Strike the Blood, Vol. 1 (light novel): The Right Arm of the Saint

This book and series is not exactly groundbreaking by any means. However, within its class, I believe it's one of the best. I dearly love the character dynamics between Kojou and Yukina, the two main characters, and I even adore Yukina's dreaded catchphrase "No Senpai, this is OUR fight!" I think that many might not like this because they go into it expecting some kind of masterpiece, simply because that's the way they approach everything they read or watch. They go into everything expecting a masterpiece and grade it on how far short it falls. However, some things are just entertaining. Sometimes it's nice to go into a series, turn your mind off for a while, and simply enjoy the atmosphere, the character interactions. This is where Strike the Blood excels, I think. It's entertaining, plain and simple. I love all the characters, however archetypical people may say they are. I love the action. I love the slice of life sections. If you want something to just turn your brain off and be entertained for a while, this book will do it for you!

*Strike the Blood*, by Gakuto Mikumo, is one of my favorite anime and so I of course began to pick up and read the original light novels on which the anime was based, when they were licensed in English by *Yen On*, the light novel imprint of *Yen Press*. As it begins, the series presents the audience with a mix of urban fantasy, alternate history, sword and sorcery, and high fantasy genres. It takes place in a version of our world where magic has always existed and developed alongside science and other disciplines. As well, various supernatural creatures from myths are, and always have been, real, and a part of society and world history. Standing above all supernatural creatures are the vampires and above them are three Primogenitors. These three vampire lords are the rulers from whom all other vampires descend. For these rulers, not just the political structures and influence, but the sheer magical power each one holds, is unimaginable. There are, however, some humans who are capable of fighting back. While no one is individually as strong as the Primogenitors or some other especially powerful demons and such, they are skilled in magic and combat techniques. And, of course, I imagine, science can have an impact on evening the playing field, if you will. All of this makes for a world where humanity can defend itself. As well, the competitive balance between the three Primogenitors and the addition of the science and magics harnessed by humans and others, has created a world that does have friction, but where the friction actually works to create peace and stability. In order to maintain this peace, and promote rights for non-human peoples, the three vampire lords have agreed to, and upheld, something called the "sacred treaty" that creates safe zones for demons and other supernatural creatures, called demon sanctuaries. One such sanctuary is called Itogami Island in the Pacific Ocean. The Island, technically a part of the Tokyo, Japan, Metropolitan Area, is a safe zone ruled by a private and wealthy megacorp. that does actually treat the citizens well. Whether this is out of a desire for profits, a sense of pragmatism, and altruism, or all of the above, is not entirely clear. I think it's a little bit of all three. Anyways, all of this long background brings us to the meat of the story, and our main characters. You see, on this island, a being has arisen that upsets the status quo and power dynamic upon which the sacred treaty is, as I said, upheld. It is the *fourth* Primogenitor, a being that has not originally existed and *should not exist now*. This fearsome being is... a care-free, somewhat lazy, but all-around good and decent teenager named Akatsuki Kojou. Sent to the island to monitor the young vampire, and kill him if he is a threat, Yukina Himeragi (one of the magical warriors described earlier), observes him. She is only an apprentice "Sword Shaman" of the national counter-demon government agency called the "Lion King Agency". She was sent after Kojou for another reason unbeknownst to both of them. Anyways, she begins to follow Kojou around to ascertain his threat level and keep an eye on him. But, either they didn't teach stealth to her in her training, or she was quite bad at it, because Kojou easily identifies her as following him around. After so quickly catching onto the stalking (what else would you call it?) of Himeragi, they open a dialogue. Despite some initial misunderstandings, Yukina comes to see that Kojou is a victim of sorts in everything, and a nice guy to boot. This is true as he was originally human, and the powers he has were thrust upon him. Therefore, the girl decides to settle on monitoring him for now, as he is not a threat. Thus is the beginning of her and Kojou becoming good friends, and likely more. This is a good thing, because it will take everything these two - as well as their allies and friends - have to stop a threat. An originally noble and fervent religious man is on a misguided and brutal quest to right a horrific wrong in the worst way possible. It's not that he is not in the right in his motives, at least in part, as the protagonists even admit at the end of the story. It's that he has given into his worst impulses and chosen the most cruel and extreme way to go about seeing what is a just cause, if he did things differently, succeed. Whew! That was a lot of stuff. Please note that some of what just was summarized is my best interpretation based on the information I know from what I've read and seen in the light novels and anime so far. I might be wrong on some of it, but it's my best effort to fill in the missing pieces int he story. I really loved this light novel. It furnished the extra details and tidbits in knowledge about the story by giving details the anime did not, or making clearer some of the ones it did. That was helpful, as at least one area that didn't make sense to me in the anime did so in the novel. It was the same sequence of events, but was explained better here. The illustrations were a bit different and took some getting used to, to say the least. The slight changes in the anime made them somewhat more realistic looking. The light novel illustrations are really well-done, don't get me wrong, but they made the characters appear to be very much overly slender and out of proportion. I like how well the plot and characters were fleshed out and the extent of the world-building. Including the fact that the vampire drinking blood is not some rape-y thing like in other media, but more tender. Indeed, to have that part of the mythos of vampires intact, but still show it as tender and not sleezy and negative, took some real writing chops. I say this not because doing so was impossible, but because *how* Mikumo did so might have fallen into the trap of "purple prose" in the hands of a less skilled writer, but it didn't. It was tender and sweet. One thing I also enjoyed in the characterization was how the author played with some expectations and tropes. In this story, the vampire was the more ideal style of hero while the human girl was the pragmatic anti-hero in a way. Granted, given her military style training and thus mindset, this is understandable. Though the one controversial part where Yukina was harassed was mishandled by the author, methinks. Given how she was sexually harassed and assaulted, she had every right to defend herself. Now, where Kojou would have been right is if he told her that despite the bad actions of some creeps in criminally harassing her and violating rules, and Yukina's authority to execute them, she shouldn't if she doesn't have to do so. Arrest them if she feels it is warranted (it was!), but don't execute them unless as a last resort. None of this happened, sadly. Despite the bad way the author handled things here, the contrast between Kojou and Yukina in their actions versus the expectations of their actions, was a nice touch. Other characters, such as Yaze, Asagi, Nagisa, Natsuki, and others, are introduced, but not much is done with them initially in this novel that sets up the plots and world of *Strike the Blood*. But they are important, and they are fleshed out a little here and more so in future volumes. This LN series is one of my favorites and one I certainly and heartily recommend. Rating: 5/5 Stars.

