The Diamond Island

My current manga and anime interests have brought me in touch with a show that stirred up the vampire issue for me again.  I’m talking about Karin, also known as Chibi Vampire.

In the show, Karin is a half-vampire in a family of vampires who live in Japan.  She has an older brother, a younger sister named Anju, and a set of parents who are all vampires themselves.  Karin goes to school and has a part time job, just like any teenager.

In the Karin world, vampires drink from specific people who have certain traits.  For example, Karin’s brother drinks from stressed out people, her father drinks from prideful people, and her mother from liars.  When vampires drink from people, they perform a service to humanity by sucking out the “bad qualities” of people, therefore making them “better people”.

Things like crosses, running water, and garlic don’t affect vampires – that’s all just human legend.  Sunlight is bad for “true vampires” – but they can go out as long as they use an umbrella or something.  I haven’t figured out what the distinction is between Karin and her family exactly – she’s some kind of “mutant” and a source of “shame” for the family.

The big thing that makes Karin different is that she is a “blood producer” vampire.  Instead of needing to suck blood, she makes blood.  So when she bites a victim, she injects her blood into the person.  Since she is drawn to “unhappy” people, she injects blood into them and makes them happy!

She meets a classmate, a normal boy, who causes her to make blood until she explodes in dramatic nosebleeds.  He encourages her to try to make him happy so he won’t cause her to make so much blood and be unable to blend in with a normal life.

So, in a sense, we’ve come full circle in terms of vampire lore.  From disgusting evil bloodsucker to natural function for the greater good creature who must remain unrecognized while doing good deeds.  How’s that for a turnaround?

I like it.

Earlier I was ranting on about how vampires must not lose their edge, that to be meaningful they have to have some connection to their dark past.  I still hold to that position.  But I think a show like Karin (Chibi Vampire) shows us a new way to look at the vampire.

To understand the darkness we must take some of it within ourselves.  Good can only remain good with the creation and fighting of evil.  I’m trying to look at the larger picture and see evil as a natural function of a healthy, operating system of life.  I like how the boy in Karin must come in contact with “evil” and remain grounded in the real world.  And I also like how the protagonist is an “evil” character trying to be normal.

The show focuses on the female character and her quest to resolve her troubles.  But I also like how the unspoken focus is on the guy in a certain sense.  You can identify with him because he is a normal guy in a weird situation, and the action is not about you, but how you can make your own issues part of the greater picture to be resolved.

In other words, rather than the “girl” being the catalyst and the mystery to be solved, it’s the guy in the position.  Karin is the protagonist, and what she does changes the stakes.  You can get involved in the fantasy of her self-discovery or you can follow along the secondary, implied path of the guy’s development as Karin forces him to confront himself.  I’m totally down with that, on both levels.

The show is fundamentally a comedy, played for the laughs of the embarrassment of characters in situation (every episode is titled “the embarrassment of…”).  The shadow of any comedy is the reality of absurdity, and the fact is that Karin is a “dark” character going through rough times (aren’t we all).  The light world of daylight illusion is a minefield to be negotiated.

The vampire is a version of ourselves.  As we understand the vampire more, our own image of our light selves becomes a little more dark.  And the dark vampire acquires a little more light.  His/her details show up more under scrutiny and we can acquire if not understanding, than a stalemate where exchanges can be made.  A treaty, if you like.

The manga Vampire Knight explores this a little.  The idea of an interchange between light and dark.  Jung talks about how the two sides of any conflict can only build a bridge between their differences by being themselves.  The vampire must be what they are, just as people must be what they are.  But what are they, either of them?  In the light, in the darkness, what is revealed about either?

If the vampires are getting “gooder” or more understandable, what are people becoming?

Back in the late seventies, when my folks and I arrived in the Northern Virginia-DC area, I started watching a lot of WDCA Channel 20. There was this oddball character named “Captain 20”, who presided over the afternoon-to-evening cartoons and shows of the day.

He was a vulcan kind of character in a starship uniform who did contests, displayed viewer artwork, and did various announcements in between shows. I thought he was the coolest, most offbeat character I’d seen hosting television shows yet. I could hardly imagine a neater thing than a local channel with it’s own futuristic character binding your show-watching experience together with imagination.

I got to see the King Kong cartoon, Marine Boy, Ultraman, Starblazers, weird B movies and a whole host of other shows you’d never see on television today. If the guy had been nothing more than a face for the magical, hope filled studies I performed as a young creature, he would have been a worthy soul I would fight to make a place for in my vision of the Valhalla-afterlife warm up.

My folks started watching a late night horror show on Saturday nights called Creature Feature. I joined in, because the show was playing movies that had the sort of dreams I wanted to experience. Okay, so Attack of the Mushroom People was a horrible movie, but hidden within the crumminess of such movies are realms of experience accessible only through the small budget seriousness that fails.

The sacrifice of the artist creates a void inside of which the sacrament of horror is transformed into miracles.

Back in the day, before the rulers of corporate television got the insane idea that they could make more money by having a monopoly on bad programming, local channels could get pretty inventive and interesting.

For Creature Feature, Captain 20 put on a cape and scary makeup to play Count Gore de Vol, the host of the show. In between the commercials and the movie segments he would crack bad jokes, read letters from fans and respond, talk back to the cameramen telling him to get a life, and have guest stars like Penthouse Playmates or local fans.

One such guest star I saw on the tube was a person I didn’t know at the time, but would later in life. By day she is honeysuckle, but by night she’s the Incorrigible Witch. We met each other at our mutual employer, and in a twist of fate that can only be called Twilight Zone meets Funky Town, discovered we both loved the Count.

As I stared at her photo album of her visit to the Count, I discovered I’d seen her on TV. I mean, it’s one of the more vivid memories I have of those days – her getting into the Count’s Coffin to gag jokes from the studio staff while her friend looks on in shock. Life is weird.

We both look up Count Gore, and find out he has a website. Then we find out he’d moved back to Northern Virginia! She manages to get a “date” with him and catch up on old times, since she finds out they live in the same area. This is freaking me out. I got to hand it to the Incorrigible Witch, she’s got some real brass and isn’t afraid to get into the thick of strange adventures!

The Count, as his daytime alter-ego, drops by our office and gives me a genuine autographed picture. Can you dig it? We both miss him, because he’s a ramblin’ man who strikes like a fiend in the night, but the fact that he stopped by means a whole lot to me. If as a kid, I’d known that one day I’d meet that girl on TV, and get an autographed photo from the Count, it would have made me levitate for days. Not that my folks would have minded.

All of us have the potential to be horror hosts of our own monster theater. Some of us, like the Count, are naturals who show us the way to our own individual formula for happiness. Exposure to such rare minerals at an early age leads to a healthy, productive life of beneficial insanity!

This development has my Mirage’s fungus prints all over it. Horror and scary stuff really isn’t my thing, but in the spirit of Halloween and Celtic New Year I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense. I can only guess what my Mirage is cooking up, with his strange ways of doing things. Yikes, Scoob!

In the meantime, I raise a glass of cold draft cider and toast to your good health, Count! Such as it is, being undead or something. There is no other horror host like you in my pond of memories. Wolfman Jack and Ghoulardi get props from me for the ground they broke in my psyche. But it’s your weird, wonderful imagination that stands the test of time in my dark soul!