Dance in the Vampire Bund

Dance in the Vampire Bund (ダンス イン ザ ヴァンパイアバンド) is a supernatural romance manga written and illustrated by Nozomu Tamaki (環望). The manga series is serialized in Media Factory's seinen manga magazine Comic Flapper, and is licensed for an English-language release by Seven Seas Entertainment. The ninth volume was released in Japan on March 23, 2010 and scheduled for a December 9, 2010 release in North America.

The plot follows the emergence of vampires into the human world, and how fear on both sides, changes the world's status quo, as they come into conflict with those who desire peace.

A 12-episode anime has been produced by Shaft.

Plot
The story revolves around Mina Ţepeş, princess-ruler of all vampires, and her "protector," Akira. Like other vampires, Mina has been in hiding with her people for many years. Seeking to end centuries of isolation, Mina gains permission to create a special district for vampires, "The Bund", off the coast of Japan by paying off the national debt of the Japanese government. Mina then reveals to the world the existence of vampires and her desire for both races to live together. Tensions, however, run high as fearful humans and extremist vampire factions begin to interfere with Mina's wish for peace with the human world.

Main

 * Mina Ţepeş (ミナ・ツェペッシュ)
 * Voiced by: Aoi Yūki
 * The female protagonist and the current ruler of the Vampire world. She usually appears in a young and prepubescent state, though she is not shy enough to feel embarrassed when naked. Mina can act aggressive, cocky, and naughty. However, she actually feels vulnerable and lonely. She cares very much for the welfare of her people and does everything in her power to protect and preserve her species. Mina sympathizes towards the Fangless, creating a city underneath the Bund where they can live freely and without persecution. It is revealed that she may be in love with Akira since first meeting him or related to him in a close fashion, to the point her secret room is covered from floor to ceiling with nothing but pictures of him. Mina's soul's true form is an adult version of herself with wings. She wishes to have this form kept a secret, as that form's body is able to give birth while her current one cannot, and because of that, she would be forced into marrying one of the Three Nobles, who are also "True Bloods" like her.


 * Akira Kaburagi Regendorf (暁・鏑木・レーゲンドルフ)
 * Voiced by: Yuichi Nakamura
 * The male protagonist of the story. Akira is the son of Wolfgang and thus is well trained. He has undergone training to identify almost all explosives, learning how to sniff them out. He cannot however disarm them, as he only took the canine part of the program. He is a kind person, determined to protect Mina, with whom he is in love.
 * In the anime, he lost all of his memories one year ago, and did not even know he was a werewolf until episode 2. It is later revealed he lost his memory due to failing a mission, and was allowed to live because of his importance to Mina.


 * Yuki Saegusa (三枝 由紀)
 * Voiced by: Chiwa Saitō
 * A human who seems to have a crush on Akira who also gave him a silver ring as a gift. She is Akira's classmate as well as a member of the Student Council, and for a time being the only member after the attack on Kaichou. She was at first frightened by vampires, but grows to accept them after spending time with Mina. Through this she appears to gain a close friendship with Mina, even inviting her to spend the night at her house. Yuki is also an amateur novelist, and has quite a following in the Bund. It is suggested she writes yaoi with the protagonist based on Akira, much to his horror.

Vampires
Vampires, contrary to Werewolves, are highly evolved humans. Man's only predator. Most natural-born vampires are usually violent, gluttons for blood, and sexual deviants, but other vampires - mostly those that were transformed- choose rather to be one of The Fangless. The Fangless are vampires who removed their fangs to offset their bloody urges. (For a multitude of reasons including, but not limited to: protecting their friends, protecting their family, and/or to just maintain control of themselves.) There are the "True Bloods", vampire families that have not been tainted by mating with humans or being transformed. They are the most powerful of all the Vampires in the world, but are deathly restricted by tradition and codes of conduct when it comes to dealing with each other.

In the story line, the current vampire world is ruled by the royal family, the Ţepeş. However, there are only three "true blood" nobles left: Lord Rozenmann, Lord Ivanov, and Lord Li.

