The Vampire Dies in No Time (Japanese: 吸血鬼すぐ死ぬ, Kyūketsuki Sugu Shinu) is a Japanese manga series by Itaru Bonnoki. It has been serialized in Akita Shoten's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Champion since June 2015.
The series follows Ronaldo, a Vampire Hunter who travels to a castle to dispose of a vampire known as "The Great Progenitor" who has been rumored to have been kidnapping children. However, the vampire turns out to be Draluc, a wimp who keeps turning into ash at the smallest things (with the "The Great Progenitor" bit just being something that the local village came up with in order to attract tourists). Moreover, the kid wasn’t being held captive—he was just using the “haunted house” as his personal playground! When his castle is destroyed, Draluc moves into Ronaldo’s office, much to the other’s chagrin. Despite their differences, they must try to work together to defend themselves from rogue vampires, Ronaldo’s murderous editor, investigators, and more—with Draluc dying continuously along the way.
An anime television series adaptation by Madhouse premiered in October 2021. A second season was announced with the first season's final episode and released during January of 2023.
The Vampire Tropes in No Time:
- A-Cup Angst: Hinaichi doesn't generally have an issue with her chest size, but is mortified when other characters point it out. In one chapter, Odd Creature gives her a breast enlargement machine completely unsolicited, and while she's furious she's also strongly tempted to use it.
- Abhorrent Admirer: Played straight at first as Maremi's affection for Adam goes off the rails. Subverted as his feelings for her completely flip after she is fatally injured while pushing him out of a truck's way, and he ends up reciprocating her love after turning her into a vampire to save her life.
- Actor Allusion: Draluc's grandfather is voiced by Joji Nakata, who is also known as the voice of almighty vampire Alucard.
- The Ageless: Aside from the vampires, John has been around since the days of Wooden Ships and Iron Men thanks to being Draluc's familiar.
- All There in the Manual: The official fanbook includes a host of information like character profiles, official AU details and Relationship Charts.
- Alternate Universe: There are several AUs of varying degrees of canonicity, many of which stem from manga material and are supported by Bonnoki. Examples include the One-Shot AUnote , Delta AUnote , Uso AUnote , and Inverse AUnote .
- Applied Phlebotinum: Absolutely anything can be chalked up to vampiric powers. Anything.
- Art Shift: When entering Bubuo's dreams, his dream world looks like was drawn by a child, with thick crayon lines around everything and mishappen buildings, except the women, who not only get massive buxom upgrades, but have them highlighted and airbrused in sharp contrast to how they're normally colored.
- Bedmate Reveal: In one chapter, Hiyoshi wakes up in bed in only a bra and boxers and with no memory of the night's events, lying next to the vampire Passionate Kiss. Nothing actually happened between them; she accidentally knocked him out while he was changing clothes and was zapped by Mebiyatsu shortly afterwards, causing her bra to fall on Hiyoshi and the two of them to pass out on the same futon.
- Big Brother Worship: Due to having been raised by him since childhood, Ronaldo adores his ex-hunter older brother Hiyoshi and refuses to hear a word against him, even becoming a vampire hunter to follow in Hiyoshi's footsteps. His admiration is so great that he believes Hiyoshi is superhuman and possesses powers like laser Eye Beams.
- Big Little Brother: Ronaldo towers over Hiyoshi despite being much younger.
- Break the Believer: Clergy, a religious nineteenth-century hunter who was taught that vampires are evil demons to be killed without exception, tracks down Northdin's castle only to find a charming and seemingly innocent teenage Draluc. He chooses not to fight Northdin right away for fear of hurting Draluc in the crossfire, and withdraws to question his beliefs after seeing Northdin risk his life to protect his charge. Things might not have gone so well if he'd learnt that Draluc had been planning to trap him and drink his blood all along…
- But Not Too Foreign: Draluc has a Romanian father and Japanese mother. His familiarity with Japanese culture is justified, as his clan has castles all over the world and he moved to Japan decades before the start of the series.
- Buxom Beauty Standard:
- Ronaldo has a thing for big breasts, to the point where he's considered powerless when the city gets stuck within a lewd talk barriernote because his 'basic' taste makes for poor firepower.
