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Manga
Main Characters
Makoto Okazaki
An ordinary protagonist in Class 1-3. Walking alone at night to return a DVD, he has an encounter with Nora that changes his life.- Accidental Pervert: Downplayed. Makoto starts smelling girls' bloody underwear and checks them out after becoming a vampire. Though Makoto is a pervert, this time it was unintentional.
- The Ageless: Counts as this after Nora turns him into a vampire.
- And I Must Scream: He spends the entire time skip, a period of ten years, hearing Nora cry out for him while both of them get strapped down, starved, drugged, and vivisected. It's only knowing she's nearby that keeps him remotely sane.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: This trope comes into effect after Makoto is bitten by a vampire.
- Covert Pervert: In chapter 1, Nunota points out how a girl's panties are showing. Makoto and Nunota give each other a thumbs up.
- Daywalking Vampire: Makoto and others can walk around during the day, though it makes them dizzy and weak. He even manages to maintain a shadow of his old life for a little while after he's released from the hospital.
- The Dog Bites Back: In chapter 2, Makoto punches Yuki and gives him a bloody nose. Unlike other examples, this was unintentional.
- Extreme Doormat: Starts the manga as this. His classroom has bullies who order him around regularly. The manga involves him gradually learning to stand up for himself.
- Go Through Me: He stops Yuki attacking Nora by throwing out his hand and getting savagely bitten in her place.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: It almost goes without saying — the manga plays with the muddy distinction between your average teenager's urges and the feral bloodlust of a vampire.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: When he first confronts Nora for what she's done, it's less that he hates her and more that he wants desperately to go back to being human so everything can be the way it was, expecting Nora to be capable of doing that. Unfortunately, she tells him it's impossible.
- In a Single Bound: Vampirism confers something between leaping really far and actual flight.
- Locked Out of the Loop: He has no idea what's going on when he re-enters the story at the climax. All he knew was that someone had called for help.
- Loser Protagonist: Makoto is bullied into buying food for the popular kids on a regular basis.
- Nerd Glasses: He's more socially awkward and shy than nerdy, but he's got the glasses appropriate for a bully magnet. He loses them for good when he's dragged off to the lab.
- Only Sane Man: Alongside Gosho — he just doesn't want to hurt anyone or let anyone else be hurt.
- Socially Awkward Hero: Seems flustered around everyone and everything.
- Unstoppable Rage: It looks for a moment like he's going berserk when Nora gets shot protecting him from a group of armed men, savagely tearing into his opponents in a way he would never have done before. Then, almost immediately, he gets shot in the head and captured.
- What Have I Become?: Makoto struggles to resist his vampire urges, and cries about how good Yuki's blood tasted when a spray of it got into his mouth.
- Vegetarian Vampire: He tries desperately to go without drinking blood because the prospect of purposefully harming anyone horrifies him, even though the urge is intense. When he does get a taste it's usually accidental. He finally kills Sakurane at Yuki's request and to save Gosho, draining him and tearing out his throat to make sure he stays dead, at which point Makoto truly accepts there's no returning to his human life.
Nora
The mysterious vampire who bites Makoto and turns him into one of her own.- The Ageless: Vampires don't age. Nora in particular seems extremely old, pre-dating industrialisation.
- And I Must Scream: After some time in the hands of the same people who captured Makoto, she's reduced to a literal Brain in a Jar where the only thing she can do is scream by mentally calling for Makoto. After upwards of fifty years, during which Makoto patiently and faithfully cares for her, she manages to rebuild herself.
- Daywalking Vampire: Nora can walk around during the day, though it makes her dizzy and weak.
- The Drifter: The vampires in Happiness are homeless drifters, never staying in one place for too long.
- Human Sacrifice: One of the only things learned about her. Some time in the distant past, her village chose her to be fed to an unknown vampire in a cave (funnily enough, one who seemed to be worshipped as a god). For whatever reason, she was turned instead of just killed, but got driven off by the village when she tried to go back to them.
- Hyper-Awareness: Or possibly Detect Evil. When Makoto and Yuki find her and ask to go with her, she sniffs and looks hard at Yuki, then rejects him because he has a "darkness" that will endanger them. He recently murdered his mother and goes on to attack Nora, then kill his girlfriend and her parents in a fit of rage and bloodlust, so it seems Nora was right.
- In a Single Bound: Nora can pull off massive jumps from rooftop to rooftop.
- Little Dead Riding Hood: A vampire girl who wears a red hood. Somewhat self-explanatory. She winds up getting riddled with bullets and dismembered, though it doesn't kill her.
- Morality Pet: Not her, but Makoto for her — he makes her remember what being human was like, and refuses to go with her unless she stops killing. She agrees surprisingly readily and in fact winds up taking multiple bullets for him.
