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Miyu (美夕)

Miyu (OVA) Voiced by: Naoko Watanabe^[3] (Japanese), Pamela Weidner-Houle (English, AnimEigo dub),^[3] Annemarie Zola (English, Manga Entertainment dub)

Miyu (TV) Voiced by: Miki Nagasawa (Japanese), Kimberly J. Brown (English, ep 1–7), Dorothy Elias-Fahn (English, ep 8–26)

A girl who appears to be around 13 (in the OVA) or 15 (in later volumes of the manga) years old but in fact is much older, being a vampire. In Japanese, "Miyu" means "beauty of the evening", "beautiful evening" or "evening beauty". She can teleport, levitate, open dimensional portals, and use fire attacks (which also come in handy when sending a Shinma to "The Darkness"). When in her vampire appearance, Miyu is always barefoot even in the snow as she doesn't get cold. In the OVA, she is the child of a human father and a vampire mother in post–World War II Japan. In the TV series, on the other hand, her mother is human and her father is a Shinma guardian in pre-World War II Empire of Japan. In both cases, Miyu becomes the Guardian (also referred to as the "Watcher") after losing her parents. In the OVA, Miyu is depicted as child-like, manipulative and playful, and very flamboyant in talking, especially when having a conversation with Himiko, while the TV series' Miyu is more reserved, straightforward and composed. Even though she is a vampire, Miyu is not harmed by sunlight, holy water or crucifixes, and her reflection can be seen (this may be an effect of the fact she is not truly undead and her shinma parent is not like western vampires either). This is because she is technically a Daywalker having one human parent and one vampire. She needs to drink blood to survive and she chooses her 'victims' carefully since she apparently cannot take blood from others unless they actually give it to her willingly. So, Miyu picks people whom she believes to be "lovely" (either in looks or personality) who have usually suffered a tragic loss, and offers them their greatest wish – to be with their lost loved ones, at least in their dreams – in exchange for their blood. These people live in an endless dream state (which she calls "being in happiness" in the OVA). Miyu is protective of Larva and has great concern for him; this also implies that she has romantic feelings for Larva. In the TV series, when posing as a human, she goes by the name Miyu Yamano (山野 美夕, Yamano Miyu). In the OVA, she is seen to wear different clothes in every episode she appears in. For example in the first OVA, she wears her typical short kimono and light purple obi that is familiarized by all fans where her right foot has a ribbon-like wrapping around it. In the second OVA, she wears a Japanese school uniform during her stay at school and wears a bright red yukata when speaking to Himiko and confronting Ranka. In the third OVA, she wears a winter kimono which seems to cover her body more than the other two garments. Finally in the fourth OVA, she wears a very heavy black kimono and also wears a mask. However in the TV series, she only wears two types of clothing: the typical Japanese school uniform (there were two versions seen in the anime) and the kimono known by all fans and that is shown on box covers.

Larva (ラヴァ, Rava)

Larva (OVA) Voiced by: Kaneto Shiozawa (Japanese); Zach Hanner (English)

Larva (TV) Voiced by: Shin-ichiro Miki (Japanese); Ryan Alosio (English)

A gorgeous Shinma from the western world. In the OVA, Larva comes to prevent Miyu's vampire blood from awakening and kill her, but he inadvertently triggers it and she drinks his blood when he drops his guard. As a result of this failure, Larva's face and voice are sealed behind a mask for all eternity. In the TV series, Larva faces Miyu after she has become the Guardian. After he has struck her down, she drinks his blood. In both cases, Larva starts out as an unwilling ally, but later pledges to be by Miyu's side because he can sense her sorrow, something he was able to glimpse at during both blood-bond scenes. Larva can use his nails to slash things and (in the TV series) he can also wield a scythe. He is very powerful, as he is seen to win against every shinma without getting mortally wounded. In addition to this, in the TV series and the manga, he is able to access Miyu's flame powers, but does so rarely (so he says) as it reminds him of his greatest defeat. Unlike in the OVA, in the TV series and Manga, Larva can speak and will occasionally remove his mask; there's a possibility that Larva is in love with Miyu. The name "Larva" is taken from Roman mythology, which like "Lemures" refers to a restless spirit of the dead. Many of the Western Shinma appearing in the second manga series also follow a naming convention drawn from various European demons and spirits. Larva's name and signature mask may also have been inspired from the white, ghostly Venetian Carnival mask "Larva", also called "Volto." In Volume 1 of the TV series, Larva was called Lava in the English dub and subtitles. The following volumes referred to him as Larva.

