Manga / Dance in the Vampire Bund

Out of the blue, Japan finds itself host to a new "mini-nation" inside of the Bund, an artificial island off the coast. Mina Tepes, heiress of the Tepes Dynasty of Vampires, announces to the world that Vampires exist, she has paid off Japan's national debt, and that they are choosing to live in peace inside the Bund from now on.

The story is told from the point of view of Akira Kaburagi, a Werewolf and Mina's chosen guardian. Giving up a life as an ordinary high school student when Mina decides to out the entire vampire population, Akira has his work cut out for him, as Mina has pissed off just about everyone with her announcement — the humans want to wipe the Bund off the face of the Earth, rival vampire clans want to wipe the Bund off the earth, and even members of her own family want her for their own reasons. And Rozenmann and Ivanovic, two of the Three Vampire Lords, want control of the vampires, which they aim to get by marrying her.

The series also has two side-stories which are as followed:

• Dive in the Vampire Bund: A two-volume story that focuses on a new character who is unwillingly turned into a vampire thanks to the stupidity of his friend while visiting the Bund and his quest to find the cure before the transformation becomes permanent.
• The Memories of Sledgehammer: A three-volume story that takes place after the end of the first series and focuses on Akira's friend, the beastman Seiji Hama, who finds himself trying to stop an assassination attempt while dealing with figures from his past.

The original manga was serialized in Monthly Comic Flapper from December 5, 2005 to September 5th, 2012, and was followed by the above spin-offs. In 2013, the series continued with the subtitle "Scarlet Order" which takes place seven years after the events of the first series and sees Mina and Akira once more facing a threat to the Bund, this time from human opponents. It lasted four volumes.

Early in 2018 the manga returned with a new installement: Dance in the Vampire Bund A.S.O.

An animated adaptation was released in 2010 (trailer here, NSFW) by Studio Shaft. The animated adaptation was later licensed and released by Funimation in the US. Similarly, the manga has seen a fairly faithful release by Seven Seas Entertainment in the west.

Seven Seas distributes Kaoru Shintani's (of Area 88 fame) Young Miss Holmes in which Mina makes a guest appearance in the Case of the Sussex Vampire (Nozomu Tamaki provides art for the arc's epilogue - which takes place during Mina's voyage to establish the bund itself).

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Provides examples of:

• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Justified by the school's mysterious founder explicitly decreeing that "All operations, except for finances and education, will be managed by the will of the students themselves." Getting said founder to obey the dress code is less successful.
• Action Bomb:
  • A would-be assassin tries this on Mina during a press conference by purposely letting herself get turned, then sewing the bomb inside her now undead body with the trigger on her tongue. Fortunately, she's less than successful.
  • A major plot point of volume three. There is a chemical which reacts explosively when mixed with the vampire blood, so implanting a vial of it set to open with a cell-phone receiver turns the vampire him/herself into a (potentially Brainwashed and Crazy) bomb. The idea supposedly originated among human terrorists, a literal "suicide capsule" to prevent themselves from being captured or interrogated that, when exposed to air, would burst into flames and immolate the person.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Mina's hair is light pink in the manga while it's blond in the anime which makes her resemble a certain vampire of a fighting game, as well as another young-looking aristocratic blonde vampire. In later volumes of the manga, they start coloring her hair blonde in that as well. So this is one case where the dye job went back into the source material.
• Age-Gap Romance: Nanami and Yuzuru are about 4-5 years apart. It normally wouldn't be a big deal, but Yuzuru is only 13 while Nanami is a high schooler at the time. Nanami initially believes her feelings for Yuzuru are wrong until he reciprocates and they become a couple.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: Pretty much everything in Mina's wardrobe except her school uniform appears to fit this trope, however, this is actually a subversion since Mina is an immortal vampire.
• All Myths Are True: Aside from the fact that vampires and werewolves exist, El Dorado (The Golden) and the Necropolis exist, and the myth of the Elixir of life of Kaguya-hime exists too.
• Almost Kiss: In Scarlet Order, Mina and Akira are about to kiss in front of the sunrise after she shows him that her temporal transformation into human made her immune to sunlight. Too bad his phone rings at the worst possible moment.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • Vera's sexuality is not a matter of any great discussion, but her past relationship with Hysterica is heavily implied to have been romantic, and some have speculated she was in love with Mina's mother.
  • Angie exploits it for all it's worth. As of volume twelve, it is no longer ambiguous, since his feelings for Akira are confirmed to be romantic.
• An Arm and a Leg: This happens to both Akira and Hama, both of whom recover (It Makes Sense in Context). This also happens to a certain Anti-Villain, no recovery this time.
• Anti-Villain:
  • Inspector Hama, who, despite being one of the assassins sent after Akira in volumes four and five, seemed genuinely friendly to him and actually lets him go at least once in order to not harm a bunch of children, and later does a full Heel–Face Turn. In "The Memories of Sledgehammer," it is revealed that Rozenmann was threatening Hama to force the same to work for him, meaning that Hama was never truly a villain to begin with, anti- or otherwise.
  • Alphonse is revealed as this. While he takes the Fake Mina's side, his true intention is to build Akira into a warrior who can protect Mina. He falls prey to his own lies, desperately wanting the fake Mina to be real, but he genuinely loves Mina and aids her restoration.
  • Rozenmann's Dragon. He is a genuinely honourable man whose only real claim to evil is being Rozenmann's retainer, and even Mina seems to respect him. When Lord Scott fired a massive arrow at Rozenmann, this guy jumped in the way without a second thought.
• Anyone Can Die: As the story carries on, it becomes increasingly apparent that this series has very little Plot Armor to go around.
• Armor Is Useless: Mostly averted, as the Beowulf troops wear effective body armor that can take a lot of punishment. Wolfgang plays this straight, though: he goes into battle in just a suit and still kicks bucket-loads of ass without receiving a scratch.
• Artistic License – Economics: This argument could be made about Mina's claim of paying off Japan's national debt and how that would actually affect Japan's economy at the start of the story (which was the negotiated price of the Bund's legal status as an autonomous state inside Japanese borders). People usually think of debt being a mostly negative thing for individuals, but nation-states have in the past become economically unstable at times when they carried no national debt at all (for example the United States in the 1840s). Emerging economic theories such as modern monetary theory suggest that, since modern "fiat" currency only has value in the first place because the government says it does, states that are the sole provider of their currency (like Japan with the yen) can carry as much debt as they like without fear of bankruptcy as long as inflation rates remain reasonable.
• Artistic License – History: "Tepes", Romanian for "the Impaler", is the nickname Vlad III, Voivode of Wallachia, was known by, not a clan or family name as this series appears to believe. His family name was Drăculești (Anglicized to Dracula), which was a branch of the House of Basarab.
• Backstory Horror:
  • Hama has this, as revealed in "The Memories of Sledgehammer". It involves torture and human experimentation, for starters. Then there's Akira's having been forced to kill a close friend at the tender age of fifteen.
  • Fake Mina, Telomere's leader's past is only hinted at, making it an example of Fridge Horror. Mina's past is an example of the same, with a few more descriptions.