- Mysterious Waif: Nora the vampire girl has a marked reluctance to talk about herself. It's only in the very last issue we learn anything about her past.
- No Sense of Personal Space: She has a habit of getting uncomfortably close to Makoto. Usually to lick him.
- Only One Name: "Nora" is the only thing she's ever called. It might be her real name or one that she assumed, but ultimately which one remains unknown.
- Undead Barefooter: Nearly all the vampires go barefoot. Nora is no exception.
- Unkempt Beauty: Her clothes are very tattered and stained, and she rarely seems to clean off the blood, but it's still clear she was a pretty young woman when she was turned.
- Vapor Wear: She wears a tattered red hooded garment, a thin, short and sleeveless dress, and absolutely nothing else, not even underwear. She leaves quite an impression on Makoto due to this.
- When She Smiles: She only does it once when not covered in blood and it's an amazingly beautiful, innocent expression — you could believe that Makoto falls in love with her from that alone.
- Would Hurt a Child: Mentions having killed men, women, elderly, and children. She isn't exaggerating. Makoto is the only victim who has ever made her hesitate, and she's not sure why.
- You Remind Me of X: She never outright says it, and it's only revealed in the very last issue, but Makoto reminds her of her boyfriend from when she was human, all those centuries ago. They were separated when she was chosen to be a sacrifice.
Yukiko Gosho
A student from Class 1-1 who attends Makoto's high school. She has lost a little brother, whom Makoto strongly resembles, and comes to try and befriend him because of it.- Brutally Honest: Downplayed, but still there. It persists into adulthood.
- Cooldown Hug: Yukiko hugs Makoto right as he moves to bite her. It ends up saving her life, though she doesn't know it.
- Deuteragonist: Her development is as important as Makoto's, even if the manga is clearly about him first.
- Disappeared Dad: Parents divorced, possibly because of her brother's death. She lives with her mother.
- Establishing Character Moment: The first time she sees Makoto, he's laying on the floor, overwhelmed by his vampire senses. Yukiko helps him up almost immediately.
- The Gadfly/The Tease: Somewhere between the two — while it's not clear if she's attracted to Makoto, he's interested in her and she seems aware of it enough to gently mock him about it and on other subjects. Of course, much of what she believes to be horny teenage boy behaviour is in fact incipient vampirism. (Or possibly both.)
- Nice Girl: Tries taking Makoto to the school infirmary after seeing him collapsed on the floor. After getting to know him a little better she tells him about her Happy Place (a spot where she can sit by herself and see the sky), and cares about his well-being.
- Official Couple: With Sudo in chapter 48.
- Oh, Crap!: Sakurane says to Yuki that the two of them can travel together, evading the law and any witnesses. Gosho counts the number of people in the room and comes to an unpleasant realisation...
- Only Sane Woman: A reasonable, calm and sensible person even as a teenager.
- Scars Are Forever: Signs of where Sakurane slashed her throat remain even ten years later, and she's self-conscious about it, always wearing scars to cover her neck. When she starts to go without a scarf, it's the start of her finally facing what happened to her.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: It's what drove Yukiko to enter a romantic relationship with Sudo in her adulthood.
- Trauma Conga Line: Besides meeting Sudo almost nothing that happens to her is pleasant.
Yuki Ono
One of Makoto's tormenters. After a vampirism-induced punch to the nose and Yuki's subsequent humiliation by his "friends", he starts trying to get along with Makoto. This well-intentioned desire leads to events spiralling out of control, with particularly horrible consequences for Yuki and those who know him.- A God I Am Not: Yuki tells an entire cult that he's not what they think he is.
- Angst Coma: After the time skip, he's practically catatonic, never speaking and moving only to eat. This is very convenient for the cult leader who's enslaved him, but it also means he can't turn anyone into a vampire, which is a problem. He snaps out of it at Gosho's scream when Sudo get stabbed.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: This trope comes into effect after Yuki is bitten by a vampire, specifically Saku.
- The Bully: Starts the manga as one. He gets a little better... then substantially worse, but it isn't entirely his fault.
- Defeat Means Friendship: After Makoto punches him and breaks his nose, Yuki is sufficiently humbled that he stops picking on him, but the other bullies turn on Yuki instead. Yuki, with Nao's help, tries to make peace with Makoto and Yukiko. This eventually leads to Yuki selflessly defending Makoto from another vampire... who turns around and bites Yuki instead.
- Despair Event Horizon: Just before the time skip, he's clearly given up on life, but being a vampire he doesn't know how to kill himself.
- Due to the Dead: He dresses Nao's body and neatly arranges it with the other victims, trying to give them a little dignity.
