The story follows Chinatsu, a Japanese vampire who for centuries, has been on a quest of revenge to find the vampire who murdered her family and turned her into a vampire as well. Things get complicated in present day New York when she meets another vampire and her former lover, Freya.
Tropes featured in Drain:
- Anti-Hero: While Chinatsu is rather unforgiving to her foes, she still a good vampire who treats regular humans with respect. Furthermore, she only drinks blood from bad guys.
- Been There, Shaped History: Chinatsu led a rather interesting life for 400 years as a vampire. Not only is she a vampire ninja but was also an assassin, pirate, courtesan, cowboy, gangster, World War 2 nurse and even a rock singer!
- Big Bad: Reiji, the vampire who murdered Chinatsu's family and turned her into a vampire as well.
- Bittersweet Ending: Chinatsu finally kills Reiji, avenging her family's death but she also had to kill Freya, her former lover turned enemy, who was her one true love. Furthermore, with Reiji's death, the vampire community now hunts Chinatsu, believing by killing her, they will become the next top vampire. Chinatsu, accepting this fate, vows to kill all of the vampires in the world to ensure they will no longer harm humanity and preventing them from becoming another monster like Reiji. Yet unknown to Chinatsu, Freya somehow survived.
- Create Your Own Hero: Reiji not only made Chinatsu who she is now, a good vampire who hunts bad guys and other vampires, but also led her to a 400 year quest to hunt him to avenge her family.
- Create Your Own Villain: Chinatsu turned Freya into a vampire out of love for her after the latter requested it to be with her forever but Freya would later regret it and blame it on Chinatsu, becoming her enemy for 200 years and would later join Reiji.
- Daywalking Vampire: Older and powerful vampires gain immunity from sunlight.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: While she has adapted to the modern era, Chinatsu still holds some archaic 17th century Japanese values that would be unacceptable by modern standards like killing criminals instead of arresting or calling the police on them.
- Dragon Lady: Chinatsu is a heroic version of this trope while Freya is a villainous version.
- Ms. Fanservice: Chinatsu and Freya. Both women are beautiful and sexy vampires with the 2nd issue beginning with a sex scene between them.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Chinatsu to Reiji since not only did the latter turned her into a vampire but also kill her family and her village as well. And then there's Freya to Chinatsu, who blames her for turning into a vampire as well.
- Immortality Bisexuality: Both Chinatsu and Freya had male and female lovers throughout their lives including each other.
- Insistent Terminology: Chinatsu is vampire ninja, not a vampire samurai, since women weren't allowed to become samurai.
- Never My Fault: Freya refuses to accept responsibility that she willingly choose to become a vampire despite Chinatsu's warnings, and choose to blame Chinatsu instead once she regrets it.
- Our Vampires Are Different: They have super strength and speed. Recently turned vampires are weak to sunlight while older and powerful ones become immune to sunlight. They can heal from minor wounds like a stabbed eyeball but still can be killed by decapitation, cut in half or losing all of their blood. And they have uncontrollable bloodlust with older vampires able to control it.
- Red Herring: The first issue begins in what seem like Chinatsu talking about her past and quest to a psychiatrist but it turns she was just playing with the doctor so she can kill him for his crimes of taking advantage of vulnerable girls who seeked his help.
- Villain Respect: The reason Reiji spared Chinatsu was because she was never afraid of him when he attacked her village which impressed him and made her into a vampire and would later allow Chinatsu to mourn and pray to her family's grave before their final battle.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Freya comes to regret becoming a vampire.