• Badass Adorable: Akira's baby brother Yuuhi: seven years old, absolutely adores his "Onii-chama", and will rip out your throat with his teeth if he catches you being mean to his big brother.
• Badass in Distress: Mina was spirited away by Rozenmann who's allied with Telomere. She managed to escape once but was taken hostage again. The second time she's rescued by Akira, Nanami, the Maids, and the Werewolf Senators, and she refused to sleep or eat the entire time.
• Battle Butler:
  • This is one of Akira's roles.
  • Vera, who is Mina's driver and personal secretary in addition to bodyguard duty.
• Battle Couple: Akira may be Mina's bodyguard, but it doesn't in any way suggest that she can't look after herself, thank you very much.
• Bears Are Bad News:
  • Inspector Seiji Hama, easily the coolest character of the later part of the manga, is a werebear. It's rather good for the protagonists that he did a Heel–Face Turn. It's later averted: at the end of the "The Memories of Sledgehammer," it's revealed that his beast form is actually a giant panther.
  • The name of army corps of the Earth Clan, Beowulf, is an Old English kenning (a type of poetic name) for "bear" (it literally translates to "bee wolf"). (Whether this was an error or intentional is hard to say.)
• Beauty Equals Goodness: The more powerful vampires can take on a "true" form that supposedly is a reflection of their inner soul. We get a good look at six^note Duke Li's twin assassins only count as one total by the end of the first major story arc. Guess which one looks like a centerfold with optional bat wings and nominal Spikes of Villainy?
  • Mina lampshades this, or rather its inverse, during her final battle with Ivanovic.
  • The head of Telomere drives this home. Her base form is physically identical to Mina (appearance, scent, command over her blood-bound vassals, the works). Her Super Mode? Ain't.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Ambrose Bierce and Anastasia Romanova became Vampires. Rasputin was an alias of Lord Ivanovic.
• Berserk Button:
  • While Mina occasionally allows herself half-staged hissy-fits or genuine tears among those she actually trusts, she does have a couple of things that will genuinely make her lose her composure: threatening or seriously harming Akira and/or Yuki. Especially Yuki, since Akira can take a lot of punishment. Angie discovers this the hard way. Never, ever call Mina's deceased mom a whore. Ivanovic also learned this the painful way.
  • Disguising yourself as Mina or doing anything serious to anyone Akira cares about usually brings about quite the reaction in him. Not to mention what happens if you do anything to seriously harm Akira in front of Yuuhi.
• Bedmate Reveal: Done for rather squicky shock value by the fake Mina at the start of volume fourteen to Alphonse. What's worse is that they're both completely naked.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Do not mess with the Fangless – vampires who willingly pulled out their fangs to preserve their humanity – because being hated by both vampires and humans made them develop countermeasures that make them an amazing guerrilla fighting force. For example, when Ivanovic invaded the Bund and started rounding them up, the Fangless responded by leading Ivanovic and his best vamps into a tight hallway filled with Razor Floss and dropping their entire apartment complex on the rest.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Rozenmann and Ivanovic, two of the Three Vampire Lords, seek to wed and impregnate Mina Țepeș, thereby securing rule over all vampires and ensuring the royal vampire bloodline remains "pure" (i.e., not mixed with humans). The third lord, Li, is a Greater-Scope Villain; dangerous and powerful in his own right and also wishes Mina as his bride, but, unlike Rozenmann and Ivanovic, never orchestrates a plot to seize her by force. Later on, Fake Mina joins in; she starts out as a part of Rozenmann's plan to secretly kidnap and replace Mina, but once she plays her part in his scheme, the two part ways, with her pursuing her own goal of finding the Elixir of Life and Rozenmann having no further interest in her.
• Big Damn Reunion: Scarlet Order has the Fangless vampires who were lost underground beneath Mt. Fuji returning to their families after seven years, causing many tearful reunions. There's also the vampire lovers Arthur and Okiyo being reunited after being apart for 170 years because he was trapped in a coffin under the sea for all those years.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Hysterica.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Akira is in a relationship with the vampire queen Mina. His male childhood friend Angie also harbors feelings for Akira that go unrequited. Because Angie is afraid that Akira could forget about him because of his love for Mina, things get bad with these three.
• Bloodstained Defloration: Mina Tepes, the on-paper Queen of the Vampires, is being fought over as a bride by the three vampire lords Rozenmann, Li, and Ivanovic, who are Jailbait Waiting for the Vampire Lolita actually to become pubescent so one of them can make her their consort. In the chapter where they're introduced, Mina is subjected to a humiliating virginity test at their behest (it's treated much like a sexual assault), implied to be a check to see if she still has her hymen.
• Bodyguard Legacy: The Werewolves, known collectively as the Earth Clan, traditionally serve the vampire royal families. They have pledged their eternal loyalty to the ruling vampire queen particularly heroine Mina Tepes and have been in her service for entire generations. They act as her bodyguards and special forces.
• Boisterous Bruiser: The Lords of the Earth Clan Senate, to the point where they send Beowulf's Elite Eight running just by showing up for a simple sparring session.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Lower-class vampires can be "reprogrammed" to serve a different master and be controlled by them like slaves; usually when this is seen they're no better then rabid animals. Mina, of course, is against such a practice, but two antagonists in the second and third volumes have no such qualms. Volume seven has at least two of them. Volume nine shows us a third, and a particularly tragic one at that.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In volume one, when Mina says she'll only return a ring to Akira if he spends the night with her, when he freaks out over the idea she specifies she wants to sleep beside him or the manga would get canceled otherwise.
• Break the Haughty: Rozenmann. His plan fails spectacularly: Akira is alive, Mina escapes him, and five elderly werewolves utterly demolish his army and his palace. He can't even take any pride in their deaths and is left staring in disbelief at the ruins of his castle in something of a Despair Event Horizon, which is revealed in "Scarlet Order" to have destroyed his sanity. The omake even has insult added to injury.
• Broad Strokes: The anime. It somewhat follows the manga in certain aspects but for the most part changes many things as well due to the short episode count. This wasn't a studio decision though, the author gave his blessing for them to adapt the story how they saw fit.
• Broken Bird:
  • Akira has shades of this and any Heroic BSoD he gets – usually thanks to his Dark and Troubled Past – worsens this condition. He tends to alternate between this state and being mentally unable to hurt others. By the end of the first series, Akira has managed to achieve and maintain a more healthy attitude for the most part.
  • Mina shows shades of this at times.
• Bullet Proof Human Shield: Mina's gone here a few times. Her being a small target, fast enough to rapidly close with a shooter's allies, and strong enough to juggle said allies around makes it a natural part of her Waif-Fu. (Also, a Stake-proof human shield is entirely plausible.)
• But Not Too Foreign: This series loves this trope. Akira Kaburagi Regendorf, son of Wolfgang Regendorf, is half-German and half-Japanese. Yuuhi, his little brother is the same. Inspector Seiji Hama is half-Navajo and about one-sixth Japanese. Apparently, Gotoh and her twin are half-Japanese, as well. The Akira Fujisaki is half-Brazilian and half-Japanese.