- When Bubuo asks to be introduced to girls, he rejects Hinaichi based solely on her chest size.
- Career-Ending Injury: According to Ronaldo, Hiyoshi became unable to fire a gun and had to retire from hunting after getting bitten on the arm while protecting high schooler Ronaldo from a vampire. The real injury that Hiyoshi kept from him was sustained after falling for a vampire sex scam.
- Childish Older Sibling: Kazusa has his moments, sometimes using Hinaichi's penguin phobia to tease her even when she's at work.
- Classical Movie Vampire: Draluc and his clan are references to the classical aesthetic, down to being wealthy, aristocratic and almost always formally dressed.
- Commonality Connection: After their first meeting, Handa considers Draluc a close friend as they both enjoy seeing Ronaldo suffer. Draluc doesn't reciprocate on quite the same level, but finds Handa amusing enough to go along with most of his Ronaldo-related endeavours.
- Continuity Nod: The final segment of season 2 involves Ronaldo, John, and Draluc chilling on a kotatsu. At one point, John starts playing music and it's the first season opening, and Ronaldo and Draluc break into dancing on the same outfits they wore in the season 1 finale dance battle.
- Cool Old Guy: Draluc's grandfather is the most powerful known character in the entire series, and is implied to be Dracula himself. He also happens to love games and frequently organizes impromptu game nights for his family.
- He is officially confirmed to be the Dracula in chapter 319. Which tells the story of his days with Van Hellsing. Which shows his relationship is similar to the one his grandson currently has with Ronaldo.
- Council of Vampires: Draus founded a council consisting mainly of the heads of the major clans, including Northdin and Y-dan.
- Darker and Edgier: Parodied at the end of each tankōbon volume—the previews for the next volume deliberately make the content seem much more serious and gritty than it really is, forming the base for the Uso AU. The anime continues this tradition with the trailers and episode previews.
- Deliberately Cute Child: Draluc exploited this well into his teens, playing up his cuteness and false innocence to disarm others since he was too weak for physical defence. He was even able to cause a Crisis of Faith in a religious hunter who had come to kill Northdin, possibly saving his teacher's life.
- Dhampyr:
- Handa's mom is a vampire and his dad is a human.
- Multiple vampires in the series are mentioned to have been born dhampirs before being turned, usually by their vampire parents. These include Draus, and the brothers Yakyuken, Micro Bikini and Transparent Lower Half.
- Double-Meaning Title: The name of the series represents both of the title characters—Ronaldo regarding his profession as a vampire hunter and Draluc regarding the fact that he "dies" to a stiff breeze.
- The Dreaded: Ronaldo is utterly terrified of his editor Fukuma, who has Empty Eyes, a perpetual smile and a sharp battle axe, the last of which he isn't afraid to use should Ronaldo miss a deadline.
- Eccentric Mentor: Ronaldo was trained in vampire hunting by fellow hunter Vamone, who wears some kind of duck cowboy mascot costume, never speaks, and has a theme song that wouldn't be out of place in a children's education show (which he dances to). Draluc's the only one to really question this, but even he drops it after a while.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Many vampires go by names that are just descriptions of their powers, although some have had their real names revealed in the fanbook or on the mangaka's Twitter.
- Face of a Thug: Akira is a friendly family man who goes out of his way to help others, but his Thousand-Yard Stare and perpetual smile cause everyone outside his family to fear him and assume the worst (although he's blissfully unaware of this).
- Familiar: John the armadillo became Draluc's familiar after being nursed by him as an injured baby long before the start of the series.
- Fangirl:
- Handa's mother Akemi is a huge fan of Ronaldo and his autobiography series, much to Handa's distress.
- Sanzu is another huge fan of Ronaldo, going as far as joining Autumn Publishing in the hope of becoming his editor.
- Flash Forward: Bonnoki has posted thirty-years-older designs for Ronaldo, Draluc, Bubuo, Maria and Ta Chan on Twitter, along with information titbits like the fact that Ronaldo and Draluc still live together in the future.
