Purple Eyes in the Dark (Yami no Purple Eyes) is a manga created by Chie Shinohara, which was serialized in Shoujo Comic from 1984 to 1986 and compiled into 12 volumes.
Rinko Ozaki is a regular highschool student, except that she has a faint mark on her lower left arm and it has been getting darker lately. However, strange things begin to happen. Rinko becomes entranced by the smell of blood and she loses consciousness, only to find herself naked and in places she doesn't know, barely remembering anything.
Then her teacher Sonehara tells her about the research she has taken over from her deceased father: humans who have the ability to transform into beasts. And the research says that people who have marks like Rinko's are the ones who possess this ability. Intent on proving her late father's research, Sonehara's attempts to encage Rinko and experiment on her beast form, but Rinko begins to run away.
The second half of the manga occurs years later, when Rinko's daughter, Mai, becomes the next target. Is it still Sonehara who is after her? And what has become of Rinko?
Purple Eyes in the Dark contains examples of:
- Attempted Rape:
- Rinko was going to be gang-raped by some punks, but she changed into her beast form and ripped them apart. Turns out Sonehara sent them to see what Rinko will do.
- Odagiri brings a few men to rape Rinko for the same reason, knowing they're likely to die the same way, which they do.
- Bait-and-Switch: It seems that Mai has agrees to get lobotomized, trusting Sonehara to cure Akio. Turns out the doctors were Sakaki and his men, who hate Sonehara more than they hate Mai.
- Bandaged Face: Professor Sonehara turns out to be alive (until Rinko attacks him), but he walks around completely covered in bandages.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Shinya and Rinko clearly love each other, but don't feel there's a good time to say so directly. Everyone teases them, of course, and it is obvious that they like each other. It does eventually flourish.
- Big Bad: Kaoruko Sonehara persistently chases after Rinko and later Mai and tries to catch them as physical proof of her father's research, with a lot of people dying as collateral damage.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Shinya and Rinko, who liked each other since childhood, eventually admit their feelings and even get married in a countryside church.
- Child by Rape: Odagiri drugged Rinko and slept with her. This resulted in Rinko getting pregnant with Mai.
- Constructive Body Disposal: Sonehara tries to drown Rinko in concrete to lure Mai out.
- Covert Group with Mundane Front: The Clan use a heavy industry company as a public front.
- Death of a Child: Rinko fails to save Maiko from Sonehara, and she's attacked by the latter's dogs, setting Rinko on a path of revenge.
- Disappeared Dad: Sonehara's father died six years ago. He's actually still alive, but gone mentally insane and stays in the basement.
- Driven to Suicide: Professor Sonehara, whose work on transforming humans was ridiculed and mocked, has suffered mentally from it and decided to burn himself. His daughter doused him in water and saved him, but he went insane.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Rinko and Shinya do not get their happy ending, unless one considers their circumstances happy. But Mai and Akio manage to kill Sonehara and get tickets and fake passports to leave Japan, preparing to live a happy and peaceful life overseas.
- Enemy Mine: Shinya isn't above joining forces with Sonehara or Odagiri if Rinko is in mortal danger. As much as they are obsessed with taking her for themselves, it'd be an issue if she dies.
- Express Delivery: Tied to transformers' rapid lifespan, Rinko is diagnosed to be on her third month of pregnancy no more than just a few days after the conception.
- Good Shepherd: A countryside priest raises no issue with two teenagers staying at the church, and at Shinya and Rinko's request doesn't call their parents or a hospital and even weds them. But with Rinko's health getting worse, he finds a business card and calls Sonehara assuming she can help. He saves her from Sonehara pushing rocks at expense of himself.
- Hydro-Electro Combo: Noticing Mai is standing near a loose cord, Sonehara splashes a bucket of water on her. However, Mai is resilient enough to not get stunned.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Shinya doesn't let Rinko shoot Sonehara for causing Maiko's death because she'll become no better than her. He doesn't want her to use her transformation offensively at all either. Aiko and Mai's relathsionships are similar.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Occurs with Odagiri (Rinko and Akio get it too), which seems to happen with transforming people when they get to the end of their lifespan.
- Innate Night Vision: Rinko and Odagiri being part-animals can see in the dark clearly.
- Interrupted Declaration of Love: Shinya's first confession is interrupted by Professor Sonehara appearing and shooting him in the shoulder.