• Canon Foreigner: Mei Ren, who takes over Hama's role in the anime as he does not exist in that version. The only difference is that while Hama has sorta friendly rivalry with Akira, Mei Ren is actually in love with him. The anime's episode twelve changes this a bit: Mei Ren is Akira's EQUIVALENT, to another Mina, the "True Blood Legacy". Mei Ren is also from a lost weretiger clan, the "Forest Clan". And dies.
• Carnival of Killers: The basic plot of volume four, minus the Squick factor.
• The Chessmaster: The leader of Telomere, later named Katie Maurice, having set up the Wham Episode below, has secured this ranking.
• Collapsing Lair: The temples of the Cradle under the Amazon rainforest and Mt. Fuji collapse after the impure blood of each of the two Minas causes its self-destruct system to trigger. Mina and Akira barely manage to escape on time in both cases.
• Colony Drop: The Fangless drop their entire apartment complex on Ivanovic's army. Later, there is the Necropolis' self-destruct system.
• Cute and Psycho:
  • An oddly suicidal example. Angie (if his motive rant is to be taken at face value) believes that neither he nor Yuki nor Ryohei are as important to Akira as Mina is, and fears that they all will be forgotten eventually, unless they all die in a manner that would traumatize Akira enough to leave a 'scar on his soul'.
  • The fake Mina slowly exposes herself to be as vicious and cruel as the other vampire lords over the course of volumes ten and eleven.
• Damsel Outof Distress: Surprisingly, Yuki, when barely able to move due to a brain injury and held hostage by the Big Bad, she risks her life to allow her to be put in a situation where she can inform Akira that the Mina in the Bund is a fake and Alphonse seems to be in league with her. It's an incredible act of bravery which impresses even the Big Bad.

• Death by Childbirth: Since bearing a werewolf child puts a tremendous strain on a woman's body, it is not uncommon for members of the Earth Clan to have permanent physical or mental damage (and it is implied that death is also not infrequent).
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Arguably Mina. She is rather aloof at the start of the series but eventually becomes kinder (though no less manipulative or vicious when pressed) as the manga goes on.
• Doppelgänger: In the anime, Mina gains one when the leader of Telomere is revealed – to be a "sister" of hers (in a rather disturbing scene at the beginning of episode twelve, which also explains Akira's Laser-Guided Amnesia), with the goal of controlling both the human world and the vampire world. Mina's goal is just to establish equality, and a home for vampires – her doppelgänger wants more, a LOT more. In the manga, this doppelgänger is apparently the head of Telomere. She shows up at the end of volume nine, has Mina spirited off as Rozenmann's eventual bride, and usurps Mina's rule. In volume eleven, she revels herself to apparently be the real Mina. The anime was aired before this development came to light in the manga, so it's not known at this time if they were aware of this or if they just came up with it by coincidence. It turns out the dopplegänger is the fake; for one thing, she could not activate an artifact that requires pure vampire royal blood, yet protagonist Mina, and even Rozenmann, could.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Rozenmann gets this in spades once his plans are foiled. In fact, he takes his humiliating defeat and what he sees as the final end of the pure-blooded royal line so badly that he's next seen ''insane''.
  • This also happens to Yuzuru at one point, as well as Vera. It nearly happens to Mina but is ultimately averted.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Angel Arvenanto and does he milk it.
• Due to the Dead: The Beowulfs make certain to honor the remains of all fallen warriors, be they friend or foe. It was a load off of Seji's mind when he learned that the men of his who died at the hands of Beowulf were given proper burials.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: In volume thirteen, the elder werewolves: five of them versus Rozenmann's entire army.
• Eagle Land: Type 2. One could be forgiven for thinking that the author has a scathing, undying loathing of the United States. In the original story, the US is controlled by Rozenman, from the shadows, until his organization's complete collapse at the end of Memories of a Sledgehammer, but by the time of Dance in the Vampire Bund ASO (Age of Scarlet Order), the pendulum has swung way, way too far in the other direction, with the US being openly controlled by an extremist anti-vampire group, so extreme that it was thrown out of Christianity thousands of years ago, happily indulges in terrorist acts, like setting off V-X gas in a stadium attending the opening of the Olympics, and routinely holds purges of people for the "crime" of being vampires, even if they're fangless, and if you dare complain? Well, you're just a heretic who needs to be purged too. That said, the "Type 2" aspect is mitigated by the manga depicting many helpful or heroic Americans of all walks of life, including average citizens, police officers, and even the CIA (whose intel assists the heroes on multiple occassions). Sometimes its even clarified that its not the American government that is most at fault, but the cult of anti-vampire extremists that have managed to infiltrate parts of it using the threat vampires can potentially pose as justification, and that other countries are not necessarily any better (including Japan, whose society gets is own damning condemnation near the end of the original series). Average U.S. citizens are depicted at points as being against the cult, referring to them openly as "nazis", and the cult's supporters tend to be either the hateful zealots or well-meaning but ignorant/misinformed and frightened people.
• Eldritch Abomination:
  • Ivanovic's true form
  • We only see a glimpse of the fake Mina's "true" form in volume eleven, which consists of a gigantic crab-like claw and implies the rest is even more monstrous. It's completely revealed in volume fourteen.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Side-character Alphonse Medici Borgiani has an entire army of these, and they are quite capable sword fighters too.
• Embarrassing Old Photo: Mina has a photo album born of regular communication with Akira's mother; the results are inescapable.
• Engagement Challenge: Volumes four and five are about Mina's utterly repulsive 'suitors' setting one up for Mina's hand without her knowledge or consent. The challenge? Kill Akira before sunrise. It gets played with when Mina bets on Akira winning for the right to chose her groom, who will, of course, be Akira. He doesn't know this at the time of the fight.
• Enhanced on DVD: As typical for a Studio SHAFT work. Censorship has been removed as well.
• Eternal Love: Nanami and Yuzuru, the latter willingly letting the former turn him after she was freed from the antagonist's control.
• Expy: Mina looks suspiciously similar to Evangeline A.K. Mcdowell from Negima! Magister Negi Magi.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Angie. This could also count as a I Knew It! since he shows up a bit antagonistic to Mina when they first meet. Over what, exactly? Akira.
  • Yuzuru appears to have joined Duke Rozenmann's forces, as he assists in Mina's recapture after she escapes from Rozenmann's castle in volume ten. However, the discovery in volume twelve that Nanami is still alive (her apparent death, at his hands, ordered by Mina, was the thing that made him switch sides in the first place) and that she still is loyal to Mina seems to have brought him back to Mina's side.
• Fan Disservice: Loads on a number of them. For a particular example for some, there's Nanami and Yuzuru making out as Nanami turns Yuzuru, a TWELVE YEAR OLD BOY, into a vampire, albeit willingly.
• Fantastic Racism: Very typical since the masquerade is uncovered.
  • Most of the humans hate and fear the vampires, regarding them as little more then mindless monsters.
  • Most of the royal vampires seen hate werewolves, making Akira's job much tougher than usual.
  • Those that decide to live Fangless (i.e. they don't wish to drink blood) are hated by the usual vampires, and the humans don't see them any better for their choice. The Fangless are actually starting to subvert this; they're still the subject of racism from other vampires, but some have started interacting with normal humans and they get along just fine. Which makes sense, since they seem more human. That's already two reasons for the mortal populace to like them over most of the 'normal' vampires.
