In recent years I’ve been rather depressed with most of the commercial manga-serials offered in the United States. Even a lot of moderately entertaining works seem to lack any real drive to excellence. But my manga-depression comes to an end with DANCE IN THE VAMPIRE BUND.
[Spoiler warnings: plot points revealed herein.]
In an earlier essay I reviewed Kim Newman’s alternate-world take on the DRACULA mythos, in which Dracula became consort to the Queen of England and turned Old Blighty into a haven for his vampire spawn. I wasn’t enthused with the Newman work, but Nozomu Tamaki wreaks wonders with the same basic idea. Here it’s a man-made island that becomes a haven for a kingdom of bloodsuckers: quite naturally for a manga-series, the island has been built off the coast of Japan. The heroes of DANCE are Mina Tepes, queen of the vampires, who facilitates the worldwide emigration of her people to the island, and Akira, her werewolf bodyguard. DANCE also sports a large cast of allies and villains, most of whom are incredible hot-bods. But Mina and Akira are the focal heroes, and their complicated relationship is the core of the series as they defend their makeshift kingdom (the “bund” of the title) against assorted threats—meddling human beings, assassins, conspiracies, and, most formidably, three vampire overlords, the last survivors of “the 100 vampire clans.” Grotesque horror and frenetic action dominate the storylines, though Tamaki makes considerable time for comic byplay and the Japanese “cult of cuteness.”
The notion of warring clans is but one narrative trope that DANCE adapts from medieval Japanese history in order to construct a vampire society attempting to find its “place in the sun,” so to speak. Another is the Japanese culture’s love for the evanescent, for Tamaki establishes that his vampires, unlike Newman’s, are not a long-term threat to human society. Despite the vampires’ potential for immortality, Mina explains, they usually burn themselves out by the violence of their own desires, and cannot possibly grow beyond a limited number. In this speech Mina references the silent film NOSFERATU, even as her own name references the book DRACULA and the legend of Vlad the Impaler.
Medievalism also informs one aspect of the relationship between Mina and Akira. He is not simply a paid bodyguard, for his werewolf clan has sworn fealty to the queen of vampires and thus he plays loyal samurai to her “daimyo.” But there is also a personal bond between Mina and Akira, who became friendly as children, a bond which leads to a germinating romantic relationship, forbidden because Mina is destined to marry and bear children by one of the remaining vampire clan-lords.
In this summation I’ve focused upon what DANCE owes to medieval models from Japanese culture. However, I’ve held back one aspect of the Mina-Akira relationship that stems principally from modern Japanese culture. That aspect stems from the phenomenon called “lolicon,” concerning the apparent sexualization of an underage girl. For though werewolf Akira has aged into a young man, vampire Mina has remained a child who looks to be about ten, with even fewer secondary sexual characteristics than Nabokov’s original nymphet Lolita.
In the first book, the reader isn’t told the reason for this arrested aging, and none of the characters question that she has not aged. I initially wondered if Tamaki were depicting a situation like that of Anne Rice’s INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE, where anyone who becomes a bloodsucker stays frozen at the same age he/she was turned. In INTERVIEW this results in a perpetual female child-vamp who yearns for a maturity she can never have. But in DANCE it’s eventually revealed that not only can Tamaki’s vampires age and give birth, Mina asserts, “Vampires are creatures whose very form is ruled by their minds.” Later it’s revealed that Mina has chosen to suppress her own aging to prevent the clan-lords from forcing her into marriage, though at best this remains a delaying-action. Further, for brief times she can assume the form of the nubile, busty woman she could have been, tantalizing Akira with mature erotic possibilities.
The role of the “nymphet” in Japanese pop culture is one upon which I’m not knowledgeable enough to speak with authority. I know, as many do, that the figure of the nymphet appears in many manga that aren’t exclusively erotic or romantic in tone, such as TENCHI MUYO, which some have called the progenitor of all Japanese “harem manga.” Many of the appearances of “girls-on-the-verge” are not “lolicon” as such, and their primary purpose may be to tap into a mass-market demand for the presence of “cute kids” to offset even the most grisly or violent serials.
And yet Tamaki is clearly playing around with the concept of “lolicon,” teasing the reader with the possibility while making clear that Humbert Humbert doesn’t live here. In the first DANCE continuity, Mina meets Akira for the first time in seven years, and uses an assortment of stratagems to make him want to serve as her bodyguard willingly, rather than out of a sense of impersonal duty. One of these stratagems includes disrobing in front of him. Her pre-pubertal form doesn’t entice Akira, but making him uncomfortable accomplishes the same end: that of helping her manipulate him into her service. This is made palatable by the fact that she does have an abiding love for him, and clearly would like to assume her mature form in order to be with him. During a dream-sequence in TPB volume 6, Mina imagines herself living a normal human life, which attests to her romantic desires for Akira, though only in mature form.
Though Tamaki holds off on the lolicon, he does present a sequence of outright “shotacon,” which is the same setup with the sexes reversed. Like many vampire-sagas, DANCE allows for a wide range of sexual arrangements. Characters Josie and Hamaseji have a “normal” hetero relationship, but Mina’s female bodyguard Vera had a relationship with Mina’s deceased mother, and a male-male vibe is fleetingly suggested between Akira and an androgynous werewolf buddy.
In closing I’ll note that Tamaki is one of the best “cinematic” manga-artists I’ve ever encountered. Tamaki avoids the cluttered, frenetic look found in many of the popular action-manga, using white (or dark) space skillfully. He also shows a facility with facial expression comparable to that of Dave Sim, whose talents in that department eclipse most of his contemporaries. The plots about various conspiracies and skullduggeries are simple but provide the groundwork for solid action-sequences that don’t get lost in a maze of speed-lines. My only complaint is that Tamaki depicts a few too many women with torpedo-tits. I've nothing against fan-service for us evil hetero overlords of the dominant phallocracy. But perhaps in this case a little less would count for more.
As of now I’ve only read six of the nine TPB’s released, but I’m certain I’ll be accepting further invitations to this DANCE.
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