for her, convinced at first that she is just a monster without any redeeming qualities, but later coming to know more about her and Larva. At the end of the OVA, Himiko is shocked as she remembers meeting Miyu when she was a child. Equally shocking is the implication that Himiko herself may have vampiric characteristics from that same encounter with Miyu, which have yet to manifest; apparently, Himiko is the first human who exchanged blood with Miyu, right after she became the Guardian.
- Appearing in vol. 1, Unearthly Kyoto. He is a handsome Kyoto youth whose girlfriend, Ryouko, was murdered by a "vampire" in front of him. Miyahito, upon being unable to protect Ryouko, heavily blames himself and tells Himiko that he wants to kill the "vampire", not knowing that it is a Shinma. He is ultimately so crushed under his grief that he later accepts Miyu's offer to exchange their bloods, and Himiko is a witness of this. During the end of the episode Miyahito is seen in a catatonic state, his mind in a sort of dream-world; Miyu, disguised as a schoolgirl, tells a group of girls to not worry for him, since he's "living in happiness".
- Appearing in Vol. 2, A Banquet of Marionettes, she is a shinma who places the essences of her victims into life-size dolls. She fell in love with a very handsome school boy named Kei, who Miyu was also interested in. Kei wishes to be with Ranka even after she used him, since he gave himself to Ranka voluntarily and she came to fall in love with him as well, and Miyu is forced to banish them both after Ranka transforms Kei into a creature like herself at his own request. Ranka is portrayed as an ally of Miyu in the Manga, however. She is one of the shinma of the second tier, and is quite powerful, as seen in the fifth volume where she tears the quarls apart with her light strings that she uses to control her dolls.
- See: ShinmaShinmaThe Shinmas are the name of demonic creatures in the Vampire Princess Miyu anime series.-History:Shinmas are god-demons that wreak havoc on the human world. They tend to haunt weak-hearted people by luring them to illusions that are supposed to achieve the dreams or desires of those people only to...
TV
- A Shinma who looks like a cute pink bunny. Her name means "undead", being a shinto character, the guardian of the dead. Her right ear covers a bulging, bloodshot yellow eye which enables her to see great distances and dispel illusions.
- A child-like Yuki-onnaYuki-onnais a spirit or yōkai in Japanese folklore. She is a popular figure in Japanese literature, manga, and animation. Yuki-onna is sometimes confused with Yama-uba , but they are not the same.-Appearance:...
(female spirit of snow), her name means "cold feather". She carries on her forehead the first kanji of her name, meaning "cold". Her powers including floating, teleportation, and manipulating wind and snow. Reiha's father was the head of a group of shinma protectors whose task was to ensure that a guardian (in this case, Miyu) would emerge during the Taishō periodTaisho periodThe , or Taishō era, is a period in the history of Japan dating from July 30, 1912 to December 25, 1926, coinciding with the reign of the Taishō Emperor. The health of the new emperor was weak, which prompted the shift in political power from the old oligarchic group of elder statesmen to the Diet...
. When Reiha's father was struck down by the Bird Shinma, Black Kite, he called out Miyu's name instead of Reiha's before he died. Reiha has never forgiven Miyu for this. After the death of her father, she discovered her ice powers upon encountering a feasting Shinma. From that day, she's been Miyu's rival who seeks to destroy shinma, believing Miyu is not fit to do the job. She is less sympathetic than Miyu, and is known to kill innocents who get in her way of destroying shinma. At some point, Reiha ended up freezing the city which led to a final confrontation with Miyu. After Matsukaze's sacrifice, Reiha unleashed a blizzard that was overwhelming Miyu before Larva broke free and beheaded Reiha. Her body picked up her head and left to go look for herself and vowing to return to defeat Miyu someday.
- Reiha's talking doll companion. His name means "wind of the pines", which in Japan represents an unshakable force, fidelity, conjugal love. He doesn't hide his contempt for Miyu. He is in a sense Reiha's surrogate father into which she has projected all her hostility and anger towards Miyu. In the final confrontation, Matsukaze used his ice abilities to trap Larva in an ice barrier so Reiha could fight Miyu; he later sacrificed himself to protect Reiha from Miyu's flame attack.
- One of three schoolgirls who befriend Miyu during her trials. Her name means "close friend", indicating her strong relationship with Miyu. Early on in Episode 2, she buys two keychain charms as tokens of friendship for Miyu and herself. Near the end of the series, it is revealed that Chisato is in fact the strongest Shinma, whose purpose is to destroy Miyu. During the fight, she uses a weapon that was left for her by her brother.
- Miyu and Chisato's slightly tomboyish classmate.
- Miyu and Chisato's bookworm classmate.
Manga
Yuma Koizumi- Introduced as a main plotline character in Manga volume 4, she was a human who fell in love with a shinma, whom Miyu not long after returned to the darkness. She later teamed up with other shinma, friends of her "love" and tried many times to kill Miyu in revenge.
Anime
AnimEigo originally released the OVA series on two VHS tapes, each containing a sheet of liner notes related to the series. The liner notes were eventually redone for the DVD release and included in Volume 1. The Volume 2 DVD contains a card with a humorously worded message stating that the complete liner notes are available in the first volume, and that if some form of insert weren't included in the second, consumers would undoubtedly start complaining.The first DVD volume of Tokyopop's release of the television series is notable for cutting the ending credit sequence from the first episode, the beginning and ending credits from episode two, and the opening credits from episode three. This practice, which was fairly common in the VHS era of anime releases, apparently received a significant amount of criticism as the remaining five DVDs were released with all episodes featuring the opening and ending credit sequences.