• Faux Affably Evil: Duke Rozenmann is charming, urbane, smiles constantly, is the only one of the three suitors who actually seems to treat Mina with something resembling respect, and accepts his defeat in the 'Akira-killing contest' with grace and amusement. None of this should suggest that he is not a heartless, immoral bastard. In fact, he may be the heartless, immoral bastard: Rozenmann can be traced to almost every single antagonistic event in the manga, with the possible exception of the actions of Telomere (and even there he's not uninvolved). All in all, Rozenmann's affability extends only so far as to things that don't materially hinder him. When things don't go his way, he descends into hysterical anger and is more than willing to take it out on his nearest targets, loyal to him or not.
• Fiction 500: Mina pays off Japan's entire national debt.^note A sum of money in the trillions of dollars This doesn't seem to affect her overall wealth at all. She attempts to justify it in-series by saying that her society had existed and started to acquire wealth when humankind was just beginning, but it's still quite unbelievable.
• Form-Fitting Wardrobe: A staple feature of Nozomu Tamaki's drawing style. Even normal clothes are already depicted as extremely figure-hugging.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: The official public face of the Bund at large is that it is just one more country with people living out their lives. Closer inspection, however, subverts this by showing that majority of the Bund's populace seem to be, if not "evil," then at least huge jerks. Also played straight in that there are several (Vera, Nanami, the Fangless) who really are harmless, or at least would be if left to their own devices. Mina herself, can be considered as such, if not for her sometimes ruthless tactics.
• Full-Frontal Assault:
  • Akira is much bigger as a Werewolf than a human, and he has no Magic Pants.
  • Then there's Mina when she artificially ages herself when she unlocks her true power. So far, she's never worn any clothing when in that form. She also has a fondness for this in general.
  • The shape-shifting assassin hunting Akira in the fourth volume.
  • Vera in volume seven.
• Gender Equals Breed: It's revealed that the daughters of the first and only pureblood female vampire can only give birth to girls, as the father of all vampires give this "blessing" to his daughter: as she was the only female among his children, she will only give birth to girls and those girls will only give birth to girls and so on. Because of that, it's strongly implied that Mina would only give birth to a girl. However, it's eventually revealed this was mostly a lie, and that the various vampire queens through history were in fact sisters/clones and unable to produce their own children (the "daughter" each had was in fact via an artifitial insemination using eggs obtained from the original vampire queen). Mina is notably the first exception, believed to be fully fertile.
• Genre Savvy: At one point, Mina uses the movie Nosferatu and its depiction of Count Orlok as a reference when discussing vampires. Nosferatu depicted one of the most vicious and inhuman vampires in popular culture. Mina not only references it, but points out that it is a very accurate depiction of what far too many vampires are actually like. The woman knows very well she is in a horror story, thank you very much.
• Girlish Pigtails: Mina's default hairstyle is to bunch in two tails. This is particularly the case for her "schoolgirl" look but even some of her formal "vampire queen" have it.
• Go-Go Enslavement: Mina's only clothes while in Rozenmann's power is a thin babydoll that splits open at her pantyless crotch.
• Gun Kata: Seiji Hama with a shotgun.
• Harmful to Minors: It is unknown how exactly Mina's mother was killed, but it was definitely not pretty. The killers found her hiding behind a curtain, and if the original generation of vampires are going to survive, she has to bear the child of one of these fratricides.
• Headbutt of Love: Mina and Akira share a loving headbutt at the end of Chapter 50.
• Headbutt Thermometer: Akira checks Mina's temperature by pressing his forhead against hers. This was part of Mina's dream, though.
• Heroic BSoD: Mina gets one verging on a Despair Event Horizon when Rozenmann tells her that Akira is dead, she is nearly Driven to Suicide by this.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • The end of the Akira vs. Mina fight. Some collateral damage in the form of a roof of a church — complete with cross — comes flying at Mina, who is protected from the mother of all stakes through the heart by Akira jumping in the way — and getting staked himself. Of course, a large cross through the chest isn't nearly as fatal to a Werewolf as it would be a Vampire.
  • In volume thirteen, Lords Scott, Ernest, Edward, Atonio and Connery make a final stand against Rozenmann's entire army to allow Mina's group a chance to escape. It works. Scott even manages to graze the smug bastard himself before succumbing.
  • In "Dive Into the Vampire Bund," Akira Fujisaki gives the only chance to return to humanity to, his love interest, Ruli.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • How Hysteria is beaten when Nanami, whom she "reprogrammed" (and not to mention mercilessly abused), is secretly "reprogrammed" back by Mina and delivers the final blow to her, with her own weapon, no less.
  • Chapters forty through forty-four are pretty much all about this, especially when Sanin rapes Angie.
  • This is also part of how Rozenmann's plot fell to pieces. As well as the antagonists of the side stories and sequel.
• Hollywood Tactics: Mostly averted in the series whenever possible. The Bund's security forces (and private army) have air support and armored vehicles, and the Bund itself makes use of countless surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missile launchers. Even the werewolves of Beowulf, despite all having melee weapons of choice, use assault rifles and body-armor and engage their enemies in fire-fights much like a human unit would, and they only use their blades when the situation calls for it. When people don't follow common tactics, bad things happen, such as when Ivanovic led his force into a maze-like apartment complex and got several hundred of his vampires wiped out by guerrilla tactics.
• Hopeless Suitor: Akira's normal human high-school friend Yuki, whose feelings he turns down right before being taken away by Mina. Mina, in a moment of being a Manipulative Bastard, keeps her around as a friendly enemy and to rub her victory in her face. That said, they end up being best friends thanks to their mutual fondness for Akira and Yuki's novels, ironically enough.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl:
  • Akira's pretty tall for a seventeen-year-old Japanese highschooler (he is a half-German werewolf after all), but not abnormally so. Mina's just that tiny — she barely stands to his chest, and it's even more apparent in his wolf form, where he towers over her. This is less true when Mina is in her true form, but Akira is still a bit taller in his human form.
  • Inverted with the Beta Couple, since Nanami is older than Yuzuru.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: While the series generally likes kicking the notion of stereotypes in the balls, it seems to subtly lean towards this by the end. While a few vampires, namely Rozenmann, Ivanovic, and Li are horrible, horrible people, vampires for the most part are shown to be more self-destructive than anything. The worst we see of the citizens of the Bund is on the level of minor organized crime, and those uninvolved with such things are shown to just want to be left alone, even those who haven't become Fangless. Humans, on the other hand, are shown to form into lynch-mobs because of fear and jealousy, and murder anyone who gets in their way. Often, humans are a greater danger to vampires (and, near the end, each other) than vampires are to humans. On the other hand, the series also has some humans being incredibly kind, even in the midst of life-threatening chaos (and other really trying circumstances), so it is ultimately a downplaying than anything else.
  "Us? 'Monsters'? Oh I think not. There is a far nastier, far uglier monster around than us. Go home and look in the mirror. You'll find it there."
