Karin - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Chibi Vampire

The very terrifying vampire.

''It's so embarrassing!

a.k.a. Chibi Vampire (English title of the manga, the anime is being translated using the original name.) Created by Yuna Kagesaki.

Karin Maaka is a bubbly, slightly ditzy, cute sixteen year old girl, dealing with many of the problems faced by girls her age. Her family doesn't understand her. She's easily embarrassed. The new guy at school makes her feel funny. And she seems to have a condition that leaves her out of sorts about once a month...

OK, maybe it's not that simple, when you factor in that most of the above is related to her — and her family — being vampires.

To make it worse, Karin is a very strange little vampire. It turns out she is a "blood-maker"; instead of needing to drain the blood of others, she has to inject her excess. If she doesn't, it builds up and eventually, she gets a nosebleed that puts one in mind of the elevator scene from The Shining.

Karin is understandably put out by this state of affairs. She doesn't have any real special abilities to keep this under wraps, relying on her little sister to cover up any mishaps. Even in temperament, her sunny but easily flustered demeanor does not a creature of the night make. This puts her at odds with her family, who despite caring for her, call her "mutant" and "failure", and make her work to pay bills; after all, she's the only one who needs electricity or food in the house.

But she makes the most of it all, until life sends her a new delivery of trouble in the form of tall, creepy-eyed, earnest Kenta Usui, the new student. One look at Kenta and her considerable store of blood starts racing. The reason, of course, isn't hormones - it turns out that vampires have "tastes" in blood related to a certain emotional quality. Karin's mom craves the blood of liars; her father, that of prideful people. Despite her condition, it turns out Karin has a taste too, and Kenta is apparently Flavour of the Month. Being around him puts her at risk of painting the town red, literally. Too bad they share a class. And a route to school. And look who just got hired on at Karin's part time job....

For all the hijinks and strange setups, Karin is a remarkably natural boy-meets-girl series. The relationship between Usui-kun and Karin is never rushed, developing smoothly from the admittedly supernatural set-up and arrangement of convenience into understandable affection. The secondary characters are generally well-rounded and, if not deep, consistent. The notably grating exception is anime-only Winner (pronounced "Weiner") Sinclair... and even he manages to pull off a little sympathy near the end.

This show provides examples of:

Adaptation Distillation: Not so much a 'distillation' exactly, since the manga doesn't have extra bits to prune out. But though the anime veers off the manga plotline rather quickly, especially when Winner is introduced, it winds up still being a good series in its own right.
Applied Phlebotinum: Bats. Anything beyond one's normal capabilities, particularly memory manipulation, wide-range surveillance, and, somehow, restraining persons, is done via bats, which appear to be magical creatures rather than natural. Possibly a vague reference to or misinterpretation of Batman's bat-themed bat-gadgets stored in the Bat-belt or Bat-Cave, which may or may not be kept in Bat-shape by Bat-Alfred. Bat bat bat bat bat bat bat.
Armor Piercing Slap - Carerra Maaka, Karin's mom, is an evil shot with a slipper, up to and including charging it with a Battle Aura. And since she's never wearing slippers, it's apparently a Hyperspace Mallet as well.
Author Appeal—High Pressure Nosebleeds. Seriously, reading the author's notes at the end of each volume of the manga is...kinda creepy.
Editor: I reigned you in too much. Make it a bloodbath.
Kagesaki: YEEEEESSSS!
Banana Peel
Berserk Button - the whole Marker clan, usually a pretty normal vampire family, is not amused if you threaten their territory or one of the family members.
- Then, there's Elda Marker... her default reaction to pretty much anything that slightly annoys her is an Unstoppable Rage, you so do not want to threaten one of her children/grandchildren.
Bicep Polishing Gesture - Done by Fumio when she declares that she "has faith in her body!". She's referring to her work ethic, but thanks to her Hello Nurse qualities, it winds up being grossly misinterpreted.
Big OMG (Gratuitous English along with a Big No in this scene)
Bittersweet Ending - And how (manga only)!
Bumbling Dad - Karin's father is totally whipped by his wife and mother and daughters. He stills shows a strong side when he has to save any member of his family, and he won't hesitate to reign in misbehavior on Ren's part.
Can Not Spit It Out - Kenta and Karin, naturally.
Cute Little Fangs - Played straight with all the adult vampires — Anju doesn't have them yet. Also subverted, since the fangs become frighteningly long prior to biting.
Crash Into Hello - Happens to Karin and Kenta Usui a few times in the first episode.
Cute Monster Girl - Karin and Anju, of course.
Little Miss Snarker - Anju.
Deadpan Snarker - Boogie-kun.
Did Not Do The Research - The stars in Japan are definitely NOT different than those in Europe. You Fail Astronomy Forever.
Does This Remind You Of Anything - The biting. "It only hurt for a moment" indeed...
- Or one of the most recent chapters where Karin's brother is forcing Bridget to be burned by sunlight by bending her over and sticking her head out the window while he is bent over her from behind, grabbing her so she can't struggle. That doesn't seem like rape at all, right? Oh, and then he and she later confirm that he spent the rest of the night forcing sex on her. But apparently, Rape Is Love in her case. She also calls later to say she's pregnant. So Yeah...
Dojikko - The more excited Karin gets, the more likely she is to trip over something.
Driven To Suicide - Fumio, before Karin and Ren's intervention.
Education Mama - Koibuchi, one of Anju's suitors, has one of these, to his distress.
Elegant Gothic Lolita - Anju.
Emotionless Girl - Anju.
Enjo Kosai - One of Kenta's first encounters with Karin was seeing her in the park with her arms around a middle-aged salaryman, lips on his neck. Not knowing about her condition yet, he puts two and two together and comes up with squickiness.
Face Of A Thug - Kenta, to the letter. A mundane version of the "Things aren't what people say they are" theme of the series.
- An omake has it that Kenta's ancestor seven generations back had the same creepy eyes, couldn't make any friends, and became a murderous swordsman. He killed a man with kind eyes out of jealousy, who then cursed his lineage to have the same creepy eyes for seven more generations.
Fanservice - The anime has a lot more of it than the manga - nothing quite tops having suggestive naked poses of the title character thrust at you in the OP. Karin's cup size also seems to have increased.
- To be fair, Karin's cup size is already several shades above enormous and increasing it is hardly an appreciable difference.
First Kiss - Winner. Sort of. More like First Bite.
Friendly Neighborhood Vampires - The whole Maaka family, with one exception.
The Gift - As opposed to her awakened-but-powerless older sister, Anju displays great aptitude for vampiric control over familiars and human memories, despite being unawakened. Naturally, this leads to negative comparisons from the rest of the family, and yet more embarrassment for Karin. Carerra and Ren remark that Anju will be "one of the greats" when she finally becomes an adult. She also ends up making the change much earlier than anyone expected.
Gratuitous English - Mostly from Winner-kun.
Gratuitous Japanese - Or, Gratuitous Japanese idioms is usually how Winner starts a speech. They're usually sort of relevant, but it's an odd way to speak.
Half Human Hybrid - Yuriya in the manga.
Hellish Pupils - All adult vampires have Eyes Of Gold and these, though since the adults are typically drawn with smaller eyes, it can be hard to notice. Elda Marker's eyes are drawn larger, showing us that the adult vampire pupils remain circles but also gain vertical slashes — a merge of human and feline pupils in one package. Karin's eyes appear completely normal unless she's surprised, angry, or really feeling the need to bite someone. Anju's eyes usually remain normal too, after she changes, so apparently one still has to grow into it. And then there's Yuriya, who usually gets it just once a month.
Hello Nurse - Kenta's mother Fumio suffers from this in spades. She's constantly sexually harassed, which results in her losing her jobs rather quickly. Karin also gets this kind of attention from Winner. And Winner gets it from every female character apart from Karin.
High Pressure Blood - Karin's blood builds up if she doesn't bite to release the excess, leading to explosive bursts of blood from her nose. In the anime, to lower the gross-out factor, this appears as a shower of red flowers. But afterwards, there's still a bloody mess to clean up. The manga just has blood. Of course, the finale of the anime looks like it tries to make up for all that...
Hot Shounen Mom - Stacey's mom has nothing on Kenta's mom Fumio. Nothing.
Ho Yay - The boarding school episode. So much.
- In the manga, Chapter 24.
I Have No Father - Kenta, at first.
I Have The High Ground - Anju stands atop a lamppost to watch Karin covertly, Ren mounts a powerpole to give Winner the slip.
Identical Grandson - Sort of. Grandmother Elda and granddaughter Karin apparently bear an uncanny similarity to each other, differing only in Elda's hair colour and length, and Karin's taking after her well-endowed mother in the cleavage department.