- It's Not You, It's Me: Rinko's excuse for not fully letting herself get into a relationship with Shinya is blaming herself. She's too scared of rejection due to her ability to transform into a leopard.
- Involuntary Shapeshifter: Rinko in the beginning transforms into a leopard panther any time she feels enough anger and loses all sense of herself while transformed. She begins to gain control over it after some time.
- Kick the Dog: During the final confrontation Sonehara takes Rinko's memento from Mai for no particular reason but to raise multi-generational stakes in the conflict.
- Kissing Cousins: Mai and Akio become romantically involved. Akio's mother was Mitsugu Odagiri's sister, making them first cousins.
- Lobotomy: Sonehara claims to be able to remove emotions and will by drilling the brain and wants to try that on Mai.
- Logical Weakness: For all the smug talk, Odagiri slips off a cliff while chasing Shinya, due to the lack of opposable thumbs in his panther form.
- Look Behind You: Shinya disarms Sonehara by warning her about Odagiri, who's still down the cliff.
- Love Makes You Dumb: Rinko, Mai and Ayano show a strange need to protect Odagiri or Akio at own expense despite the many crimes they commit.
- Love Triangle: Shinya and Rinko have mutual feelings for each other and Odagiri wants Rinko for himself. Though it's implied he doesn't love Rinko, he merely wants her as his mate.
- Mark of the Supernatural: Rinko has one panther spot on her arm and Odagiri has it on his shoulder, which cover their bodies during the transformation.
- Mayfly–December Romance: Odagiri says that transformers can't have proper relationship with humans, even if they are the same age as their partner, because of their severely shortened lifespan.
- Mind Control: After the Time Skip Sonehara has taken control of Rinko using an ultrasonic device and nearly manages to get Mai and Akio obedient as well using this method.
- Missing Mom: Rinko's mother died two years ago, with implication of having a short lifespan. Rinko herself disappears at the end of the first half and is presumed dead by Mai.
- Near-Villain Victory: Sonehara successfully shows Akio transform and Mai using psychic powers on national TV. However, she gets killed in her own explosion and Mai and Akio manage to escape the country before their identities become known. The manga ends before the result of the broadcast is shown.
- Never Found the Body: During the epic struggle between Rinko and Sonehara, both went over a cliff and into the water. Both survive.
- Noiseless Walker: Odagiri is repeatedly noted to make no sound when he walks. He points out that Rinko doesn't produce a sound either.
- Police Are Useless: Rinko refuses to report Sonehara's crimes to the police despite being suggested doing so, because she killed a few people too, and it'd be a huge problem if the government discovers her secret. With the increased body count, later the police are instructed to shoot any wild panther on-sight.
- Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Rinko's transformation destroys her clothing, leaving her naked when she returns to normal. Same for Odagiri.
- Spirit Advisor: When Rinko tries to forcibly transform for the last time, she can sense Odagiri's presence and words despite him being long dead.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Mai looks an awful lot like Rinko with Odagiri's hair, though Shinya tells Mai that there are noticeable differences.
- Taking the Bullet: In the prologue Ayano get in the way of Matsuyama shooting Odagiri and dies herself.
- Taking You with Me:
- With her last strength, Rinko pushes Sonehara off the cliff with herself. 15 years later they both turn out alive.
- When fatally injured, Sonehara detonates the entire Kanto TV Station just to kill her targets, but Akio lets Mai get away. Akio turns out well too.
- Technicolor Eyes: Purple eyes are a sign of the people who can transform into beasts.
- Time Skip: After the big struggle between Rinko and Sonehara, the story skips ahead 15 years and focuses on Rinko's daughter, Mai.
- Together in Death: Shinya and Rinko eventualy die together in a fire, after having been separated for 15 years.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In the final volume, Sonehara manages to force Akio to transform from his panther form into his human form on broadcasted TV. Yet nothing really comes of it.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Sonehara poisons her unlicensed doctor who've helped to save her father and Rinko's child because she didn't feel he's worth keeping around with hush money.
- You Monster!: While Rinko has dehumanized Sonehara in disbelief, Mai explicitly tells to her face that she sees her as a monster.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Odagiri says that transforming humans tend to have shorter lifespans and implies that he's aware that his own is running out. His and Rinko's mothers, who never even transformed, died of sickness in their 30's. After examining two of Rinko's blood samples, Sonehara deduces that just being able to transform pushes the body to the limit.
