“Call of the Night” (July 2022, Liden Films) is another story about a middle school student’s boring life and how it got turned upside down by a chance encounter with a being thought to be fiction.

This anime follows two characters, Kō Yamori (voiced by Gen Sato) a 14-year-old boy and Nazuna Nanakusa (Sora Amamiya) a female vampire. In this world vampires are real and their way of reproduction is making a human fall in love with them and feeding off of them.

In some of the old understandings of vampires, they’re depicted as bloodthirsty fiends who have no shred of humanity left and reproduce sporadically, whereas in this piece of fiction, vampires blend into modern society, with many taking up jobs and being discrete in their existence but having to operate in the night due to the issue of the sun.

Now, most of the scenes within this series takes place at night, obviously, with Kō and Nazuna going to different locations to make Kō enjoy the mystical feeling of nighttime. However, the unfortunate part is that since he knows of vampires’ existence, he has a target on his back with every vampire in his area wanting to silence him.

The anime’s night skies are something that are unnatural and diegetic, colors like purples and yellows that spread not only in the sky but also in the sleeping city. The use of unnatural colors is so important because it helps paint some scenes in more of a tense situation. A good example of this is when the viewer first learns of what Nazuna is, as well as the karaoke scene. 

Speaking of the karaoke scene, the music they use to make the audience feel the thick atmosphere is truly amazing. Of course not every scene is tense, like the first episode near the end, the music helped compliment the stunning visuals that Nazuna was showing Kō.

Moving on to character designs, the way the artist draws the characters is very unique in its own way, using line weighting to get a sharp design. There’s more to it, like the builds of characters, the ways they hold themselves, down to even the most minute things, like the shape of their eyes.

Although this anime may not seem like it, it’s a romantic comedy, even though there are action scenes as well as other heart striking scenes.

Even though this show may be very popular and well made, there are a few issues that make it past inspection.

For western viewers, a middle school boy actively trying to fall in love with someone much older than him is something that may confuse many and even concern others. Normally what people get rather (justifiably) upset about is the attraction from an adult towards a minor, however when its the other way around some individuals may not understand how to react towards that situation.

Another thing is the use of sexual humor thanks to Nazuna, even though she gets flustered at the thought of romance. Her vocabulary happens to be rather old with the use of words like copulation in lieu of a more modern synonym.

Now even though there are some issues, the show is a good watch and the manga is a fantastic read that goes even more in-depth; in some of the recent volumes, it gets really jam packed with details. However, if a viewer doesn’t like the fact a middle schooler wants to be a vampire by falling in love with someone older than him then they should not watch it.