Saki and Miyoko are both students at a private all-girls high school, but Miyoko might be a bit too old for school since she’s an immortal vampire! Saki comes from a long line of vampire hunters and she’s determined to put Miyoko down. But she’s never run into a vampire before that’s been so hard for her to kill, or one that made her beat like this!
Given the long history of straight and BL vampire love stories it’s no surprise to find yuri sinking its teeth into the genre as well. With a premise that feels like a tweet from the Yuri Manga Bot account on Twitter, or like an AU fanfic for another yuri series, Killing Me! plays on the simple dynamic of “enemies to lovers” with vampires as window dressing, although Miyoko wasn’t much of an enemy to start with. Saki is taking her vampire hunting duties very seriously however and the “gap moe” between her poise and skill at doing literally everything perfectly, except when Miyoko is around, is quite silly and fun especially with the level of absurdity creator Akiyama takes it too. The story becomes a little more serious towards the end, as Saki isn’t the only vampire hunter out there after all, but the comedy quickly rebounds and I certainly got the feeling that Miyoko and Saki will be together and annoying each other for years to come.
While this is a fun romp, I am curious if this is the end of the story. This story can certainly work as a one-shot since the chapters are so episodic that there’s no real “arc” to the story (other than Saki admitting her feelings once they become too obvious to ignore), but this volume is listed as volume 1 on the copyright page and on the spine/cover. Since this first volume felt like the perfect stopping place I looked around to see how long the series was but it’s listed as “complete” online with one volume and one uncollected chapter. The uncollected chapter doesn’t refer to the side story included in this volume (I checked) and given how this last chapter came out years ago and how slim this release is (only 136 pages including the copyright page and some additional color pages), I’m a little puzzled that the final chapter wasn’t also included in this edition. The series has been “on hold” for long enough that it seems clear that this series isn’t going to ever have enough material for a second volume.
I can only speculate on that point (and if this last chapter never is collected into the series that would be a bit sad) but I am happy to say that “missing” one chapter in this story doesn’t diminish it at all. The comedy and tension between Saki and Miyoko still works just fine and I can certainly recommend it to yuri fans who want a romantic comedy with more a nibble than a bite.