- Fatal Flaw: He has real trouble managing his impulses or curtailing indulgences — he drinks alcohol despite being underage, can't really say no to his girlfriend, and tends to lose his temper. So of course once he's a vampire with a powerful Horror Hunger, he can't stop himself giving in to it.
- Freudian Excuse: A bully who's rude to his mother because his parents don't care about him, and his crew turns on him when he doesn't play their games.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: He begs Gosho for help killing himself since nothing he could think of works on a vampire.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: In an unusual twist, Nora didn't turn him into a vampire and has nothing to do with the one who did. At this point, Yuki just hates anything that reminds him of his mother.
- Jerkass Has a Point: He's not very tactful about it, but he's completely right that Makoto can no longer live with his family while taciturn men in suits seem determined to capture him. Nora says the same thing later. Yuki specifically notes that they'll probably dissect him in a lab.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He realises he's been an asshole to Makoto and loves his girlfriend. But he doesn't cope with vampirism as well as Makoto.
- Kick the Dog: After hearing Makoto got attacked by a girl, Yuki laughs at him. Also sometimes acts like a jerk to Nao, one of the only classmates who actually cares about him. He's more gleeful than horrified when he confesses he killed his mother; even if she wasn't a good mother, Makoto finds this off-putting.
- Mood-Swinger: He can swing from friendly to startling anger (or anguish) in an instant after becoming a vampire.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After killing Nao, he looks down at the body in shock and starts to cry. It's obvious after that he believes himself beyond redemption.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He plucks up his courage and hits the blood-soaked murderer menacing Makoto in the back of the head. Very brave. The one he hit promptly turns around and tears out Yuki's throat.
- Not Good with Rejection: He reacts poorly to feeling as though he's unwanted.
- Parental Neglect: He seems to believe his parents don't care about him at all, and that he should never have been born. Which leads to his first victim being his mother, and his hatred for her getting projected onto Nora when she rejects him.
- Sanity Slippage: He really doesn't cope well with vampirism. Being stuck paralysed in a water tank for hours and then strapped to a bed for six days while undergoing a Painful Transformation didn't do his mental state any good at all.
- Trauma Conga Line: Nothing ever turns out well for him.
Masami Sakurane
A man who offers to help Gosho, claiming he has experience with creatures like what Makoto has become due to a tragedy he witnessed in his past. This is perfectly true but not quite the whole story...- Bad Samaritan: Unusually, he does actually want to help. He's just not precise about who he's helping. For instance, he'll cheerfully "help" by slashing Gosho's throat and offering Yuki her fresh blood to drink, reassuring him that killing his mother, his girlfriend and her family were all the right things to do.
- False Reassurance: He's perfectly truthful about what happened to his sister, even his belief that he should have taken her place. What he neglects to emphasise is that he believes he should have become a vampire.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Definitely evil — while a little strange, he seems interested in helping Gosho and Yuki until he sits and lights up a cigarette.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: As brutal as vampires are, they're only doing what comes naturally, and none are very happy about their shadowy lives. Sakurane's actions come across as far more monstrous than any of them.
- Laser-Guided Karma: He believes he'll become a vampire by consuming a vampire's brain. It turns out he's wrong, but the resilience of vampires is such that his victim is able to call for help even beyond the grave. Sakurane is granted the touch of "god" he always wanted when said god, Makoto, bites and drains him to a death he won't return from (the first and only human Makoto ever seems to have done that to).
- Manipulative Bastard: He's good at seeming friendly and reasonable, and has his cult, the Blood of Happiness, essentially eating out of the palm of his hand.
- Misanthrope Supreme: Views people as worthless bags of flesh and similar descriptions. That does include himself. So he wants to stop being one.
- Serial Killer: By all appearances, he had the inclinations from a very young age and just happened to fixate on vampires because of what happened to his sister. He murdered three young girls as a teenager and was jailed, but after demonstrating remorse he was released (since he was a minor when convicted). The trope comes complete with the media fascination typical of the real world — Gosho finds out what he's up to ten years on by seeing an article about him in a magazine that calls him "Vampire Boy".
- The Sociopath: When he tries to be, he can be very charming and clever, and he's grasped that his actions have unpleasant consequences he must avoid, but he has absolutely no ability to understand what other people care about or feel — in his mind, either they want the same things he does, or they're nothing but worthless flesh. While Yuki is paralysed with guilt and despair over the murders he's committed as a vampire, all Sakurane tells him is that he's done the right thing and no one else will ever understand him. This utter Lack of Empathy is likely why Yuki shows no signs of recovery after the time skip until Sudo and Gosho are there. Yuki doesn't need worship, he needs help, and Sakurane can't give it to him.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: He had a habit of cutting his toddler-aged sister's skin with razors as a boy, something that got him thrown out of his childhood home. He was about to try it again when Nora bit her, and came to the conclusion he'd witnessed the appearance of a god.