Royal Family

 * The Ţepeş are the Royal family that Rules over the Vampire world. Currently, there is only one member of the royal family left.


 * Lucretia (ルクレツィア): Lucretia Ţepeş (Mina's mother) was the late ruler of the Vampire Kingdom. Not much is known about her except that she was killed by the Three Clans, a picture of her is shown at one point in the manga, and it is noted that Mina's true form looks a lot like her mother. Volume 8 is where the picture of Lucretia is shown.

The Three Clans
The Three Clans consists of Lord Rozenmann, Lord Ivanov, and Lord Li. It is revealed that prior to the story, the three lords devoured the other noble clans and pursued the Royal Family. They succeeded in their campaign resulting in the extinction of the "true bloods" and the death of Queen Lucretia. However to keep the true blood line, one is to be married and bear a child with Mina, as she is the only true blood female vampire left. It is heavily suggested one or all of them are controlling the Third Kind, a terrorist group created to kill Mina. In the anime they all swear their allegiance to Mina once their assassins are all killed by Akira.


 * Lord Rozenmann (ローゼンマン): Lord Rozenmann appears with an eye-patch over his left eye. He is first seen dressed in a white, western style, suit with a cape over his shoulders. He is the more outspoken lord out of the three.


 * Lord Ivanovic (イワノヴ): Lord Ivanov appears dressed mostly in black with a silver cross hanging from his neck. He also appears older and hunched over. Lord Ivanov has a very aggressive demeanor and looks more as the villain compared to the other two lords. His appearance is extremely similar to that of Rasputin.


 * Lord Li (李): Lord Li appears dressed in a Manchu changshan. He has a fan that he uses to cover his monstrous mouth. He rarely speaks, preferring to observe the conversation and only contributes when need be.

Others

 * Maids: Three maids that are often seen serving Mina. They are often featured in the omake chapters spreading rumors about Akira and are fans of Yuki's manga. Though they are very strong, able to fight off an armed squad by themselves.
 * Nelly (ネリー)
 * Voiced by: Eri Kitamura
 * She has long chestnut colored hair and more cheerful of the three. She is a big anime fan, spending most of her time with Nanami, now that she is a maid, because she has glasses, big breasts, and is a student council president, considering that a "Triple Threat" in the anime world.
 * Nella (ネーラ)
 * Voiced by: Akeno Watanabe
 * Recognized by having her hair covering one of her eyes. She always has a stoic demeanor but is a very caring person. Where after she gave a shot to a boy, notice that she was ordered by Alphonse to bite him in order to turn him into a vampire, which made him cry, she gave him a small teddy bear to make him feel better. She appears to work for Alphonse as well.
 * Nero (ネロ)
 * Voiced by: Asuka Tanii
 * The maid with long black hair. She is very devoted to Mina, and hates Akira because he is always by her side.


 * Juneau Dermailles (ジュノー・デルマイユ)
 * Voiced by: Yuzuru Fujimoto
 * He is a high-ranking noble who serves the noble family. However, his loyalty is just a facade as he despises Mina, working with Vampire Terrorists to have her killed. He also has a racist hatred towards Werewolves.


 * Vera (-tos) (ヴェラトゥース)
 * Voiced by: Yūko Kaida
 * First introduced driving Akira to the castle, where she impersonated Mina to test Akira's abilities. She is often assisting Mina with her office work as well as being her bodyguard. Akira has commented that she has a cute laugh. She admits to having once been a human who sought to become a vampire out of love for her Master, Mina's mother. She's also Hysterica's original Master, having turned her into a vampire.


 * Alphonse Medici Borgiani (アルフォンソ・メディチ・ボルジアーニ)
 * Voiced by: Takaya Kuroda
 * A carefree vampire who is loyal to Mina. He is easily recognized by his white suit and expensive car, a reason he doesn't like the Bund is because the fake blood "Stigma" they spray by blimp always gets all over his car. He states he is a Lord and specializes in secretive dealing for Mina outside the public's knowledge. It was him who planned the transformation of Shoichi's grandson into a vampire for Mina to obtain leverage.