• Idealist vs. Pragmatist: A conflict in the early chapters of the manga center around allowing the vampire children of the Bund to be able to go to a human school and this pits Battle Couple Mina Tepes and Akira Kaburagi Regendorf against each other. Mina is more pragmatic and ruthless and forces this decision by threatening to permanently vampirize the grandson of a minister to force him to allow them into the school. In contrast, Akira is more idealistic and feels this is too far and even gains a Broken Pedestal that lasts a bit because of this.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Mina takes this position based on the very hard decisions she has to take as leader of the Vampires in the Bund. For example, after blackmailing a politician with a threat of infecting his five-year-old grandson if he doesn't go away. She actually does have him bitten, but he is cured before he permanently becomes a vampire. Most situations where she has to act as a Magnificent Bastard are of this sort, and this is even lampshaded at one point.
• Idiot Hair: Nelly's appears to react to turn-ons.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode title is taken from a horror movie, giving us titles like "Howling", "Teen Wolf" and "Interview with the Vampire."
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Subverted. When Nanami is turned, she goes on a rampage, calling herself a monster. Mina and the others assume the cause is this trope, but Nanami explains that being a vampire is not the problem, what she hates herself for is the realization she had been sexually attracted to her twelve or thirteen-year-old neighbor all along, even when she was still human, vampire emotions being much more potent than human ones, and thus far harder to ignore. She comes around when Yuzuru returns her love, and everyone makes it clear they accept their love as real and valid.
• I Just Want to Be Normal:
  • The Fangless, those vampires willing to extract their own fangs are the ones that are serious about keeping away from the whole predator thing.
  • Most of Mina's motivation for enrolling in Akira's high school is experiencing the life of a girl who is not a vampire monarch.
• Immortal Immaturity: Mina treats this trope like a yo-yo, going from pensive matron contemplating how she may be robbing her teenaged knight of his happiness to a bouncing teeny-bopper brainstorming with her friend over a Boys' Love story literally in a matter of moments.
• Impaled Palm: The entrances to the temples in South America and under Mt. Fuji can only be unlocked by pure vampire blood, provided by twin blades impale the hand of the vampire in question.
• Indirect Kiss: Akira and Mei Ren, in episode ten, via a piece of hard candy, which is shot from one mouth into another. It's an explotation: the candy was laced with a drug that inhibited Akira's ability to transform into a werewolf. This causes much hassle for him, especially after Mei Ren's true nature is revealed in episode twelve.
• Instant Home Delivery: The Lorenzo Corporation, makers of the artificial blood known as Stigma, have an absurdly efficient delivery system. According to one of the official doujin short stories, a doctor once tromped an order for Stigma in the dirt on a hillside outside his clinic in a middle of nowhere community in Afghanistan and had two crates show up outside his door the next morning.
• Interspecies Romance: Played straight with almost all the romantic parings in the series.
  • Especially the leads: Mina is a vampire, Akira is a werewolf, and their affection for each other is mutual. Reinforced in the anime when Mina and Akira make a promise to each other that is tantamount to a marriage vow.
  • There's Yuki -– in fact, the first scene of the manga (that doesn't read like a storybook) is of her confessing her feelings to Akira. It's unclear whether or not she completely moves on from those feelings, either. Even in "Scarlet Order" her other love interest is Shiva, a member of Beowulf's Elite Eight, not that she shows signs of noticing his ''very obvious'' feelings.
  • Wolfgang and his wife also qualify, as do Gotoh and Hama and Akira Fujisaki and Ruli.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • Yuki has this view, which is most likely how she deals with her present situation. The best insight into her attitude and feelings is given in chapter sixty-one, where it becomes apparent that her "beloved" is both Akira and Mina, for somewhat different reasons.
  • Alphonse. The only part of Mina's affection he wants in the end is just to be reborn as a flower she can wear in her hair for only a few hours.
• I Will Wait for You: Scarlet Order has a geisha from the Edo period who became a vampire to wait for her lover to return to her. She has lived in the same place for 170 years as she keeps patiently waiting. Her lover does return and the reason why he didn't earlier was because he was trapped in a coffin at the bottom of the sea for those 170 years.
• Kiss of the Vampire: When Akira lets Mina drink his blood so she can regain her strength; he afterwards describes the experience as nearly orgasmic.
  • Fairly early in the series one vampire remarks that vampires drinking each other's blood is superior to any pleasure brought about by normal intercourse.
  • In the anime a victim of a vampire draining her blood (she later got the vaccine and stayed human) later remarked that it actually felt quite pleasant.
• Lap Pillow: Yuki provides this for Mina in volume four after the chastity test.
• Last Stand: The five Earth Clan's elders choose to give up their lives while killing as many soldiers from Rozenmann's army as they can. And they do kill everyone except Rozenmann before they die as honorable warriors.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: These are a minority among vampires but they exist. Generally, speaking there are two varieties: hedonistic ones that enjoy the eternal youth and disease immunity, and more noble ones that devote themselves to a cause or a person. Veratos, Akira, and the maids (sans Nanami) live for Mina, and Mina lives for Akira and her fangless.
  Veratos: With just one feeling, a vampire can live forever.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: Mina goes through one in volume six. While in a life-threatening coma, she dreams she and all the other characters are ordinary people, her mother is still alive, there are no supernatural beings, and everyone is happy. She forces herself to wake up, right before she (as a grown-up) marries Akira.
• Luminescent Blush: We get quite a few of these in the lighter moments. Yuki is especially prone to this, with Mina nearly as often. Nozomu Tamaki's drawing style makes her look adorable. Even Akira isn't immune.
• MacGuffin: Scarlet Order introduces the Akamitama, an treasure from a lost vampire civilization, that has the power to make any vampire close to it never experience exhaustion or thrist. The main plot of Scarlet Order is Mina and Akira trying to find the Akamitama, learn of its mysterious origins, and fighting those who also seek it. The Akamitama is revealed to be the crystallized body of the first vampire queen's first child that was stillborn due to the power of its father, the vampire god.
• Magic Pants: Beowulf wears these, usually but not always accompanied by Magic Body-Armor as well. Justified in that it was designed to be able to conform to both a human's and a werewolf's body.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Very common, especially in werewolves. Akira's remarks after his battle with Mina indicate that even serious injuries for a werewolf are simply not all that painful unless inflicted by a silver weapon. Akira remarks the wound where he was stabbed by a silver sword hurts a lot more than where his body was run through by the steeple of a church. This is somewhat justified given that these injuries would not generally be fatal to the beings involved.
• Manchurian Agent:
  • The Mole in Mina's palace is revealed in volume seven to be one of these. She's just a random maid, infected with a nanomachine that causes her to believe that any order she receives comes from Mina.
  • Nanami becomes one in volume nine, nearly destroys the Bund before Mina forces Yuzuru to kill her. His anger over this is the fuel behind his Face–Heel Turn.
• Manipulative Bastard: Almost every vampire, with Mina as the apparent alpha of this trope. However, it tends to be a I Did What I Had to Do situation.
  • Try maneuvering the biggest opponent of the Earth Clan among her followers into giving up any hope of taking over her personal guard. Only, that very opponent is far worse and executes the entirety of his own forces within the Bund afterwards as a precautionary measure prior to reporting to Mina.