- Vampire Vannabe: From the moment he saw Nora when he was a child, he was fascinated by her. He practices by using a straw to drink animal and sometimes human blood (though neither taste any good to him), which manages to be even more disturbing than the gory vampire bites.
- Villainous Cheekbones: Especially noticeable since most of the other characters are (or look like) teenagers and still have pretty rounded features.
- Would Hurt a Child: Oh, yes. He murdered three girls who were around his sister's age and mutilated their corpses. Then he tries the same thing on teenaged Gosho and adult Gosho.
Secondary Characters
Mrs. Okazaki
Makoto's protective mother who lives with him, her husband, and her older son, Satoru.- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Downplayed. She ruffles Makoto's hair once and he gets embarrassed, but she seems fine for the most part.
- Good Parents: She loves Makoto very much, enough to try and defend him from The Men in Black who come to take him away. After he runs away for good, she still celebrates his birthday every year even while staying involved in Satoru's life, and clearly misses her lost son dearly.
- Mama Bear: Doesn't trust the "police" that arrive to "ask Makoto questions" and tries to physically protect him while demanding to know who they're working for; they have to shove her aside.
- Properly Paranoid: She fears Makoto may not be safe walking alone in the streets at night. She's completely right, because he gets mauled right as he steps outside and turned into a vampire. Later on, a group of men claiming falsely to be police arrive and resort to violence to take Makoto away from her.
Nunota
A classmate and the closest thing Makoto initially has to a friend.- Be Careful What You Wish For: "I wish they'd just die," he says about the bullies tormenting him and Makoto. He gets his wish right around the time things start to get much worse.
- Covert Pervert: In Chapter 1, Nunota points out how a girl's panties are showing. Makoto and Nunota give each other a thumbs up.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Threatened by Yuki's crew, he lures Makoto into their ambush. This gets all three of the remaining crew members killed and Yuki turned into a vampire.
Nao Shiraishi
Yuki's loyal girlfriend.- The Bully: Starts the manga as one.
- Childhood Friend Romance: With Yuki. She confessed to him in their first year of high school.
- Cooldown Hug: Quite nastily subverted. After watching Yuki kill both her mother and father in a frenzy, Nao embraces Yuki and tells him he must be in terrible pain. He is, and it seems for a moment he might come back to himself, until he bites and kills her just like he did her parents.
- Kick the Dog: In chapter 2, after hearing Makoto got attacked, Nao laughs at him.
- Morality Pet: She defends Yuki to Gosho, telling her that he can be a gentle and shy boy when he's away from his crew and she believes his parents aren't there for him as often as they should be. While her perception is biased (they're lovers, after all), Yuki does prove to have some decency in him. It doesn't help either of them when Yuki becomes a vampire.
Saku
A strange boy who happens to be nearby the first time Makoto accidentally calls for help from another vampire.- Blue-and-Orange Morality: He will kill without hesitation if it's the most efficacious way to resolve a situation, but also seems to regard Makoto as someone he owes a debt even when trying to kill him, and helps him flee the lab that captured them with Nora's jar, eventually sacrificing his own freedom to ensure they escape.
- Dissonant Serenity: Very eerily calm about everything that happens. He never seems really upset by anything, only wearing a slight, amused smile. Getting hit by a train and dismembered stings a lot, but he's back to placid the next time Makoto sees him.
- Freudian Excuse: His indifference towards bordering on contempt for humans is explained by him being repeatedly captured and experimented on by them.
- Only One Name: If he has a family name it's never revealed. It's possible that he's forgotten it, or he's old enough that he never had one.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: Mentions this has happened to him many times. He gets captured, he kills his captors, he escapes, and later he gets captured again... It's ultimately unclear how many times this has happened or how old he really is.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: He claims to be jealous of Makoto while trying to kill him — Makoto can probably still die, something that isn't an option for Saku anymore.
Sudo
A workmate of Gosho's after the time skip. She frequently helps him out of jams and he's grateful to her.- Determinator: He's just a nice, normal guy who likes Gosho and wants her to be safe and happy. If there's anything unusual about him, it's how far he's willing to go to see it happen.
- Nice Guy: Helps Yukiko overcome her trauma by walking with her whenever she's outside. His presence brings her comfort.
- Official Couple: He marries Yukiko in chapter 48.
Kiyoshi
A young member of Sakurane's cult. He's the first to discover Gosho on their grounds, and basically assigns himself the job of keeping an eye on her.- Broken Pedestal: He mentions having been part of the cult for most of his life and that he's very happy there. It doesn't last, especially after time around Gosho.
- Mr. Exposition: He explains basically how the cult works (for example that they set up in an abandoned school) to Gosho and, conveniently, the readers.
