Rosario+Vampire: Season II, Vol. 3 by Akihisa Ikeda
Series Name: Rosario+Vampire: Season II
Genres: Action, Comedy, Ecchi, Fantasy, Harem, Monsters, Romance, Vampires, Witches
Intended Age Group: Older Teen
Publisher: Viz/Shonen Jump Advanced
Edition: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4215-3268-4
Rating: 4.5/5
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Description from the Book
Average human teenage boy Tsukune accidentally enrolls at a boarding school for monsters – no, not jocks and popular kids, but bona fide werewolves, witches, and unnameables out of his wildest nightmares! And now he’s a sophomore!
On the plus side, all the girls have a monster crush on him. On the negative side, all the boys are so jealous they want to kill him! And so do the girls he spurns because he only has eyes for one of them – the far-from-average vampire Moka.
On the plus side, Moka only has glowing red eyes for Tsukune. On the O-negative side, she also has a burning, unquenchable thirst for his blood…
Personal & Info
Since I’ve already read a large chunk of the series before, I’m giving the volumes I’ve already read a slight bump in rating to show how much I liked it my first time through. I don’t want my familiarity with the series to hurt the score. There is less thrill when you already know what happens, so I’m accounting for that. The bump is only about a half star.
Characters
Tsukune Aono is the only human at a school for monsters. Due to various events in season one, he wears a chain lock on his wrist, similar to Moka’s rosario.
Moka Akashiya is the beautiful vampire love interest. She is considered the most beautiful girl in school, and the series likes to play up that fact.
Kurumu Kurono is the second beautiful love interest. She is the character with the largest breasts in the group, and the whole school also fawns over her, but not nearly as much as Moka.
Yukari Sendo is a twelve year old genius, and a witch.
Mizore Shirayuki is love interest number three. She is a yuki-onna, but the translation constantly calls her a snow fairy. She’s also the most considerate of Tsukune’s happiness.
Koko Shuzen is Moka’s little sister. She thinks Tsukune’s only redeeming quality is the taste of his blood, but she doesn’t go around biting him like Moka does.
Ruby Tojo is a witch met in season one. She currently works for the school to help keep the students safe.
Tsurara, Mizore’s mother, appears in this volume. Her last appearance was in Rosario+Vampire volume nine during the school festival.
Story & Thoughts
This book starts off with a random chapter involving Gin. It’s been a good while seen we’ve seen him. He is rather useless as club leader, since he is basically never around. The chapter paints him as a villain yet again. Girls at Yokai Academy are targets for a prankster going around tearing up their clothes.
The rest of the chapters focus on Mizore. Big surprise considering she is on the cover, right? The gang goes to Mizore’s village for the weekend. There is some kind of ceremony she is going to attend, and her mother requests she bring guests.
This section covers some information on Mizore’s childhood, as well as her culture. At one point, I said Mizore’s parts of the story tend to be unsettling and sad. That comes out significantly in this volume. It always pulls at my heart strings.
There is a cliff hanger. As with most volumes, the events are cut off to be finished in the next volume. The cliff hanger is not huge. It’s the kind where someone unexpected shows up.
Kurumu really shines in this volume. Her passion and determination are important to the drama of the story and holding the group together. She always seems to be on an emotional rollercoaster, acting like she is furious and hates someone, and then expressing her compassion for them two minutes later. I think she significantly outshines Moka here. Moka and Yukari and the rest seemed to take a back seat to Mizore, Tsukune, and Kurumu.
The bonus comics at the end are silly, as usual. No questions, mostly a bunch of sillies about what happened in the last few pages.
The volumes that focus on Mizore always tend to be my personal favorites, but she is my favorite character, so it’s not surprising.