FANGS: Volume 1 Review Recap

**This is an 18+ BL manga**

Looking for more information?

Want a little more background info? Take a look at my series introduction here!

What happens in volume 1?

Volume 1 starts off throwing us straight into the story. We, along with one of the main characters, En, are a little bit confused at what is happening. En is at his “debut”, a party filled with nothing but beautiful people. This party, his chaperone Ichii explains, is for vampires to find a “pair”.

What is a pair, you may wonder: in order for vampires to live fulfilling lives, they need to feed off of someone. While they can do many amazing things, they cannot suppress their hunger. So, in order to live safely among the humans, vampires pair up, and feed off of each other.

En, the new blood

It’s not all that common for a new vampire to make their debut, so, when En arrives at the party, all eyes are on him. It’s explained that when vampires feed off of each other, their smell changes; the scent of the others blood stays within one for quite a long time. So, the scent of En’s crystal clear blood announces his freshness before anyone can say anything.

Before things can go crazy though, En announces his plan to get paired up with Ichii.

The start of En’s new life

We get a flashback to how En became a vampire: there was a massacre at a nightclub. While almost everyone at the club was murdered by a mysterious, enraged vampire, En was instead turned into a vampire. As it happened with the jurisdiction that Ichii works in, En became Ichii’s problem.

While Ichii decided to take En in, they quickly grew closer and closer, and they decided to discuss the possibility of becoming a pair.

Working at FANGS

Ichii does a number of different jobs for the FANGS association, and one of such jobs is delivering blood to vampires. This falls under his larger job of keeping tabs on select pairings, to make sure that everything is running smoothly.

As vampires live for a very long time, there are bound to be eventual cracks in relationships. So, it’s necessary for there to be a person, or vampire, to keep others in check.

Delivering blood to Aogiri and Utsugi

One of the deliveries takes us to the house of two characters we will be continuously seeing throughout the series: Aogiri and Utsugi.

These two are paired up, and we meet them off-guard while they are mid-feed. Through them, we learn that older vampires have a variety of incredibly powers, including mind control.

While we are meeting Aogiri (who works as a FANGS plastic surgeon) for the first time in this scene, this isn’t our first time meeting Utsugi! We first meet Utsugi at En’s debut party, where he asks En if he could be his “first”.

While Ichii, En, and Utsugi all non-verbally agree not to mention the party, things are a little bit tense. Aogiri knows that Utsugi has a tendency to cheat, and the reason that they needed a blood delivery that day was because he would be going out of town for a little while, and was going to put Utsugi under house arrest until he returned.

There is then a sexy scene

Since En became a vampire and met Ichii, one week has passed by this point!

Masaki’s self-help group

Ichii and En’s next stop is to a man named Masaki’s house. No matter what he does though, En finds himself unable to enter the house. Ichii reminds him that a lot of the vampire lore he has probably heard during his human life is true, and that vampires are unable to enter a house uninvited.

Masaki explains to En that he and his family run an unofficial group for FANGS who are feeling at unease. While it can be somewhat compared to a therapy office, it’s more-so a place where people can get together and relax without any pressure.

We also meet Masaki’s wife, Mariko, who turns out to be a human!

Off to Sugi’s house

On the way out of Masaki’s house, Masaki makes a concerning statement to Ichii: “Sugi still wants to die”. So, Ichii and En quickly make their way to Sugi’s house next.

It’s quickly revealed that Sugi’s partner had died several years ago, and Sugi has been a recluse ever since. He refuses to go to any parties, to Masaki’s house, and keeps referring to himself as a lost cause.

While he is clearly depressed, Sugi is still interested in the lives of those around him though! When he hears that Ichii is letting En live with him, he lets En know that that’s not a part of his job, (as En had believed) but probably because Ichii really likes En.

Skateboarding vampires!

After all of the depressing vibes at Sugi’s house took a bit of a toll on En, he decided to invite Sugi and Masaki to go to a skatepark! This scene is a bit more light-hearted than the previous, and we also learn that Sugi was actually the one to turn Masaki into a vampire in the first place. Sugi had found the dying Masaki on the beach, and Masaki, not wanting to leave his wife and baby behind, begged Sugi to turn him. And he did!

After the skatepark, there’s another sexy scene

…and that’s just about where the volume ends!

Maddie’s Ratings

Fluffiness

This isn’t a fluffy story, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not good!!

Romance

I’m actually quite a big fan of the romance between En and Ichii! I love how caring Ichii is towards En, and he’s clearly doing his best to both take care of En as a caregiver, and make En see him as a potential mate.

Storytelling

This manga has superb storytelling! It kept me hooked right from the get-go, and I really appreciated how there was a little flashback every once in a while. This volume also introduced a sort of mystery that I believe will continue on throughout the rest of the series, however I get the feeling that the mystery will be in the background, with En and Ichii’s relationship staying in the forefront. That is what i’m hoping for, at least!

Interested in checking out the series for yourself?

You can grab volume 1 from TOKYOPOP’s website here!

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