Vampire Dormitory – 01 (First Impressions) – Needing to Be Needed – RABUJOI – An Anime Blog

Misfortune seems to follow Yamamoto Mito everywhere he goes. He lost his parents in a fire, and his other relatives kicked him onto the streets. Everyone who sees him is smitten by his beauty, but that’s the precise reason he loses the one job he was able to get at a ramen restaurant—his presence was angering the other guys.

After visiting a butler café called La Fraise goes wrong with him breaking a vase and one of the waiters licks his bleeding finger, Mito has to trudge through the cold rain. When he stops on a bridge, he contemplates whether anyone would notice he was gone if he jumped, but only for a moment. Instead, he slips and almost falls … but he’s caught by the finger-licking waiter.

The waiter is actually a vampire named Saotome Ruka, whose master has been urging him to find a thrall. Mito fits the bill, despite his blood tasting terrible, which in this world is due to no one loving him. That means his blood can be made delicious if Ruka takes him in and loves him every day, and Mito learns how to be loved, and love in return.

Ruka takes Mito to the fancy academy boy’s dormitory for a hot bath, and Mito agrees to be his thrall—not just because he needs a place to stay, but because Mito is the first person in his life to tell him he was needed. But while Ruka insists he’s unable to drink a woman’s blood, the truth is, Mito is biologically female, presenting as a male with a binder and wig.

While I cannot say this early in the season if this will make the Spring 2024 final cut, I honestly didn’t hate it. Chalk a lot of that up to Mito’s impossibly dire circumstances, and the fact I could happily listen to seiyu Ichinose Kana read the phone book. Mito’s secret femininity is also a good hook to keep watching for another episode or two.