- Freudian Slip: Sanzu grows terribly nervous in the presence of her idol Ronaldo, causing her request to become his editor to sound like an explicit sexual overture.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Y-dan is an old friend of Draus and Northdin's. Much to their annoyance, he's also an incurable troublemaker who isn't above using his power to humiliate them for his own amusement.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Draluc is a wimpy, harmless vampire who generally drinks milk instead of blood and spends most of his time playing video games. Even though he was suspected of abducting children at the start of the story, it turned out they were just playing video games at his castle for too long. There are other vampires who blend in and live peacefully among the humans as well, such as Draluc's family and Handa's mother.
- Gag Series: The series depicts the comedic misadventures of vampire hunter Ronaldo and his (unwanted) vampire assistant Draluc. Even the most menacing Monster of the Week can be subject to wacky situations.
- Groin Attack: Childhood flashbacks involving his sister Himari often have her kicking Ronaldo in the groin.
- Happily Married: Practically every married couple in the series is happy together, especially if they're the parents of an adult character.
- Draluc's parents Mira and Draus adore each other despite Mira being Married to the Job.
- Likewise, Handa's parents are very happy together, with Akira being nothing but supportive of his wife's celebrity crush on Ronaldo.
- Despite marrying a much older man presumably for his money, the fanbook states that Eri and her husband get along very well.
- Odd Creature's mutually perverted parents are in a Perfectly Arranged Marriage.
- Haunted Fetter: Famed vampire hunter Arminius van Helsing's spirit is bound to his dagger, and he is forced to possess the first creature that unsheathes it. While he was eager to have Ronaldo as his host, series-typical shenanigans force him into the body of a little girl's pet monkey instead.
- Human Popsicle: After getting excommunicated for questioning the church's anti-vampire stance and living homeless through a years-long faith crisis, Clergy returned to Northdin's territory and suffered a fatal beast attack while protecting a vampire stranger implied to be Y-dan. Northdin tried to turn him to save his life, but seemingly failed and laid him to rest in a frozen coffin instead, resulting in Clergy awakening as a confused newborn vampire in present-day Shin-Yokohama.
- I Will Find You: Draluc once abandoned John in South America, believing that John would be happier with his armadillo family. John did not take this well and spent an unspecified amount of time travelling the world to find Draluc's castle and reunite with him.
- An Ice Person: Northdin has the ability to create and manipulate ice.
- Identical Grandson: Etiquette Breacher is the spitting image of his grandfather, only with blue hair tips and fewer facial lines.
- Innocent Prodigy: Hinaichi is vice-captain of the Vampire Task Force despite her young age. However, she is rather naive and has little to no knowledge about romance and sex. She easily gets flustered by Draluc kissing her hand, and when under a spell that forces those affected to speak nothing but dirty words, her vocabulary is limited to just the word "penis".
- Iron Maiden: Subverted. The editors at Autumn Publishing have "iron maidens" to lock their authors in should they miss their deadlines, but instead of spikes, the inside is furnished with a desk and laptop. Doesn't help the authors' terror, though.
- Is That Cute Kid Yours?: Draluc is mistaken for Northdin's son while living with him as a teen, much to their mutual displeasure.
- Like Brother and Sister: According to the fanbook's Relationship Chart, Ronaldo and Hinaichi see each other this way, although they both think of themself as the elder sibling.
- Married to the Job: Mira is hardly ever around her family due to her work as a lawyer.
- Mayfly–December Friendship: Draluc's grandfather was friends with Van Helsing. It's implied that Ronaldo reminds him of the late hunter, and he even advises Draluc to 'cherish [his] human friend'.
- Mirror Self: In one chapter, vampiric butterflies invert the personalities of their victims, resulting in a dainty, ladylike Ronaldo, a Handa who likes and is concerned about him, a complimentary Ta Chan, and so on. While Draluc is immune to the butterflies' hypnosis, Bonnoki has designed an 'Inverse AU' Draluc who, while still physically weak, appears much more strong and badass than the usual Draluc.
