It’s Spooky Month and magic is in the air and what better way to celebrate it than with some magical girl comics, or rather magical boy. Written and drawn by Bryan Golden and edited by Aria Villafranca, the Webtoon Vampire Magicka is the perfect spooky month read for multiple reasons.
Vampire Magicka about a vampire boy named Visare who loves magical girls. After a bat named Drago crashes into his house, Visare gains a magic pendant and learns his sister Viorica is missing. Together, Visare and Drago go search for her and meet colorful characters along the way.
A major thing that immediately pulled me into the Webtoon is how everything is basically “magical girl cuteness with sprinkles of horror”. If you hate aspects of horror such as blood and freaky monster designs, the cute stuff makes it bearable. This being said, the horror aspect is only slight and puts a wicked, funny twist on the usual magical girl features such as attacks and Sailor Moon’s “disguise pen.”
In fact, the “horror meets cute” aspect extends to the artwork which has bright colors, fun character designs and a hint of darkness represented in the occasional blood reds and sinister shadows. Also, the occasional use of animation makes the artwork literally come to life.
When it comes to the characters, Visare has to be the most adorable, hilarious and heroic vampire boy I’ve ever seen. His obsession with the fictional magical girl show Bunny Tenshi is amusing, and his determination to find his sister despite having little idea of how his magical boy powers work is admirable.
Moreover, the nature of his magical boy powers is promising as the first appearance of them is not what he expected it to be. Since Visare is a vampire, it is clear that this affects his magical boy abilities in an unusual way. It will be interesting to see if Visare will ever live up to his ideal magical boy fantasy or whether he will have to become a new kind of magical boy that combines monster abilities with magical abilities.
In addition to Visare, the other characters I’ve seen so far are compelling. Draga is a snarky magical guardian foil to Visare, and Sorin is a levelhead Frankenstein boy who can potentially be a good friend and love interest. On the antagonist end of things, Skender Frankengeist is an ambitious yet ludicrous human scientist who wants to destroy all monsters and live up to his father’s legacy.
Although not much has been revealed about Skender’s father in the first ten chapters of the comic, I have a feeling that there is more to Skender’s father than Skender is aware of. The same can be said of Skender’s assistant Dimitru, who is only working with Skender for access to his research materials and seems to be the smarter of the two.
Last but not least, the worldbuilding of Vampire Magika is pretty favorable. The contrast between the human city of Cloud Wing and the monster city of Blood Moon has an “angels vs demons” vibe and I look forward to seeing how the conflicts between them get resolved.
The only minor issue I have with the comic is the lack of prominent female characters. Since I have only read the first ten chapters, there is a chance that this is resolved later on. To give the creator some credit, the occasional flashback that Visare has of his sister Viorica makes her seem like a caring and badass girl. I also liked Umikana, the female entertainer inspired by the “yuki-onna” yokai spirit of Japanese folklore.
All in all, Vampire Magicka is a cute and monstrous take on magical boys. It makes fun of magical girl tropes while giving a whole new meaning to “sparkly vampires.” If you need a new magical webcomic to sink your teeth into, then look no further.
Latonya Pennington
Latonya Pennington is a freelance contributor whose comics criticism can be found at Women Write About Comics, Comic Book Herald, Newsarama and Shelfdust, among others.
