Blood Bank – Manhwa Review

Tell me my fellow yaoi fans if you have heard this one before…

A beautiful blonde noble takes an interest in a dark haired, dark skinned and strong-willed individual that in their society is nothing more than a slave. Change the word slave to pet and I must confess my reader I am reminded of my favorite yaoi light novel series Ai no Kusabi by Reiko Yoshihara. I must admit, this long time fujoshi has a weakness for a certain kind of yaoi tale. I love yaoi stories that explore breaking social taboos and fighting the status quo. Many of my all time favorite yaoi stories have this theme.

From fighting the social rule in Ai no Kusabi to priests breaking the religious taboo in Lily and the Rose by Dany&Dany I love these stories and it will come as no surprise that the premise alone peaked my interest for Blood Bank when I first read it and by the end of the first chapter I was hooked. Also, let’s all confess Shell Overlord is the most adorably sexy vampire we have all seen correct?

In a world where the human race almost went extinct but was then saved by vampires who have become the dominant species, humans are nothing more than life stock and our story takes place between a high ranking vampire lord and one of these pieces of human life stock.

Shell Overlord is one of the most fascinating characters I have come across in the yaoi genre in a long time. On first appearance, he looks like a pretty boy vampire who is about to inherit the world, but behind this confident visage is a deeply tormented vampire who is as adorable as a lost kitten begging for attention. His true self is such a juxtapose to what society expects of him to be that he is torturing himself on the inside begging for release and so has been silently seeking it out.

For as secretive as our vampire Overlord is, however, the human banker (as in a teller at a Blood Bank) known only as One seems to be an even bigger mystery. One is a human that lives on a farm and works at the Blood Bank but a dangerous secret of his becomes revealed to Shell. It would seem that One is immune to the controlling power of Vampire Pheromones, something which vampires use to keep humans in check. Shell wants to use this ability to his advantage so that he can finally live out his long wanted fantasy of ‘being punished by a human for his sins’, but as taboo and desire begins to intermingle between the two it becomes clear there is more to One than simply an immunity.

This is a manhwa that will feed small tidbits of information at an almost tortuously slow pace between hot scenes of yaoi S&M goodness. This is smut with story in the best possible way and a must read for any yaoi fan that enjoys a good S&M story as well as a vampire one, what I’m basically saying is yes it is a better love story than Twilight and does a BDSM relationship way better and more realistically than Fifty Shades of Grey and that is saying something when you remember this story is less grounded in reality than that one.