Diabolik Lovers is a popular anime series based on a game franchise. It’s the story of a young girl named, Yui who travels overseas and ends up living in a mansion with 6 other men who happen to be vampires. Soon, Yui finds herself in the middle of an old rivalry between different vampire families.
There are two seasons of the anime show, with its first season airing in 2013. Because of its immense popularity, fans are still waiting for Diabolik Lovers season 3.
Diabolik Lovers Season 1
Episodes: 12
Genre: Drama, Romance, Horror, Shoujo
I started watching Diabolik Lovers expecting it to be a typical example of a Shōjo anime— one made for female audiences. However, if this was the case, I wondered why they based their story on an otome game.
Yui arrives at the mansion
Rie Suegara plays Yui, a young woman whose father has just moved away for his job as an Anglican priest. He leaves her at home with instructions to take care of the house while he’s gone — and two other roommates! Once she gets there, the main character – a young woman named Yui – meets seven vampire brothers who live at that address.
The brothers torment Yui. One of them calls her “pancake” (a derogatory term for someone with a large body shape). They fight over who gets to feed off of her blood; this is what causes their memories of the past to emerge — memories that are mostly traumatic and chaotic but also involve a young woman named Maya
Vampires at the mansion
The three brothers have the same father, but different mothers. They grew up in abusive environments and became sociopaths as a result—their treatment of Yui is simply another manifestation of this behavior.
For the full list of vampires, check out the list of Diabolik Lovers Characters.
The reader might well be sympathetic towards Evie’s plight since she is a vampire and all. But this sympathy is not reflected in the fact that her reactions to Daniel are consistently subservient— emphasizing how little power she has over him as their relationship progresses
Although the episodes are only 15 minutes long (not including credits), each one piles on more abuse for the girl. It’s a mystery why her father would hand his daughter to vampires as a sacrificial bride, but we don’t know what prompted this action.
Although this question is never answered, Yui does discover that crosses have no effect on these vampires. In the last quarter of the series, however, everything changes.
Yui and Cordelia
While the brothers were still abusing her, we find out at this point that the brides never survive becoming vampires themselves — except for Yui. This is because she has Cordelia’s heart inside of her (for unclear reasons), and so the plot thickens as it does not tie into anything else in a coherent way
After Cordelia’s death by strangulation at the hands of her two sons, Richter (Jun Konno) — Cordelia’s husband and their uncle — implements a plan to capture her spirit and transfer it into Yui’s body.
The animation itself is lovely, but the story is patchy and flimsy—and hardly suggests a positive romantic pattern if this anime was to be used as an example. Check out the list of anime like Diabolik Lovers if you are a fan of vampires and reverse harem.
Diabolik Lovers Season 1 Review
Diabolik Lovers was originally a visual novel game series for PSP and PS Vita. For those who don’t know, a visual game is an interactive comic book where players can decide what happens with the main characters by taking certain pathways.
The first half of the series focuses on all vampire brothers, but the second half only focuses on Ayato, Laito, and Kanato. When Ayato claims Yui as his own, the other brothers give up without a fight.
Yui ends up becoming a vampire at the end of the anime. No one saw it coming as there wasn’t much of a plot in the first few episodes rather vampires feeding on Yui. That being said, the story wasn’t spaced out, which made the first half of the anime completely useless, and the second half was rushed.
As there were so many characters, none of them got the character development that they deserved. None of the characters, except for Yui evolved in the series. Thus Diabolik Lovers proves that the series cannot be carried far with Shallow characters. Even though the anime mentioned their father Karl Heinz, he is never shown in the TV series, which is very weird.
If you are into vampire visual novels, Diabolik Lovers is for you. There’s a lot of fan service as well, but other than that, the anime doesn’t offer much.
The anime has an audience score of 5.20 on MyAnimeList. But it got so famous that there is a second season as well called, Diabolik Lovers More, Blood, and still a great demand from fans for season 3.
If you are a fan of romance anime, you will also like Psychic Princess and Yona of the Dawn.
Where to Watch Diabolik Lovers Anime?
Diabolik Lovers, featuring Ushida Hiroko, and Suegara Rie is available to watch on Hulu and Crunchyroll for free. Both seasons are available to watch on these platforms.
Fans Reaction to Diabolik Lovers
Here’s what fans are saying about Diabolik Lovers anime.
A user named, Laramie_Castiel on Reddit explains why the anime gained so much popularity despite having major flaws in the story and characters.
Overall, you can see that Diabolik Lovers season 1 is very popular thanks to its video games. Its characters remain to be popular to this day and are a part of various fandoms across the internet. However, fans are still divided on the anime.