- And in the manga, Anju looks just like their other grandmother.
- Winner's grandfather also greatly resembles him.
Idiosyncratic Episode Naming - Episode titles are "embarrassing!"
Ill Girl - Everybody in Anju's class believes that she has a terrible disease that keeps her mostly at home. It is noted that she only comes when it's cloudy or raining, though.
Impossibly Cool Clothes - Subverted in Winner's mantle; it simultaneously marks him as somewhat unbalanced mentally, yet he draws enough admiration from looks alone that it gets viewed as part of his charm by his groupies.
I Was Quite A Looker - The third manga special shows Carrera when she was younger—and she's cute!
Karma Houdini - Glark and the other Brownlicks kidnapped Karin, and planned to rape and eventually murder her. They fail, but the worst punishment they recieve is Elda Marker staying at their mansion for a few years as an uninvited and very unwelcome guest who allededly beats them all black and blue as a regular thing.
Laser Guided Amnesia - Vampires wipe the memories of their victims to prevent panic, being caught, etc. Naturally, Karin does not have this power, and her family frequently has to do this for her so she can keep living her normal life.
- And at the end of the manga, they do it TO her so that she can go on to live a normal life.
Lethal Chef - Carrera and Anju nearly killed Karin and Maki making a normal human meal for them. Carrera can't really taste human food and doesn't cook or eat it, after all. And Anju is like, 12.
Luminescent Blush - There is lots of blushing in this series, and Karin does a ton of it. As Boogie-kun snipes at one point, "Her body is 98% embarrassment!"
Nightmare Fuel - Boogie, an already creepy-looking doll with a knife attached to his hand (holy shit!), can turn into a sanity-destroying monstrosity. With a knife. Yeah, dolls are scary.
Nosebleed: Subverted - Karin's nosebleed is caused by her "blood maker" nature. But the situations in which it happens are still very similar to the standard usage. A played-straight example actually winds up saving her life at one point: her top accidentally comes undone in the final confrontation with Winner's Knight Templar granddad, and the old man passes out from blood loss before he can harm her!
Noblewomans Laugh - Carerra Marker, and later Elda Marker as well.
Not What It Looks Like - The scene where Karin and Kenta are discovered in a closet together with their clothes off. In reality, they were hiding from a vampire hunter and Karin had one of her nosebleeds, hence the removal of garments. Everybody else who saw them (including said vampire hunter) had different ideas, If You Know What I Mean.
Older Than They Look - Fumio, who looks to be about in her twenties (and at one point is able to pass as a high schooler) despite having a son in high school. She got pregnant near the end of high school herself, but this would still put her in her thirties.
Omake — lots of it in the manga, including the mangaka's travails in getting that particular tankobon volume out.
Our Vampires Are Different - Spun twice for good effect. The vampires of Karin don't suffer from most of the lesser-known traditional vampiric weaknesses, and they are noted for having a particular "taste" in their victim's blood related to emotions. Karin, on the other hand, is different even from other vampires, as noted above.
- Among the traditional weakness normal vampires of the series do have is an aversion to garlic - but it's because they can't stand the strong smell with their acute senses. They also burn in sunlight, and apparently this was a popular method for vampire executions at one time. And they sleep in coffins, though whether or not they need to do this or simply prefer it is unclear. Anju continues to sleep in her bed, after Ren boards up her room's windows.
- In one of the manga omake stripes, Carerra enumerates to her human-nosed daughter the sorts of strong-scented vegetables she is not allowed to bring home. Karin realizes with a start that they are all vegetables that cats are allergic to, and wonders about a possible connection.
Overprotective Dad - Henry, who's not exactly thrilled about Kenta's effect on his daughter's life.
Papa Wolf - Henry uproots and throws full grown trees at some other vampires when protecting Karin. And he planned to burn to death with them under the dawning sun if necessary. There's also the time that he had to rescue Karin from well-meaning human emergency-responders before they got her to the hospital and learned what she was. He flew through the sky in broad daylight and suffered some truly nasty full-body burns.
Phenotype Stereotype - Winner-kun is a foreigner with blond hair and blue eyes. He also has a rather strange accent.
Pettanko - Elda; her grand-daughter Anju might take after her as much as Karin took after their other grandmother.
Right Behind Me - In the manga Maki spots Karin giving a lunch to Usui. She and the other girls then demand that Karin tell them all the sordid details of her "obviously torrid love affair" with him. Karin insists that He is Not My Boyfriend — without success, given her Luminescent Blush. Finally she yells "I Don't Have Feelings for Usui-kun!", just as Usui comes around the corner Right Behind Her.
School Festival - Culture festival.
Secret Keeper - Kenta, partially of his own free will, and partially because Karin's family threatened him with Laser Guided Amnesia (and possibly worse) if he doesn't. Then he has to become the family's secret-keeper against Karin, after they wipe out her memories of them and vampires.
Skinship Grope - The manager at Karin's second job
Spell My Name With An S - The Marker/Maaka family name. There is a definite change from the original "Marker" (used by the parents and Elda), and "Maaka", written with the kanji that means "crimson" (and used by the naturalized Japan-born children). However, subtitling for the anime has been known to be inconsistent even from this.
- Also, Carerra, Carrera, or Calera? You'll find all of them on this page, but the manga sticks with Calera.
So Beautiful, It's A Curse - Fumio, and Ren's boarding school roommate in his anime backstory.
Spoiler Opening: Subverted - the only character that doesn't show up in the first episode is represented as a black silhouette in the opening until after he is introduced to the storyline.
The Un Favorite - Karin's family can be pretty hostile about her condition.
- It's just a Jerkass Facade. They are later shown to be very sympathetic towards, and protective of, Karin.
White Haired Pretty Boy - Ren. They have a lot of fun with this trope, especially with his bishie aspects in the special boarding school episode.
Why Couldnt You Be Different
Your Vampires Suck - There's a montage of Winner setting numerous vampire traps based on traditional vampire lore, accompanied by an explanation from Karin about how useless and silly they are.
- Karin's parents point out with horror that anyone would die from having their hearts staked.