Shinma

Shinmas are god-demons that take advantage of human souls for their own gain. Escaping from a dark world after being sealed into the darkness thousands of years, they hide in the human world and Miyu seeks to return them to it. Shinmas tend to haunt weak-hearted people by luring them to illusions that are supposed to achieve the dreams or desires of those people only to leave them in ruin. It is the job of a guardian vampire (namely Miyu) to send them back to the original dimension which simply named as "The Darkness" (also known as the Dark World). They seem to feed on human emotions, although there are some examples of blood-sucking, such as Ga-Ryu or even devouring whole humans as with Koh-Waku. However, not all shinma are inherently evil. Some use their abilities simply to interfere in humans lives for their own purposes. Sometimes even helping other humans by targeting others. Their powers typically include shape-shifting and the ability of soaring and/or flying. One can spot them by the unnatural glow in their eyes. Their dimension mirror human dimension, as they have nationalities. Some Shinma may be Japanese, some Shinma may be Chinese, and some Shinma may come from the West of Japan and China.

OVA series characters

Himiko Se (瀬 一三子, Se Himiko)

Voiced by: Mami Koyama^[3] (Japanese); Stephanie Griffin^[3] (English)

She is a cynical, stubborn and knowledgeable spiritualist who encounters Miyu during a job in Kyoto. Their paths cross throughout the series as Himiko searches for her, convinced at first that she is just a monster without any redeeming qualities, but later coming to know more about her and Larva. At the end of the fourth OVA, Himiko is shocked as she remembers meeting Miyu when she was a child. Equally shocking is the implication that Himiko herself may have vampiric characteristics from that same encounter with Miyu, which have yet to manifest; apparently, Himiko is the first human who exchanged blood with Miyu, right after she became the Guardian.

Miyahito (都人)

Voiced by: Katsumi Toriumi (Japanese); Shaun O'Rourke (English)

Appearing in Episode 1, Unearthly Kyoto, he is a Kyoto youth that Himiko befriends. His girlfriend, Ryouko, was murdered by a "vampire" in front of him; upon being unable to protect Ryouko, he heavily blames himself and tells Himiko that he wants to kill the "vampire", not knowing that it is a Shinma. He is ultimately so crushed under his grief that he later accepts Miyu's offer to exchange their bloods, and Himiko is a witness of this. During the end of the episode Miyahito is seen in a catatonic state, his mind in a sort of dream-world as he sits down on a swing quietly; Miyu, disguised as a schoolgirl, tells a group of girls to not worry for him, since he's "living in happiness".

Aiko (都人)

Appearing in Episode 1, Unearthly Kyoto, she is the only daughter of a very rich and traditional family who has been into a coma for 60 days. Her parents call Himiko, believing her to be possessed; Himiko confirms that Aiko is under possession but is unable to exorcise the demon, and she's later attacked by a Shinma but Miyu saves her. Later Himiko finds out that Aiko and her parents were in a fatal accident and, right before that, the parents donated their blood (implied to be hh type, also known as Bombay Blood) to save her life; she fell into heavy depression, blamed herself and called herself a vampire. The "parents" that called Himiko were either ghosts or Shinmas, so she tries again to exorcise Aiko and it's shown that she had made a deal with the Shinma that attacked Himiko, letting it roam in exchange for it recreating her former life, including her kind and loving parents. Before Miyu banishes the Shinma, she tries to bite Aiko like she did with Miyahito, but Himiko interferes and Aiko passes away when the Shinma is sent away.

