Title: Midnight Secretary 4
Writer/ Artist: Tomu Ohmi
U. S. Distributor: Viz Media
U. S. Release Date: March 4, 2014
Format: Manga
Genre: Shojo, Vampire Romance
Age Rating: 18+
Overall Personal Grade: C+
Kaya is a very skilled secretary whose boss is a vampire. He also uses her to feed upon. Even so, she feels very special around him and has fallen in love.
Synopsis:
Kaya is still working at Erde. She works hard and sometimes stays late, which in turn makes her late to meet with Kyohei with whom she is working for at night (among other things). He doesn’t like her working at Erde and he makes it very clear but since Kaya made a commitment to them for a year, she won’t leave. Her supervisor has found out that she is meeting with Kyohei. This could be a problem. Both bosses are purposely making things difficult for each other but it is Kaya who really is struggling to take care of everything.
As the time gets closer that Kaya will be able to leave, her boss, Takasu, is aware that he will miss her and so asks her out. She confesses that she already has someone, although she can imagine a life with him, a regular life of sun and happiness. She just can’t give up on Kyohei, she loves him.
With more time, will things change between Kaya and Kyohei?Will he ever value her beyond a servant or a tool? Other people are beginning to talk about them. When the term mistress is used, how can she rationalize this to herself?
A vampire, Marika, who is close to Kyohei, comes to the office and meets Kaya. This is how she learns more about how vampires have children and how humans aren’t very important.
Commentary:
Midnight Secretary is a basically a sexy vampire romance novel with pictures. That’s fine if that is what you are looking for because there isn’t anymore depth than that. I’m having trouble getting into the mindset of the intended reader because the main character has a huge flaw, that of falling in love with a bad relationship. I’m not a fan of the concept of loving someone no matter what. No matter how they treat you or how dangerous they are. Perhaps it could be view as being able to love so deeply that nothing else matters, well, yes this could be fine in a pure fantasy, but why do women dream of such things? One reason I can think of is for a respectable woman a excuse to have sex because she can’t actually want to do it unless it is a sacrifice for someone else.
Now Kyohei may be suave and sexy, but the way he treats Kaya is abysmal. He treats her like a lowly servant to be used up. Kaya is this smart, talented and efficient woman, an exceptionally talented employee, and unfortunately this is part of the problem. Women definitely are seen as second class, she is a mere secretary and also in this case, a mere human. Maybe this is playing into part of the fantasy. No matter how lowly her position, she is so special as to be able to draw Kyohei to love her. Now, we aren’t really there yet, but it has to be coming. I think that when he says Kaya belongs to him, she rather like it. His temper is something to worry about but Kaya seems to mistake it for passion.
Artistically, the style seems like it is an older style. That in itself isn’t a problem, but some of the guys are quite out of proportion and rather stiff and this is something I find annoying. Kaya is by far the best drawn, her character seems to flow and seem more natural. Actually I think her face is the best as it is emotional buy there is never any use of stylized emotion faces.
Now, despite all of my complaining, I have peeked at a story synopsis found online and there is more to the story that should raise the pace very quickly. That makes it intriguing. So, if you liked the Twilight series, I think that this is along those lines and you’ll like this too.
Overall Grade: C+
