Back in 2019, manga artist Kotoyama was just coming off of his snack-themed comedy series, Dagashi Kashi. So when a new series of his launched, I wondered what it would be like. Would it also be a kind of silly comedy fueled by character interactions related to a specific gimmick and a dash of romance? Or would it be something more standard for a shounen manga, with superpowers and greater drama?

The answer turned out to be “Yes, and also yes.”

Call of the Night (Yofukashi no Uta in Japanese) is the story of Yamori Ko, a boy who has stopped going to middle school and is suffering from insomnia. One night, he decides to leave his apartment to see what his town is like around in the late hours. There, he encounters an eccentric girl named Nanakusa Nazuna, who seems older than she looks, and offers to help him sleep. Ko agrees to try out her services, but soon discovers that she’s actually a vampire. Rather than being scared for his life, however, he gets an idea: If life right now sucks, why not become a vampire? The only problem: In order to turn, one must fall in love with the vampire first, and Ko has no idea what love is supposed to feel like.

Unlike the eight-volume Dagashi Kashi, which is largely short and episodic vignettes, Call of the Night has a serial narrative over a whopping 20 volumes. The relationship between Ko and Nazuna somewhat resembles the dynamic between Kokonotsu and Hotaru in Dagashi Kashi, but it’s really its own thing—a dynamic geared towards momentum and development, rather than stasis.

While Call of the Night initially feels it can go on forever at a pace reminiscent of another favorite series in Mysterious Girlfriend X, it then proceeds to break its own “rules” time and again. As it adds interesting twists and wrinkles to its story, the manga achieves a nice balance between genres and the emotions it invokes. Because the series keeps adding ingredients and formulating new recipes in itself, I find it to be a very Shounen Sunday manga. This is historically the magazine of Touch!, Inuyasha, Detective Conan, etc., and Call of the Night feels like it exists in the space between these and other iconic Sunday series. 

The everyday hijinks make way for a genuine friendship, and the answer to whether it will turn into romantic love always feels like it’s right around the corner yet also somehow far in the distance. And as the story progresses, the cast of characters expands and details about how vampires like (and unlike) Nazuna move through human society help to expand the world and create new stakes. There are even some supernatural brawls straight out of a battle manga. And through all these events, Call of the Night still manages to feel grounded and low-key, and also still tapped into that initial malaise that plagues Ko. 

Silly yet serious, simple yet full of intriguing little complexities—Call of the Night is worth a read. I think it has something even for those who aren’t fans of vampires and the supernatural. It’s ultimately the story of a boy and a girl who come from very different circumstances who find common ground in the late evening hours, and the world that unfolds before them.

PS: It really is awesome that the anime version got the ending theme to be its namesake, “Yofukashi no Uta” by Creepy Nuts.