Ranka (爛火)

Voiced by: Mayumi Shou (Japanese); Belinda Bizic-Keller (English)

Appearing in Episode 2, A Banquet of Marionettes, she is a shinma who places the essences of her victims into life-size dolls and then hides the dolls in a school's warehouse so she can slowly drain them of life. She fell in love with a student of said school, Kei Yuzuki, who Miyu was also interested in. Kei, a young man who's tired of his uneventful life, wishes to be with Ranka even after finding out that she used him. Since he gave himself to Ranka voluntarily and she came to fall in love with him as well, and Miyu is forced to banish them both after Ranka transforms Kei into a creature like herself at his own request. Ranka is portrayed as an ally of Miyu in the Manga, however. She is one of the shinma of the second tier, and is quite powerful, as seen in the fifth volume where she tears the quarls apart with her light strings that she uses to control her dolls.

Lemures (レムレス, Remuresu)

Voiced by: Yūji Mitsuya (Japanese); Chad Carlberg (English)

Appearing in Episode 3, Fragile Armor, he is an old friend of Larva who sought to release him from Miyu. He uses magic as well as a human-turned-into-Shinma whose soul is trapped inside of a gigantic samurai armor, managing to seal Larva inside of a wall. Miyu believed that Lemures wanted to target her to become leader of the Shinma, so with Himiko's help she faced him. However Larva broke Lemures's spell when Miyu was captured and injured by Lemures's puppet Shinma, then he stayed true to Miyu. Instead of banishing Lemures to "The Darkness", a very angry Miyu killed him with fire as a punishment for abducting and harming Larva.

TV series characters

Chisato Inoue (井上 千里, Inoue Chisato)

Voiced by: Asako Shirakura (Japanese); Anjuli Cain (English)

Chisato is the main antagonist of the series. She is Miyu's best friend at school and a student at Tokiwa School For Girls. Early on in the second episode, she buys two key chain charms as tokens of friendship for Miyu and herself. She is unaware that Miyu is a vampire or any of Miyu's supernatural activities. In the final two episodes of the series, it is revealed that Chisato is in fact a stray Shinma.

Shiina (死無)

Voiced by: Mika Kanai (Japanese); Francesca Catalano (English)

A Shinma who looks like a cute pink bunny and is an ally of Miyu. Her name means "undead", being a shinto character, the guardian of the dead. She shares a trait with all animal Shinma of having one regular eye and one yellow one. Her right ear covers her bulging, bloodshot yellow eye which enables her to see great distances and dispel illusions.

Reiha (冷羽)

Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (Japanese); Wendee Lee (English)

A child-like Yuki-onna, her name means "cold feather". She carries on her forehead the first kanji of her name, meaning "cold". Her powers including floating, teleportation, and manipulating wind and snow. Her widowed father-Kitjutsushi (鬼術師, Voiced by: Shigeru Chiba (Japanese); Jamieson Price (English)) was the head of a group of shinma protectors whose task was to ensure that a guardian (in this case, Miyu) would emerge during the Taishō period. When Reiha's father was struck down by the Bird Shinma, Black Kite, he called out Miyu's name instead of Reiha's before he died. Reiha has never forgiven Miyu for this. After the death of her father, she discovered her ice powers upon encountering a feasting shinma. From that day, she's been Miyu's rival who seeks to destroy shinma, believing Miyu is not fit to do the job. She is less sympathetic than Miyu, and is known to kill innocents who get in her way of destroying shinma. At some point, Reiha ended up freezing the city which led to a final confrontation with Miyu. After Matsukaze's sacrifice, Reiha unleashed a blizzard that was overwhelming Miyu before Larva broke free and beheaded Reiha. Her body picked up her head and left to go look for herself while vowing to return to defeat Miyu someday.

