Common Name: Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san
Alternative Names: Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood
Score: 5/10, 4/5.
Length: 12 Episodes
Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Supernatural, Moe, Yuri
Summary: A fan of both dolls and scary things, Amano Akari is ecstatic as rumors of a doll-like girl who haunts the local woods start to spread through her school. Determined to meet this living doll, ghost, or whatever it might be, she decides to explore the woods that very night and only runs into, Sophie, your run-of-the-mill vampire out for a stroll. Totally unphased by this discovery, Akari immediately endeavors to get to know the pretty, doll-like Sophie better. Within days, she worms her way into the lonely vampire's heart and home as the two become roommates and learn the intricacies of each other's world and lifestyle. Granted, it's not like Sophie's life is all that different from ours since modern technology lets her order as much blood as she wants, victim free, and offers her plenty of entertainment in the form of anime, manga, and body pillows.
Review: While a statement like this should go without saying but it should be generally accepted that different people have different things that appeal to them and make them feel better. For some, high-octane action and violence are the best way to get one's mind off of work. For others, a nice or even bitter romance can warm the cockles of their heart. Others prefer even the lowest tier of isekai anime because it offers an escape from the mundane. For me, moe shows are the sugar I put into my day to make it taste a little more palatable. Cute girls doing cute things is my bread and butter, so long as it doesn't dip too heavily into exploitation or ecchi fan service. That fact alone is pretty much the only reason I even bothered with a show like Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san, a saccharine but ultimately worthless moe title that irked me just as much as it amused me. Still, considering the number of show's that legitimately bothered me during this season, some light irking and sugary fluff was pretty much what I needed to balance things out.
I'll reiterate, it's not like this show doesn't have a few faults of its own to deal with though.
Like most moe titles, there really isn't a lot to this show. On average, Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san contents itself by telling a couple of running gags every episode involving its four main characters. The first of these is Amano Akari, a young girl with an arguably unhealthy obsession with dolls. Fairly plane in her own right, Akrai mainly spends the series fawning over the rest of the cast and demanding that she be given the chance to dress them up in whatever costumes she's constructed to fit any number of gags. As you might expect, this fervent obsession with treating people like playthings unnerves some people more than others. For instance, the local otaku vampire, Sophie Twilight, isn't too fond of how bizarrely predatory Akari can be. Yet, in spite of her general unease around Akari, the two become fast friends after a fateful encounter in the woods. So much so, in fact, that they start living together in Sophie's mansion, under the assumption that Sophie is lonely all by herself in such a conveniently huge house.
Granted, considering the nonsense she's put up with in the past 360-something years,
I guess it'd make sense that she's gotten used to dealing with other people.
Serving as semi-justification as to why Sophie isn't all that bothered by Akari, we are quickly introduced to the precocious, flighty, and flirty Ellie. One of Sophie's oldest friends as well as the biggest pest in her life, Ellie is a fellow vampire who spends most of the show mooching off of Sophie since she doesn't care enough to push her away. While she has a few moments when she shows her age, she's typically inclined to act as old as she looks, striking a balance between the two by being what can only be described as an oversexed tween gravure model. Pair that little nugget of information with the show's fourth main character, Akari's tomboyish hanger-on, Natsuki Hinata, and you pretty much have the standard moe-yuri formula at work.
In all honesty, the show's pretty paint-by-numbers once you know all the pieces and play
and have gotten used to it' weirdly cute but jaded sense of humor.
Over the course of the show, all these characters and a few one-off side characters basically spend their time just running the gambit of gags that you might expect of a moe-yuri title involving vampires. Each episode is centered around two or three jokes that are stretched out to the extreme but can always be comfortably decompressed into "Akari and Sophie went for a walk even though it might kill Sophie." The gags aren't really all that inventive or original either but are tolerable enough so long as they aren't repeated ad nauseam. For example, Sophie and Ellie come with all the gags you'd expect from a vampire ranging from Sophie sleeping in a coffin with a body pillow to Ellie using all of Sophie's stores of blood to luxuriate in a literal blood bath. The only joke I feel is even remotely approaching original is the way it strikes a balance between Twilight's glitterpires and traditional lore. Namely, whenever Sophie comes into contact with direct sunlight, it looks like she's shining as bit's of ash flake off of her and catch the sun's light. That little play on how vampires function paired with Sophie's cheerfully morbid welcoming of death as the sun warms her gets a good amount of use in the show but is used only enough to make sure it doesn't grow stale.
Sophie's pretty much the star of this show only because she's got at least a couple
jokes under her belt, as opposed to everyone else's single, repeated gag.
Apart from its humor, though, it's pretty clear what else this show thrives off of and it's those Sapphic overtones. Unfortunately, as yuri-bait goes, this show is actually pretty tame in comparison to other shows. While we certainly get some eye-fulls, especially whenever Ellie is in the room, nothing ever really comes of it. In fact, the show actually spends most of its time shooting down those jokes at every opportunity. At no point does the show ever really commit to any of the ships that it puts out there. Akari spends most of the time outright ignoring how much Hinata likes her. Hinata never really gives much attention to the minor advances Ellie makes throughout the show. Meanwhile, Sophie spends the whole time weakly pushing everyone away from her, playing at very half-hearted tsundere/kuudere act. What really sinks these ships, though, is the simple fact that neither of the show's vampires has any interest in converting their potential human paramours. Using excuses that range from Akari's blood tasting bad to not wanting to set a precedent of feeding on friends (an idea that conflicts openly with the start of the show and how Ellie typically acts), Sophie dodges all of Akari's attempts to be aggressively submissive. So, as cutesy as the show might get and how hard it pushes its ships, it makes it clear that Sophie has no interest in spending time with Akari beyond her brief human existence.
Mmmmm. Gotta love those internal contradictions and inconsistencies.
That said, Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san does have a few notable moments and characters that make the whole product worthwhile. For instance, there are one or two legitimately compelling moments that dot the series where Sophie is forced to be honest about her loneliness only to have Akari rush to her rescue. On the other hand, the show does have a confirmed lesbian couple present that alleviates most of the lazy will-they-won't-they drama between the main cast members. And that's just kinda the nature of this show as a whole. It's incredibly basic and predictable as a whole but is dotted with little moments that make the whole experience worthwhile if you enjoy these kinds of shows. So, at worst, this a lazy nothing of a show that can be easily missed. At best, though, it's a moderately decent moe title that'll content lifelong fans of the genre like me.