Humans that became Vampires

 * Nanami 'Kaichou' Shinonome (東雲 ななみ)
 * Voiced by: Shizuka Itō
 * Also known as "Chairman" (会長), she was originally a stern, no nonsense human student who was against the idea of having vampires attend the school, seeing them all as evil. However, after staying at school late at night she was attacked by vampires and consequently became one of them. Though her original master was defeated, Nanami was soon "Overwritten" by another vampire and was thus further coerced into serving Mina's enemies. She harbors lust for her next-door neighbor Yuzuru and attempted to bite him before remembering herself and running away. Eventually Nanami is Overwritten yet again, this time by Mina, and is able to get some semblance of her life back. She converts Yuzuru into a vampire at his request. It is shown that Nanami lusts after Yuzuru despite him being a child, which is why Nanami is later labeled a shotacon. After being turned into a vampire at Mina's side, Nanami continues to go to school as the President of the Student Council, but now also serves as a maid to Mina Ţepeş.


 * Hikosaka (彦坂)
 * Voiced by:Mitsuhiro Ichiki
 * A cowardly student that was regularly bullied by his schoolmates. He later becomes a vampire, apparently loving the fact he can terrify those who once bulled him. However, he soon sees that his life as a vampire is no different than when he was a human. After being confronted by Akira, he apologized for what he did before killing himself.


 * Yuzuru (ユヅル): A thirteen year old boy (though appears between 5-8) who was Nanami's next door neighbor. Because both their families were often not at home they would spend time together to where Yuzuru would refer to her as big sister. After Nanami became a vampire, he looks for her to the point of putting himself in danger, and later ends up helping Mina and Akira save Nanami. He feels for Nanami just as strongly as she feels for him and allows himself to be turned into a Vampire by Nanami so they can live together in the Bund.

Werewolves
The Earth Clan (地の一族) is a family of highly evolved wolves that have developed to look like men. They have been in the service of the Ţepeş family of vampires, particularly Mina Ţepeş, for generations; they act as the Ţepeş empire's military and special-ops units. They are born with stronger bodies than humans, keener senses of smell and sight, and (unlike vampires) can walk around during the day. Werewolves are also said to have extremely long lifespans as mentioned by Akira in the manga when he said that werewolves were immortal (although he was leaving silver-related injuries out of this statement). The protagonist, Akira, is the son of the head of the Earth Clan, Wolfgang, and a Japanese woman. Akira has been Mina Ţepeş' familiar/ #1 servant for nearly his entire life. It was revealed in chapter 35 that all members of the earth clan are male.


 * Wolfgang Regendorf (ヴォルフガング・レーゲンドルフ)
 * Voiced by: Jōji Nakata
 * Current head of the Earth Clan and Akira's father. He takes his position as the head of Mina's security, the Beowulfs, very seriously. Though he doesn't show his emotions, he is proud of his son.


 * Seiji Hama (浜 誠児): A police inspector in Tokyo. He is usually a good hearted guy but is a fierce fighter, being in special Ops he is able to use a shotgun in many ways to fight. It is later revealed he was originally human but after being transformed he is now some type of were-creature (most likely some sort of feline) and one of the three assassins sent by the royal family to kill Akira. He and Akira fight, though Akira won. He later reveals he was in charge of the men who attacked Mina's castle at the beginning of the series, and was the one who shot the rocket launcher at Mina. It is later shown he is in a relationship with Reiko. After being questioned by Mina, he was allowed to return to his Station in the Bund due to the Beowulfs not wanting to lose someone of his strength, Reiko refusing to leave Mina's office until he was released, and on the request of Akira.


 * In the anime he is replaced by Mei Ran, as well as his assassin armor obviously more feminine.