Matsukaze (松風)

Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (Japanese); Mona Marshall (English)

Reiha's talking doll companion. His name means "wind of the pines", which in Japan represents an unshakable force, fidelity, conjugal love. He doesn't hide his contempt for Miyu. He is in a sense Reiha's surrogate father into which she has projected all her hostility and anger towards Miyu. In the final confrontation, Matsukaze used his ice abilities to trap Larva in an ice barrier so Reiha could fight Miyu. He later sacrificed himself to protect Reiha from Miyu's flame attack.

Yukari Kashima (鹿島 由加里, Kashima Yukari)

Voiced by: Chiharu Tezuka (Japanese); Stephanie Denise Griffin (English)

Miyu and Chisato's slightly tomboyish classmate. She is very straightforward, and is protective of Hisae and Chisato. She is killed by Chisato near the end of the series shortly after she and Hisae discover Miyu's true nature.

Hisae Aoki (青木 久恵, Aoki Hisae)

Voiced by: Kokoro Shindou (Japanese); Emmanuelle Chriqui (English)

Miyu and Chisato's bookworm classmate. Shy and intelligent, she senses from the beginning that there is something odd about Miyu and takes steps to investigate. Unfortunately, her discoveries lead to her death as she and Yukari come in contact with Miyu shortly after dealing with a shinma. Hisae is killed by Chisato.

Manga characters

Yuma Koizumi

Introduced as a main plotline character in Manga volume 4, she was a human who fell in love with a shinma, whom Miyu not long after returned to the darkness. She later teamed up with other shinma, friends of her "love" and tried many times to kill Miyu in revenge (only in manga). She returns in the last few chapters of the first manga series. It is revealed that Yuma spent the rest of her life pursuing Miyu and finds a way to destroy her. During her travels, she comes across several other characters Miyu drank from in earlier chapters.

Yui

Yui is the daughter of human and a Shi (another type of demon that is also described as Anti-Shinma in some English translations). She is also part vampire as Miyu's blood runs in her veins as Miyu fed on her mother while pregnant with Yui. Like Miyu in her vampire form, Yui wears a short kimono and is always barefoot. Miyu describes Yui as both her sister, her daughter, and herself. Yui has long dark hair and looks to be about twelve or thirteen years old. Outside of her being the star of her own spin-off manga, Yui was drawn to Miyu's realm as part of a plan to resurrect Miyu. Yui's personality is much more shy and timid than Miyu's and she is still largely naive about the world at large. Yui's weapon of choice are cherry blossoms which she can bend to her will in a variety of ways. She passes this power to Miyu upon giving up her own blood for Miyu's resurrection.

Nagi

Nagi is a Shinma is a protector of Yui and also cares deeply for her. Like every other Japanese Shinma, he is quite powerful where he can fight as an equal against the Quarl. Nagi is very hot headed, but is a faithful companion allowing Yui to feed on him as she refuses to feed on humans.

Manga

Anime

AnimEigo originally released the OVA series on two VHS tapes in 1992 with separate editions containing English audio and English subtitles, each containing a sheet of liner notes related to the series. The liner notes were eventually redone for the DVD release and included in Volume 1. The Volume 2 DVD contains a card with a humorously worded message stating that the complete liner notes are available in the first volume, and that if some form of insert were not included in the second, consumers would undoubtedly start complaining. In the UK, the series was licensed by Manga UK, who produced an alternate English dub for VHS in the UK (this dub was also shown on the British Sci-Fi Channel). However, AnimEigo's dub was used for the UK DVD release.

Tokyopop originally released the TV series to VHS and DVD in 2001–2002. The first DVD volume of their release is notable for only retaining the opening for episode 1 and end credits for episode 3. This practice, which was fairly common in the VHS era of anime releases, apparently received a significant amount of criticism as the remaining five DVDs were released with all episodes featuring the opening and ending credit sequences.

Tokyopop's license later expired, and the series was re-licensed by Maiden Japan in 2013, which re-released the series in one box set.^[7]