“The Radius”

Title: Midnight Secretary 3

Writer/ Artist: Tomu Ohmi

U. S. Distributor: Viz Media

U. S. Release Date: January 7, 2014
Format:  Manga

Genre: Shojo, Vampire Romance

Age Rating: 18+

Overall Personal Rating: C

Synopsis:

Kaya is a secretary working for Tohma Manufacturing Corp.  She is exceptionally skilled and hard working . Her boss is Kyohei Tohma, a managing director. He has a secret; that he is a vampire who feeds on women.  Kaya comes to him at night for feeding encounters that also include sex to make the blood sweeter.

Kaya is temporarily transferred to a subsidiary business to help set up their secretarial group. She works very hard as always and yet tries to set it up to make sure she gets transferred back to Tohma Corp. she can again be Kyohei’s  secretary. It doesn’t go as she planned and it seems that her time will be extended. All of the overwork and night encounters causes her to collapse creating concern for everyone, even Kyohei. Although he thinks of her as a mere human, he tells her to take care of herself and he will take a break on feeding from her. Suddenly all contact with him stops and he seems to have disappeared.

Commentary:

I found the characters, at best, vaguely connectable, but generally flat. Kaya’s personality has both good and bad aspects. What stood out, and I was most bothered by,was her attitude that she wants to be with Kyohei no matter what and will sacrifice herself to be special to him. He isn’t nice to her even though she works incredibly hard, then gives him her body too. This attitude is demeaning and doesn’t make for a good protagonist in this day and age.

Kyohei is just a selfish, creepy, womanizer vampire, even if he seems to be falling for Kaya against his will. Why does Kaya even fall for him? I guess power and looks? Or maybbe excitment. Everything has to center around Kyohei in his mind and Kaya is all too willing to comply. Not so much fun to watch as a reader.

The manga is fine, maybe average and perhaps enjoyable for a light read but nothing of special to recommend it by. The story lines seem a bit weak at this point (it actually gets move complex in later volumes). It often seemed to be just a love story shell more for setting up the sexual encounters (mature scenes) which in turn are used to create something akin to love.

The audience appears to be adult women who are fond of vampire romances like Twilight, only looking for more adult romance (i.e. sex). This is definitely for the older crowd only, with it’s mature rating and nudity. I didn’t like seeing the sex scenes, however brief, so this was not a manga for me. I think I may have graded it low because I generally try to grade for the intended audience if I can get my mindset right. I just couldn’t really get there this time. 

Overall Grade:  C

“In the Radius”: For a demon romance, Demon Love Spell has similar vibes with tamer rating needs.