  • The "real" Mina is the worst of these and in a purely malicious fashion.
• Marshmallow Hell: Yuzuru-chan gets a good dose of it in episode ten of the anime.
• Mars Needs Women: The Vampire race is Mars, Mina is the woman in question, and her potential suitors are the most disgusting things on this planet. Later revealed that the father of all vampires had ninety-nine sons and one daughter.
• Mayfly–December Romance: If Duke Ivanovic is any indication, Mina will actually grow old eventually, and Akira's regeneration will probably extend his lifespan some decades beyond the human norm, but we are still looking at life expectancies differing by an order of magnitude here. On the other hand, Ivanovic may not be a true example of vampire aging, as Mina states he has been in his decayed form for thousands of years, apparently a result of his own rotten soul. The manga also addresses how vampire werewolves were once possible, creating the possibility of Akira being able to stay with Mina in this way. Mina is eventually forced to feed on Akira to survive, and while he does not become a vampire werewolf, he does become some kind of mysterious super werewolf and in the years since this he has not physically aged at all. A sidestory collection included some information about relative werewolf/vampire lifespans. Old age for a werewolf is 150-200, and most of them don't live that long because they tend to go into dangerous careers. Mina is already over 400 years old. Of course "the kiss of the rose" allows for werewolves to more than double their normal lifespans too (the lords of the Earth Clan Senate were all alive before Mina was born).
• Meaningful Name: Akira, pledged to serve the Princess of Vampires from birth, has a name meaning "Daybreak" (which, for vampires, would connote something along the lines of Horrible Burning Death). Make of it what you will.
  • There's his little brother Yuuhi ("evening sun"). It seems ol' Wolfgang really does have a sense of humor, after all.
  • Also possibly a stealth Shout-Out: Akela, the leader of the wolf pack in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, becomes "Akira" when spoken through Japanese phonetics. (The name also means "single, solitary" in Hindi, which rather accurately fits Akira's personality as well, after Graham's death.)
  • Telomere.
  • Almost all of the names of significant characters can be associated with a similar element. E.g. Remus and Romulus, partnered members of Beowulf's Elite Eight.
• Meido: Mina's ladies-in-waiting. Nanami joins them, as does Minmei.
• Mercy Kill: Akira is forced to do this to one of his childhood friends when said friend (already brain-damaged and incurably insane) ends up pumped full of what amounts to Werewolf-grade PCP and is sent to assassinate Mina.
• Mook Horror Show: Chapters one and two.
• Most Common Superpower: Quite a number of the women in this series are stacked, with Vera and Mina's true form taking the cheesecake.
• Ms. Fanservice: Vera and Mina.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Angie tries. He almost succeeds.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Gerhard, Rozenmann's werewolf retainer. He knows Rozenmann is quite the piece of work, but he's still the master Gerhard's sworn to, even if Gerhard has to stoop to dishonorable tactics.
• Nanomachines: Using stolen information from the Bund's intelligence division, Telomere developed the pied piper, a type of nanomachine that can infiltrate vampires' brains and control them. After Mina's side gets hold of them, the nanomachines start being used for medical purposes, allowing miraculous healings to happen.
• The Necrocracy: Type II, more or less.
• New Transfer Student: Mina. No, she does not seem to regard having secretly founded the school and commissioned the construction of the campus to her specifications as causing a conflict of interest. Later, some fangless children join in.
• Ninja Maid: The second chapter starts off with Mina's maids absolutely wrecking a squad of special forces soldiers. One of them rising back up again after getting mowed down by gunfire deserves a CMOA all its own.
• Nipple and Dimed: Zig zagged. The art bounces back and forth between depicting both Minas with nipples in their default forms, although far more often not than with.
• No Biochemical Barriers: Averted: it's explicitly mentioned that the only disease that humans and vampires have in common is tooth decay. Some vampires even like drinking the blood of the diseased, because it alters the flavor.
• Noble Wolf: The Earth Clan in general, and Beowulf and the Elite Eight in particular. They have a Proud Warrior Race Guy culture and has been loyal to Mina's family for centuries.
• No One Could Survive That!: Played straight with Sanin (skull crushed and thrown off a cliff), much to Akira's regret. Beowulf learns their lesson, and when they cannot find the body of Angie (whose throat ripped to ribbons and then fell off a skyscraper) they promptly warn Mina of his probable survival.
• Older Than They Look: Many vampires.
  • But notably Mina, who appeared to be ten or so when she met Akira as an infant. He is now sixteen while she hasn't really changed.
  • Anna, one of the Fangless kids in the volume five, looks four or five. She's explicitly said by Jiji to be the oldest of the three and actually goes to high school, in Mina and Akira's class. This is also responsible for a Funny Moment in the volume five omakes.
• Omake: Each volume features one or more, in yonkoma format. They generally revolve around Mina's maids, and are quite funny until the plot takes a serious turn for the worse, when the humor becomes mixed with drama. These eventually turn into background events that prop up the main story.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. The protagonist of the Dive Into The Vampire Bund sidestory is also named Akira, though written with slightly different kanji. This becomes a plot point when the main series Akira needs to escape the Bund. Dive Akira doesn't disappear either.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Subverted, Akira's really a werewolf, and several students become vampires.
• Our Vampires Are Different:
  • Some vampires remove their fangs and become "Fangless," and are hated by both humans frightened of vampires and vampires contemptuous toward those who do not embrace the predatory life-style.
  • It is clear from the whole "attending a Catholic School thing" (with nuns, no less) that someone doesn't have an issue with crosses.
  • Vampirism in this story is transmitted simply through feeding rather than a blood exchange. The change takes seventy-two hours to complete and can be stopped if a vaccine is taken within forty-eight hours of being bitten. Vampires either drink blood or a synthetic substitute for blood called Stigma; vampires without blood or a substitute become weak and ravenous for blood over time and will eventually die if they continue to lack nourishment.
  • Vampires also don't need to be the merciless predators as shown in other places as well. The Fangless children get along perfectly well with humans, for example — as does any vampire with a ideal to hold onto (Mina herself, Nanami, Vera, etc.) Only those without a strong belief become hedonistic animals, but then again, ordinary humans can become the same in the same way.
  • 'True Blood' vampires such as Mina and the Great Lords can also sexually reproduce, which means they don't need to convert in order to propagate. Vampires that are born conventionally also age conventionally until the first time they use their "true form" transformation, at which point they become locked in that age for the rest of their lives. Vampire queens also can only have one child and that child is always female (and looks pretty much just like the previous queens). Eventually it's revealed to be a bit more complicated than that, with almost all of the vampire queens through history revealed to have actually been infertile, and artificially inseminated in secret by the "father" of all vampires using fertilized embryos he took from the comatose original vampire queen. Thus all the other queens through history have technically been sisters. Mina, however, is different, being the first fertile vampire queen since the original. And despite having been age-locked at a young age, exposure to a certain ancient artifact called the Akamitama has resulted in her child-like body beginning to mature, as well as enabling her to be safely exposed to sunlight and eat normal food.