- Missing Mom: Downplayed with Draluc's mother Mira. As a lawyer, she is constantly busy with work and wasn't around much during Draluc's childhood. She tries to make up for it by turning him back into a child, wiping his memory and kidnapping him for belated bonding time, leading to him having to be recovered by Ronaldo, Hinaichi and Draus.
- Mistaken for Gay: A variation occurs when Hinaichi mistakenly believes Ronaldo wants to use the breast enlargement machine Odd Creature gave her, leading her to think he's really a trans woman wanting to transition.
- Momma's Boy: Handa is very close to his mother, making her fangirling over Ronaldo a constant source of agony to him. It borders on Incest Subtext on his end, as when influenced by Y-dan's hypnosis he admits to wanting to lie on his mother's chest.
- Naked People Trapped Outside: The fate of Ronaldo, Satetsu, Shot and Maria after their encounter with the vampire Micro Bikini, after their clothes were turned into micro bikinis and they were forced to strip to break out of the hypnotism (or in Maria's case, broke out of it thanks to her giant boobs).
- Naughty Nuns: Maria wears a nun costume with a Cleavage Window and high thigh slit. Justified, as she dresses as a nun to distinguish herself from non-vampire hunters, and as freelancers hunters rely on their outfits to stand out and attract clients.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The after-credits previews for the next episode typically make it sound like the characters are going to be in a desperate situation as they make dire exclamations set to ominous music. When those same lines come around in the actual episode, the context is inevitably much wackier.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Ronaldo's real name is unknown, as 'Ronaldo' was a nickname he later adopted for his hunter work. Most hunters also go by nicknames that match their public images to boost their popularity.
- Or Was It a Dream?: When a lanky black figure leads Hinaichi out of the Spirit World she wandered into, misty white hands chase them and pull the figure's shoe off. She regains consciousness at the festival and only appears to have zoned out into a strange dream, but then notices that Draluc is now missing a shoe.
- Oxymoronic Being: Vampire garlic. They're vampires that are garlic, but garlic kills vampires.
- Papa Wolf: Draus is very protective of Draluc and spoils him rotten. It's justified as Draluc has been quick to die since he was a child, causing Draus to worry about him constantly well into his adulthood.
- Poke the Poodle: This is Etiquette Breacher's entire shtick. He and his ghouls do heinous things such as hogging playground equipment and leaving open cans of juice on benches.
- Precious Photo: Played for laughs with both Draus and Mira. As Mira is never around, Draus has her picture taped to the inside of his coffin and kisses it before he goes to sleep. According to one of Bonnoki's tweets, Mira also carries a picture of her husband and considers it a source of strength.
- Promotion to Parent: As the eldest sibling by several years, Hiyoshi is implied to have raised Ronaldo and Himari since their early childhood, with the fate of their parents unknown to the audience.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ta Chan sees right through Bubuo's attempt to ask her out and rejects him with her usual sharp tongue."Oh no no no. Why I need to go out with you? You look like dumb fuck. Your face got run over by truck. You not even nail's inch my type. Do you really think you in the position of picking and choosing who you can get? Come back when you become oil tycoon."
- Resurrective Immortality: Whenever Draluc dies, he just spends time as ashes for a brief moment before reforming. The trade-off is that almost everything seems to be capable of killing him.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: John, Draluc's pet armadillo and familiar. Everyone in Shin-Yokohama treats him like an adorable human child. He even gets an Instant Fan Club.
- Role Swap AU: Volume 4 features an illustration of Hinaichi dressed as a hunter, Ronaldo as a vampire and Draluc in a VCD uniform. The fanbook later expanded on this premise with a four-page manga titled Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu: Delta: Draluc is a dhampir and the VCD captain with other vampires from the original series as his subordinates, Hinaichi and other VCD members are hunters, and the two groups are collaborating to protect Shin-Yokohama from a vampire invasion made up of original-canon hunters and led by Ronaldo, who is immune to garlic, silver, crosses and sunlight and wishes to die and resurrect to be more traditionally vampiric.
- Running Gag: Several in the show proper:
- It's called "The Vampire Dies in No Time", so of course Draluc's countless deaths are a running joke in and of themselves.