 * Angel "Angie" Arvenanto (エンジェル "アンジー"・アルヴェナント)
 * A Leading Private from Beowulf's Senatorial Bureau of Investigation, transferred to be Mina's Bodyguard, Angie is a sweet, seventeen year old, effeminate young man (Mina and Yuki easily mistake him for a girl before changing into a school uniform) and former partner of Akira, who he took the Antarctic test with him and was one of the two that survived. He is also strongly attached to Akira, and isn't afraid to out-prove their closeness to Mina, such as admitting to bathing together or sleeping naked together. He is also good at reading people, and was able to get Ryohei back as friends with Akira.


 * Eight Elite
 * The Eight Elite consists of the best hunters in the Earth Clan. Each specializes in different types of weapons. They are also in pairs of two.

Team 1
 * Remus: He is superior of Eight. His weapon of choice is duelling sword.
 * Romulus: His weapon of choice is duelling sword. He wears sun glasses.

Team 2
 * Heinrich
 * Leeroy

Team 3
 * Camille: He is blind. His weapon of choice is duelling sword.
 * Hyunte: His weapon of choice is lance for melee combat and sniper rifle.

Team 4
 * Goto: His weapon of choice is halberd. Shinva uses his halberd as springboard sometimes.
 * Shinva: He is the shortest of Eight and he wears white mask. His weapon of choice is yatagan.

Humans

 * Ryohei Kuze (久世 僚平)
 * Voiced by: Susumu Chiba
 * At the beginning of the series, he treated Akira as an enemy, but Akira still sees him as a friend. His treatment to Akira is due to the fact he didn't accept Yuki's feelings and that Akira is Mina's servant, in which Ryohei believes he is siding with the vampires. His hatred towards Vampires is so strong, that he agreed with students beating up Hikosaka because he "associated" with Mina. However, after chatting with Angel, he decided to apologize to Akira, which Akira accepts.


 * Katsuichi Mizoguchi (溝口 勝一)
 * A mid level politician who Mina negotiated to have Fangless vampires to attend school in Japan. He was completely against the idea, believing that all vampires should stay on the Bund. Because of that statement, Mina went as far as to have his grandson turned into a vampire and then quoted his own words on how all vampires should stay in the Bund. He later agrees to the acceptance of vampires, to where Mina gave a cure to his grandson that works on people that have been bitten within 48 hours.

In the anime, he is much higher rank, being the prime minister, but is still the one that Mina has to deal with over the Bund.


 * Josée Reiko Gotoh (後藤・ジョゼ・玲子): Stepsister to Nicole Edelman. Yet they look so much alike that Vera nearly attacked her when she introduced herself. She is a Councilor who works for Shoichi. She hadn't seen her stepsister in years, and claims to not know why she did the things she did. It is later revealed that she is dating Seiji Hama and deeply loves him.

Antagonist

 * Nicole Edelman (ニコル・エデルマン): A human reporter who became a vampire so as to assassinate Mina during the news conference. She became a suicide bomb by surgically placing C4 inside her own stomach. Her plan was stopped by Akira and Vera driving stake through her heart and Akira throwing the bomb down the elevator shaft (though this accidentally caused damaged to the underground settlement Mina was having constructed). She worked for the terrorist organization Telomere.


 * Jean Marais Dermailles (ジャン・マレイ・デルマイユ)
 * Voiced by: Ken Narita
 * Heir to Juneau and behind the attacks on the school turning the students into vampires, including Nanami and Hikosaka. He changed as many people as he could to vampires as a way in serving Mina, believing he was making an army to create a new world for Vampires. He shows no respect to his father, believing he is a person of the past. He too also shows a racist hatred to Werewolves, wishing to have them exterminated in the new vampire world ruled by the "young". Mina kills him, seeing his new world idea as just a grand delusion, but before that learned of the Terrorist Organization Telomere was behind her assassination attempt.


 * In the anime, it was Akira who killed him, and Mina already knew of Telomere before she confronted him.