• Out of Focus: After the initial series publication, Ryohei and Yuuhi (Akira's best friend and werewolf younger brother respectively) as well as Tatiana simply vanish, to despite their involvement in the plot and relationship to the other characters, furthermore, as of "Scarlet Order," they are the only characters significantly involved in the main plot to do so, since others are (at bare minimum) mentioned. Yuuhi would eventually return as a major recurring character in "Age of Scarlet Order."
• Parental Abandonment: A short scene shows Yuzuru noticing that Nanami's parents are moving away after their daughter was turned. Yuzuru's mother was already nonchalantly practicing neglect, which is what brought him and his aforesaid childhood friend together. Even after Yuzuru comes home with Yuki and his mother is informed that Yuzuru was attacked by a vampire, she only tells Yuki that she'll let her take care of him; this woman would make a lizard proud.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Wolfgang with Akira in the end of volume five. Subverted in that Akira was only wounded and recovered completely, thanks to inspector Hama's help.
• Pinky Swear: Akira and Mina make one to seal The Promise at the end of the anime. It's tantamount to a vow of marriage; Akira asks as his wish from the Princess that she be with him always; she agrees and says that "their lives will be entwined until one of us dies."
• Poor Communication Kills: A great deal of mess and violence could have been avoided if Mina had just sat down with Akira and explained in detail what she was intending to do. But instead of explaining things, she basically told Akira, "What? Did you think I was nice? I'm a monstrous vampire, what did you expect me to do?" and then got pissed when his doubts became significant.
  • This was not a unique occurrence. Some of the biggest strains on Mina's and Akira's relationship are caused by one of them either hiding something from the other for their own good or putting their foot in their mouth. It's not that they don't have valid reasons for any of this, but they end up aggrivating their conflicts with embarrasing frequency. To be fair, sometimes excrement hits the fan before either could say anything, but that hardly accounts for the other eighty percent.
  • In volume eleven, the Mina doppelganger reveals to Yuki that the confrontation between Mina and Akira hurt the two more than anyone could imagine and that she intends to use the emotional damage to play on Akira's loyalties.
• Princesses Rule: Mina is addressed as princess but holds the position of queen.
• Public Secret Message: Mina makes a public announcement, speaking in an ancient Sumerian as a challenge to another vampire, but with fake subtitles in Japanese.
• R-Rated Opening: The OP of the anime and the first chapter of the manga both provide ample warning about potentially objectional aspects of this work.
• Rape as Drama: This shows up a few times, although mostly as subtext.
  • First, there's the vampire attack in the church has rape undertones (although this could be due to the way being bitten feels), and in the anime, especially, it pretty much goes past undertones.
  • The virginity test, although it's not rape, given the circumstances, is a form of aggressive domination of a female by multiple males through sexual means.
  • Angie is raped in chapter forty-one.
  • Ivanovic does his best to assualt Mina in volume nine, and tries again in volume ten after assimilating with his shapeshifing assassin. Of course, by this point the Telomere leader has replaced Mina.
• Really 700 Years Old: Mina is the poster child, since she's at least four hundred years old. She still looks about twelve, though. Turns out this also happens a lot among natural-born vampires: they can age naturally, however the first time they ever use their vampiric powers, they become permanently locked at that age.
• Right Behind Me: Akira, right behind Mina as she and Yuki plot out the next step in the creative process in Yuki's Boys Love story at the end of chapter thirty-three. Hilarity Ensues.
• Right in Front of Me: The chairperson of the student council stormed into the office of the school's director to demand an explanation for the admission of a New Transfer Student without informing them, only to find said student (Mina) in said office:
  Nanami: "We don't have time to waste sitting around. Where is the Director?"
  Mina: "Yes... I know, I know." <sits behind the empty desk> "What is it you have to say?"
• Royal Decree: The first episode ends with Mina giving a long one to the vampire of the episode, culminating in "I order you to die." He does. It goes a bit differently in the manga.
• Sarcastic Confession: It is amazing what will be blown off as a bad joke if you can fool the Super-Senses of "your" werewolf bodyguard.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Since Mina literally owns the school, she could do whatever she wants, however, the only thing she does with this that's for her own sake rather than to advance her agenda of improving human-vampire relations is to deliberately ignore the rules about acceptable modifications to school uniforms — and make her alterations more obvious when someone calls her out on it.
• Shape Shifter Guilt Trip: One of the assassins in volume four uses it against Akira to perfect effect. Unfortunately, then it tries using Mina.
• Shape Shifter Weapon:
  • Ivanovic's assassin and its siblings.
  • Mina's true form can create a carapace around parts of her body that she can freely shape into strong piercing weapons.
• Shout-Out:
  • Seiji Hama = Sledge Hammer!. You dig it?
  • Aforementioned Nosferatu reference as well.
  • As well as most vampire media, including Bram Stoker's Dracula, Béla Lugosi, and Hammer Horror. Mina is the most obvious, as Mina Harker is a character from Stoker's novel.
• Shown Their Work: The first episode of the anime makes it abundantly clear that they know what they're talking about.
• Single Mom Stripper: Mina is sheltered by one after her first escape from Rozenmann.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Wolfgang intentionally comes off as this where his son is concerned. The fact that this makes him appear to be a less-than-wonderful father does not go unmentioned. In chapter twenty-two and the ensuing arc, this attitude is taken to Cruel to Be Kind proportions.
• Skinship Grope: Go on, guess.
• Smug Snake: Really, Rozenmann tries to be a Magnificent Bastard, but when he's outmaneuvered, he won't take it well. He's not as smart or in control as he thinks he is and will not react well to realizing that, as his temper tantrums in volume twelve prove.
• The Smurfette Principle: The father of all vampires gave rise to ninety-nine sons and one daughter.This led to the female pureblood vampires being the rulers of all vampires. Subverted when it turns out the ninety-nine sons were not actually his sons but rather humans he gave some of his power. Also, girls fathered by a werewolf are human; there are exceptions to this one (well, at least one).
• So Proud of You: The look on Wolfgang's face when he carries Akira to the infirmary along the saluting ranks of the Earth Clan. Subverted in the anime This entire scene is changed. Instead of Akira making it to the throne room, the Three are forced to kneel in front of Mina, acknowledging her authority. Mina then leaves the throne room, and gradually hurries to where Akira is entering the castle. At the end she's running full-tilt, and leaps into Akira's arm. Akira asks her to smile for him, she does and he collapses. She holds his head in her lap, laying on the floor with him heavily wounded, while Wolfgang calls for a four-howl salute from the other members of Beowulf stationed there in full uniform, carrying swords. In the next scene, he's had his arm reattached and is looking at Mei-Ren's grave in the Cradle.
• Solomon Divorce: Reiko Gotoh was separated from her twin sister Nicole after their parents got divorced. Reiko stayed with their mother's family in Japan to become the Bund's mediator while Nicole was left in their father's custody in America, eventually becoming a journalist like him.
• Stalker Shrine: Mina has a small private cubbyhole that contains her true personal treasures. It contains some old furniture, an antique gramaphone, a few other knicknacks, and many, many photos of Akira.
• Stalker with a Crush: Angie is revealed to be this to absurd and creepy levels where Akira is concerned.

• Stealth Mentor: Alphonse to Akira.
• The Stinger: Consisting of an Eye Catch-style picture and the caption "You will watch the next episode."