All powerful vampires who go to high school? Cute sword shaman middle school girls? Yes, Strike the Blood does have that. The story of Akatsuki Koujou, a regular teenager in high school, who just so happens to be the Fourth Primogenitor, the most powerful vampire to have ever existed, and Yukina Himeragi, a magical sword shaman wielding a powerful spear, assigned to watch over him. I found Strike the Blood volume 1 to be a cute series that is entertaining, but doesn't offer much in the way of originality. It is very stereotypical of its genre, from the overpowered main character who, because he wants to live a normal life, doesn't have full control of his powers, to the cute girl who's assigned to kill him if he proves dangerous. Let's be honest here, if you're going to have someone watch over a super-powered vampire, you're not going to send a 14-year-old middle school girl to do it. You're just not. That's like practically asking the vampire to suck her dry - and my suck her dry, I mean suck her blood, ya pervs. While I complain about the cute middle schooler being assigned to the high school vampire, I did enjoy the relationship they built. Having watched the anime before reading this, I can say that I feel like the light novel does a better job of conveying how they become friends. In the story, it's quite clear that they develop feelings of camaraderie for each other during volume 1. Their interactions, while lacking the wit and panache of Holo and Lawrence of Spice and Wolf, does have a refreshing feel about it. It's something that I feel like I can see happening in a regular high school - minus the vampire/magical girl aspect. The story itself reads very much like a slice-of-life with some major action going on. Like most light novels, this story has both a standalone plot that becomes solved by the end of the book, and an overarching plot that makes it obvious there will be more volumes on the way. One of my favorite aspects about this are the monsters. I've seen vampires and werewolves and demons done before. They've been done to death, after all. However, this series takes a slightly different approach. First, everybody knows about the various monsters in this world. Everybody. It's common knowledge. Second, the place where Koujou lives is the Demon District of Itogami City - a man-made island off the coast of Japan. Here, humans and demons live in harmony... well, mostly harmony. There are some people who cause problems, like, hitting on a middle school girl, but most are nice folks. I also quite liked the magic they used. While the magic isn't explained perfectly, I feel like this grants them more leeway because it leaves a sense of mysticism, and besides, the Beast Vassal idea - a creature born of a vampire's pure magic - is pretty cool. While this wasn't an amazing book, and the writing was a little repetitive, I did enjoy it. This will be one of the series that Yen Press has been translating that I will be following.

