Diabolik Lovers: Anime Koushiki Anthology

If you're here after watching the anime, stick around, because that was my exact position-- even if you hated the anime.

I'm gonna go straight up and say this: I didn't like the anime for a few reasons. To begin with, the overarching plot of 'the awakening' was dull, underexplained, sudden, and really out of place. I hated it. On top of that, all the boys were jerks and assaulted and raped Yui. To top that off, her own story line doesn't make sense. Yui also has as much character as, Ayato puts it, a pancake.

However, a lot of these issues were fixed in the manga.

First off, the story was a thousand times better. This is partly because there was no overarching storyline. The chapters are structured like one shots. You can read them in any order and you can read as many as you would like depending on your favorite character. It reads kind of like oneshot dojinshi or fanfiction, or well, an otome game. I really liked this change. The other problems are fixed with the characters, which I'll discuss later.

The art, I wasn't a big fan of. In some chapters, it was unduly gorgeous, while in others, it looked like it was major steps backward. Was I missing something here? Did completely different people/teams draw each chapter? Idk, I might just be out of the loop. If different people did indeed draw these chapters, then I apologize for this score and you can disregard it.

The characters, boy oh boy did they change! To start off with, Yui was almost tolerable! In some places, she legitimately resisted, and when she couldn't she thought about ways to thwart the guys plans and actually had brains for like a page or two. On top of that, she admitted to being a masochist so I didn't feel like she was being violated as much as she was enjoying it, based on her thoughts alone. Because of this, I stopped feeling like the entire manga was about rape.

The boys were also much better. None of them outright assaulted Yui (other than Ayato like once...) and there was no rape as far as I could tell (perhaps there were some undertones, but I read most of this at two in the morning, so I honestly wouldn't have been able to tell) and they actually had some character. We could see different shades of every guy. My favorites turned out to Reiji and Laito, but all the chapters were still pretty fun to read regardless.

I actually enjoyed this. I may be a little sleepless and insane and change my mind later, but it was like reading vampire oneshots and I didn't mind it at all. It was pretty cute in some moments too. I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece-- it has a long way to go, even if it's just romance or smut-- but I can say that it's a stable starting ground if the author wanted to do something else with it.

That being said, I enjoyed this overall.

I would recommend this if: you're into bdsm-y style relationships, you like power/dominance, you like bloodplay, if you're into otome games, you like oneshots, you like short stories, you don't mind dubious consent

I would NOT recommend this if: you're 'vanilla', you're into explicit consent, blood doesn't sit right with you, you like overarching plots, you like long manga, you like plots other than just romance, you want something long term

Have a great day everyone!