• Strong Family Resemblance: Mina is practically a child version of her mother, Lucrezia. The resemblance is stronger when Mina is in her Older Alter Ego. Later revealed that all queens of vampires are carbon copies of their ancestor, the first pureblood female vampire.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: Angie lives and breathes this.
• Super Mode:
  • Vampires are capable of assuming a "true form" which is the ultimate expression of their power and usually involves turning into a monstrous form. In Mina's case, she turns into a buxom adult blonde who looks a lot like her mother, with a Witchblade-esque carapace (with optional wings) that partially cover her arms and legs, and, usually, little else. It's also the form that she will do anything to avoid revealing to her political rivals.
  • Of course, there's also the Earth Clan. A Super Mode is pretty standard for any werewolf, after all. And the (anime-only) Forest Clan? Who can partially transform? (Like the Earth clan doesn't.) And whose fur is bright yellow with some black striping?
  • Also, see Eldritch Abomination above.
• Take That!: In Dance In The Vampire Bund (A.S.O.), Mina Tepes decides to get her news and information from Fox News, and mentions them by name. While she openly decries what she sees as their "right wing" ideology, she also mentions that she chooses to watch them because their reporting is the most accurate. It's a Take That! both ways!
• Technical Pacifist: Akira, although not by choice; thing is, in his case it is a mostly subconscious result of his traumatic past, rendering him unable to cause anyone any sort of lasting harm. Ultimately he goes back and forth between being this and being a Broken Bird depending on his present state of mind.
• Technically-Living Vampire: The vampire species is treated as a mutation that can be passed through viral infection with a bite. Most of the vampires in the setting are humans who were bitten, but there's several natural-born vampires who are directly descended from the first vampires created by the True Ancestor. The vampire queen Mina, her predecessors and the heads of the Three Clans are all examples.
• Temple of Doom: The Cradle under the Amazon rainforest and Mt. Fuji have a temple that stores a treasure (the sleeping first vampire queen and the Akamitama respectively). Only a true pure-blooded vampire like Mina canopen the door to the temple with her blood. If a mixed blood tries to get in, the temple releases some strange-looking primitive vampires to go after the intruders before the building collapses.
• This Is Gonna Suck: While the problem is not as immediate as is typical for this trope Akira says "This isn't gonna end well," when Mina is introduced as a New Transfer Student at his school.
• Time Skip: There's some points where the story jumps some months in time. Notably, the sequel Scarlet Order starts seven years after the end of the first series. Subsequently, A.S.O. begins half a year after the cliffhanger of Scarlet Order.
• Too Dumb to Live: The students who barricade themselves in a chapel only to open the door when someone they are largely convinced had been kidnapped several days ago by the vampires they were hiding from asks to be let in. This is after Akira told them that vampires would play such tricks and Yuki reminding them when they were about to do it.
• Toplessness from the Back: Angel Avenanto, repeatedly, as if he needed more Stupid Sexy Flanders potential.
• Tough Leader Façade: Mina is a particularly blood-soaked and Machiavellian variant.
• 12-Episode Anime: Mostly condenses volumes one through five.
• Undead Child: Vampires turned before puberty? We have plenty. Pint-sized horrors that invoke feelings of the natural order being defiled in all who see them? Not so much.
• Underground City: Because vampires can't live under the sun, the Bund's real city with its apartments are built underground. There's also the ancient Cradle, ruins of abandoned vampire cities, under the Amazon rainforest and Mt. Fuji.
• Undying Loyalty: All of Beowulf for Mina, especially Akira. Vera for Mina as well, being a surrogate mother to her. Then you have Rozenmann's werewolf servitor, Gerhard, who seems to know that his boss is an immoral snake, yet feels compelled to obey him regardless.
• Unequal Pairing: Royal scion in love with her head bodyguard's teenaged son? Raises almost as many eyebrows as what Mina and Akira actually look like together.
• The Unmasqued World: Vampires and Werewolves: not so much of a secret anymore.
• Unwanted Assistance: Averted when Lord Scott tells Angie not to interfere in his final battle. While they've chosen different leaders, they're still wolves and Angie cannot sully a warrior's last stand. Angie is driven to tears by his grandfather's words.
• Vampiric Werewolf: A vampire's bite is normally lethal for werewolves, making hybrids exceedingly rare. The handful of werewolves who do survive being bitten become known as "Fenrir", exceptionally strong werewolves with the agelessness of vampires and none of the downsides. Akira becomes one such werewolf after he makes Mina drink his blood to save her life.

• The Voiceless:
  • Yuki, as a result of brain damage suffered from Angie's attempt to kill her. She is able to get her voice back in volume fourteen, just in time to save Mina from being killed by the fake Mina.
  • Angie, unless his throat fully recovers from Yuuhi ripping it out. Considering by then he had been lying and deceiving everyone, serves him right.
• Waif-Fu: Half a dozen freshly-turned grown men versus one scrawny prepubescent vampire queen. No problem, aside from the former blowing up.
• Wham Episode:
  • The end of volume eight, when it's revealed that Angie has betrayed Mina and the Beowulf, nearly killed Yuki, and sold Mina's secret to the other vampire lords out of his twisted love for Akira.
  • Volume nine in general, and chapter fifty-three in particular. Lord Ivanovic launches a full scale, multi-pronged invasion to secure the Bund and Mina's postpubescent Super Mode (complete with execution of Fangless). This ends in Mina and Akira killing Ivanovic in battle deep beneath the island, however, the whole thing was a distraction and Lord Ivanovic an Unwitting Pawn. Turns out that Nanami was infected by the Pied Piper a couple of volumes back and controlled during said fight, forcing Mina to — not kill her, that would not be traumatizing enough — command Yuzuru to kill her before she overloaded the nuclear reactor beneath the Bund and blew the whole place sky high, irradiating metropolitan Tokyo to boot. It turned out that the primary motive behind that stunt was to separate Mina from her bodyguard and rattle her badly enough for the leader of Telomere to ambush her personally and pull a switch.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Played with. The major reason vampires aren't in complete control of the entire world is that most of them find eternal life so hard to deal with that they behave like suicidal lunatics in an effort to find some kind of sensation; it's so bad that within a matter of months of the Bund's settlement, around ten percent of the population have already died one way or another. The level-headed, vaguely happy vampires are the ones who have found something to hold on to that helps them cope with eternity (the most prominent example being Mina's love for Akira).
• Wolverine Claws: The weapons used by the twin assassins sent by the Li family head to kill Akira.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Yuki's latest novel is apparently a Boys' Love story, and the protagonist is based on Akira. Also, Mina (although she didn't understand some of the, er, "advanced vocabulary" at first) absolutely loved this story when she read it, to the point of personally translating it into Latin, the official language of the vampire world, so it could be published in the Bund (make of that what you will). Nero got a lot out of it as well, seemingly being a full-blown otaku. In chapter 33, Mina puzzled out that the book is essentially about her boyfriend's romance with another man and that this made her like it more, and even started actively contributing to the 'creative process.' Upon discovering this, Akira was not amused.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Volume thirteen, the Werewolf Elders pull this on Rozenmann's entire army; not a single one gets past.

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