First off, I finish the anime before buying this novel. As I watch the anime, I come to like this series a lot because I am a fan of the genre harem. The story is kind of different compared to some other normal harem anime/manga/novel if you ask me. The action, comedy, and development of relationship between characters are good to read/watch. This is a harem action type of novel so if you don't like harem, I advise you pick other novel to buy/read so you can help yourself from getting pissed about it being a harem novel. Lastly, it is a HAREM novel! And I love it!

Wie schade, dass es zu meiner (lang vergangenen) Teenagerzeit diese Bücher bei uns nicht gab. Obwohl ich den Inhalt aufgrund des sehr werkstreuen Animes schon kannte, habe ich des Buch mit großem Vergnügen gelesen. Das Setting ist für eine japanische Light Novel nicht originel: Oberschüler bekommt durch Zufall unglaubliche Kräfte und möchte eigentlich nur sein normales Leben weiterführen. Alle weiblichen Personen in seinem Umfeld fühlen sich mehr oder weniger zu ihm hingezogen, ohne dass er das glauben kann, weshalb er die Situation ständig missinterpretiert und alle Signale übersieht. Es gibt ein Mädchen, das es zu ihrer Lebensaufgabe macht ihn zu überwachen und auf dem rechten Weg zu halten und das gerade durch diese Nähe die peinlichen Situationen erst verursacht. Auch sie unterstützt ihn sehr früh ohne sich ihre Gefühle einzugestehen, usw. usw. Die Light Novel hat aber den Vorteil deutlich ausführlicher zu sein als der Anime. Mir zumindest ist erst beim Lesen klar geworden, warum er Astarte beißt, wieso er davor Yukina umarmt und weshalb diese anschließend stinksauer ist. Das alles wird sehr witzig beschrieben zeigt aber trotzdem eine nachvollziehbare Charakterentwicklung der Hauptpersonen. Auch der vorhandene ernste Unterton, um es mit Spidy zu sagen: "Mit großer Macht kommt große Verantwortung.", wird glaubhaft vermittelt. Kojo kann als vierter Ahne eben kein einfacher Oberschüler bleiben, verursacht aber beim ersten Einsatz seiner Kräfte, die er gar nicht beherrscht, einen Schaden von mehreren Milliarden Yen. Es ist also ein Buch, das auf sehr unterhaltsame, gelegentlich leicht erotische Weise unterhält und trotzdem eine positive Lebensweisheit vermittelt. Mehr kann man von einem Buch nicht verlangen. Ich warte ungeduldig auf die nächsten Bände.

Watch the anime. Then decide for yourself.

Very good light novel, I'd already watched the series but that didn't reduce how much I enjoyed this. The characters are fun if a bit stock, the idea of evil vengeful priests in battle armour appeals along with hapless vampires, warrior school girls, and all the normal trappings of a teen harem work then look no further. Bound to upset some peoples sensibilities.

Awesome story and great translation! Looking forward to the rest of the serie.

Ótima novel recomendo!