 * Hysterica (ヒステリカ)
 * Voiced by: Rie Kugimiya
 * Her real name is Francesca, and knew Vera nearly 100 years ago. Vera herself, who was known as Veratos at the time, had turned her into a vampire. She turned Hysterica into a vampire when her family was killed by the Spanish Flu and that she was on the very brink of death because of it. She now works for the "Third Kind", a group that wishes for the death of Mina, and was also controlling Nanami. Hysterica lead suicidal Vampires by implanting a liquid container in them, and when a phone signal was sent it would mix with their blood, causing a violent chemical reaction turning them into Vampire Bombs, one of them being Hikosaka. However, after seeing Mina's other form, got herself distracted by trying to contact her master in telling him what she just saw, therefore not realizing that Nanami was reprogrammed and was attacked by her. Vera was the one who finished Hysterica off by throwing a container of the chemical at the open wound, burning her alive. Hysterica had a habit of referring to her slaves as "Pigs."


 * In the anime, she worked for Telomere, but still tried to contact the three clans before with news of Mina's true form.

Assassins
At a time the Three Vampire Lords were considering who got to mate with Mina, since she must mate with one of them to create a pure blood Vampire, being the only pure blood female vampire left, as well as she can only give birth once in her life. The Lords came up with a game where each one summoned their best assassin and whose ever killed Akira would be who she had to marry.

In the anime there are many differences, most likely due to the shorten time frame, where the assassins were killed off relatively quick and the Chinese assassin being only one person instead of two.

Anime-only

 * Tsuchigumo (土蜘蛛)
 * An anime-only character that attempted to kill Mina. His true form is a demon spider. He was quickly killed off by Akira after he remembered he was a werewolf.


 * Mei Ren (メイレン Meiren)
 * Voiced by: Yū Kobayashi
 * A therianthrope girl who is always seen eating hard candies, along with a audible biting sound where one is usually supposed to suck on such candy. She can also use said hard candies as a weapon, flicking them as if they were bullets. What she is up to is currently shrouded in mystery, but has helped Akira a number of times. She carries a replica pendant reminding her of a precious friend of hers which Akira recalls in his memories. So far it appears she is loyal to Mina, and it even appears it was her who got her on the hard candies. However this is revealed in the last episode to be not true, and is a follower of a Mina look-a-like who is the leader of Telomere. She claims her measurements are 83-58-85 and that she is a virgin. She replaces Seiji Hama in his role as one of the three assassins; this is due to her ability with the shot gun, which is similar in technique to that of Seiji Hama. Her choice of the type of shotgun is also similar. Despite the fact that there are no female werewolves, this anime was made before Angel revealed this in the manga. Though this might also be due to the fact that Mei Ren is a were-tiger of the Forest clan, as opposed to a werewolf of the Earth clan. She is killed by Akira in their final fight, but dies happily as she never thought she would be able to die while in someone's arms after being alone for so long.

Manga Side Story
In Japan, a ten chapter companion manga appeared on cell phones concurrent to the monthly chapters appearing in Comic Flapper. Dive in the Vampire Bund takes place during the early half of Dance in the Vampire Bund Vol. 6 prior to Angie's arrival and explores the origins of the deadly Pied Piper virus.

Seven Seas Entertainment will release the side story in April 2011 as Dance in the Vampire Bund Gaiden: Dive in the Vampire Bund.

Anime
The anime promo was released on January 2010. Since that time, all 12 episodes have aired in Japan. On March 4, 2010, North American anime distributor Funimation Entertainment announced that it has acquired the rights to Dance in the Vampire Bund and will stream and offer simulcast subtitled episodes, days after they are aired in Japan.

Initially, Funimation announced that the U.S. release would be edited for content, because of "controversial elements which, when taken out of context, could be objectionable to some audiences," and which Funimation considered "inappropriate for U.S. viewing and [...] not essential to the storyline." Another title, Strike Witches, was released unedited, despite containing some similar elements. After negative fan reaction to edited DVD and Blu-Ray releases, Funimation released another statement on March 10, 2010, saying the company expects to release the show unedited based on the first seven episodes, but will make a final decision once the company has seen the final five episodes to ensure that they comply with U.S.law.