Tsukune Aono is a pretty terrible student. So terrible, in fact, that he wasn’t admitted to any high school, save for one, which his dad just so happened to find a flyer for. Turns out the only high school that’ll accept him is staffed and filled by monsters for monsters: Yokai Academy. Being found out as a human is a literal death sentence, so he has to be tight-lipped on his identity, which is frighteningly difficult when students are constantly looking for fights. Luckily, he befriends Moka Ayakashi, a vampire who’s able to unleash seven cans of ass-whooping when the rosario around her neck is yanked off.
The One-Shot Fights:
Vampires are the strongest of all monsters, so when Moka, or more specifically her alter ego, enters the fray, she takes out opponents with a single kick. Benefits and drawbacks to this. Victory’s just a matter of getting Moka’s rosario off, and when it’s off, you know it’s a countdown of two pages until the roundhouse kicks are delivered. But battles end so quickly by that point that it’s not often you get a satisfying fight. A few do have some length, though those are reserved for the biggest and baddest of the bad, and everyone in between is a goon who gets their cheekbone stomped in.
The Lack of Security:
In a school whose students are literally out for blood and flesh, I had to wonder on multiple occasions who the hell was in charge of keeping the peace. Did teachers just not care if one half of their homeroom tore the second half to shreds when their backs were turned? Turns out there is a security force. They’re just awful at their job. More accurately, they’re corrupt and more interested in squeezing extortion from clubs than they are in upholding any sense of normality, which begs the question of why the faculty lets all this chaos slide. For a school with the goal of acclimating its student body to living in the human world, it does next to nothing to keeping its kids from using each others’ femurs for toothpicks.
The Plot Hole—No, Wait:
This series is in the habit of writing harebrained scenes which only make sense at a later date. Often while reading, I would exclaim what baboons the characters are only to have to rescind my insult when the writing fixed itself. In the end, this isn’t an issue, but when you’re reading in the moment, you’re stricken with the fear that the all right writing has given up putting in any effort.
The Verdict:
Better than I expected. The moments on romance and friendship aren’t that enthralling, but it whips out its revolvers and takes them for a spin when some beast goes cruising for a bruising, and it doesn’t play with the safety on.
CCC Yabbering 