- Any scenario involving Handa usually ends with him thrown out a window, either by himself or a third party (usually Ronaldo).
- Putting Ronaldo in the same immediate space as a stalk of celery in any form generally leads to a fairly common gag as well, majorly stemming from Handa using anything celery-related for his hare-brained schemes.
- Sex Comedy: Downplayed, but quite a few vampires' abilities are rather perverted in nature.
- Sham Supernatural: Transparent Lower Half uses his power to pretend to be a ghost.
- Spell My Name With An S: 'Ronald' and 'Ronaldo' are written and pronounced the same way in Japanese. While manga spreads and official merchandise use 'Ronald', the Funimation subtitles and English dub both use 'Ronaldo'.
- Spirit World: Hinaichi wanders off on her own at a festival and enters a creepy continuation of the stalls and booths, populated by misty white figures calling out to her. She appears to turn back into a child and is unable to sense or react to the danger even as a figure is about to bite her, but she's rescued by Draluc before she can be harmed and only recalls the events as a strange dream.
- Stern Teacher: Northdin was Draluc's tutor when Draluc was a pampered teenager. Draluc hates him to this day, not for any mistreatment but because Northdin always refused to spoil him the way Draus did.
- Strip Poker: In one chapter, one vampire forces the hunters to compete in a game of strip Yakyuken
. - Supreme Chef: Draluc is an excellent cook, so much so that Hinaichi absolutely adores his cookies and Ronaldo is annoyed by how good he is. He explains that most traditional vampires became good cooks in order to lure human prey into their homes as guests.
- Sweeping Ashes: Any kind of physical hit or shock (and sometimes just emotional damage from an insult) is enough to turn Draluc into a pile of sand.
- Team Pet: John the armadillo.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Draluc "dies" multiple times an episode.
- Three Shorts: Each episode is split into three segments adapting different parts of the manga.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Adam is a slender man of average height, while his girlfriend Maremi is rather heavyset and towers over him to the point where he regularly rides on her back as she flies.
- Truth Serums: Y-dan's power is to force anyone affected by his light beam to only speak in their own fetishes.
- Unknown Rival: Handa has one-sidedly considered Ronaldo his rival since high school, and his mother's becoming a big fan of Ronaldo's hasn't helped matters.
- Urban Fantasy: The setting is modern-day Yokohama, Japan with vampires all around.
- Vampire Monarch: Draluc's grandfather is not only the most powerful vampire in the series, he's also the most charismatic, to the extent that the positive shift in vampire-human relations was largely due to his influence.
- Vampire Variety Pack: Vampires come in different shapes and forms with various abilities (mostly some type of Mind Control) as well, from humanoid ones like Draluc, to vegetables, cats and anemone types, and then there's weird creatures like Odd Creature.
- Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Vampire-human relations were much more hostile in the past. While this period isn't often depicted due to the gag comedy nature of the series, nineteenth-century exorcist Clergy is shown to have been taught that all vampires are evil and must be exterminated without exception.
- Villainous RRoD: Played with. The Anti-Aging vampire is able to use fog to extract years from his victims and turn them into kids, but those years he takes come back to him, which makes him continuously older and more frail. Towards the end of the episode he appears, he has sucked so many years out of people that he has gone senile and gets taken out by Draluc.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Ronaldo and Draluc live pestering each other and getting under each other's skins, and even when opportunities come up to get rid of Draluc, Ronaldo still insists he only wants him to stay because their dynamic is extremely important and popular for his books. Despite this, it's shown that they're still living together thirty years in the future.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Ronaldo hates celery and becomes hysterical and nauseous at the mere sight of it.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Hinaichi has a phobia of penguins due to falling into a penguin enclosure at an aquarium as a child.
- Words Can Break My Bones: When Y-dan and Yakyuken team up to trap Shin-Yokohama in a lewd talk barrier, physical attacks lose all effect and everyone can only fight using lewd talk, which varies in power depending on how deviant the fetish in question is.
- World of Ham: The series is extremely over the top and every character is as hammy as everyone else.
