Call of the Night, also known as Yofukashi no Uta, is an anime series by LIDENFILMS and is based off the Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kotoyama. It has been serialized in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shōnen Sunday since August 2019. The anime series consists of 13 episodes of 22 minutes each.
Nighttime and the nightlife are very unexplored landscapes for most people, especially underage people and people living in places where it is unsafe to explore on foot once the sun goes down. I am not referring to the busy streets with all the prime pubs and clubs all lined up and ready for their patrons, I am referring to the quiet neighborhoods, the streets without the traffic and bustle of daytime. Call of the Night makes the nighttime city feel as though it exists in an entirely different dimension and the fantasy vampire element adds to this. Generally, the night is to be feared and danger lurks in the darkness. For the main character, Kou exploring the city at night becomes like a drug to him and his vampire friend Nazuna shows him all the things that make the nighttime so much fun. To Kou, the city at night becomes a comfort for him, a place where he can be free and unbound.
At first, exploring the night city with Nazuna is enough for Kou, but he decides that he wants to become a vampire in order to continue enjoying the nighttime forever, like Nazuna. The next part of the narrative sees Kou try to experience love and feelings in order to fall in love with Nazuna so that she can turn him into a vampire. Kou has a mature way of looking at things, but he isn’t very good at connecting with other people. On the other hand, Nazuna treats everything as if it’s a game and comes across as rather immature. Various events lead Kou into realizing that he did have friends as he reconnects with them. Together he explores part of the night with them. He meets the other vampires that Nazuna doesn’t like to associate with but are essentially her “family”. They give Kou an ultimatum to become a vampire within one year or he’ll be unalived for knowing too much.
Kou starts to feel pressured and really starts to consider what it is to love someone. In my opinion, he was unknowingly falling in love with Nazuna through all the adventures they go through together and though Nazuna won’t admit it I believe she truly loves Kou and would be sad to see him go. Kou meets an investigator one night as well as a vampire who’s lost his mind from not feeding for ten years, it’s a traumatic experience for him and his friends and he starts to doubt whether he still wants to become a vampire. Naturally, he sees the home life of one of Nazuna’s “family” vampire’s and starts to reconsider. He realizes that he doesn’t have all the information and that he should hold back on his decision, especially since his wanting to become a vampire has changed slightly to wanting to spend time with Nazuna.
This anime has displayed some fantastic art and design with a great soundtrack. I wouldn’t rank it high up on my list as the narrative wasn’t particularly fascinating, but the emotions that the audio and visual invoked were amazing. The anime does feature some tropes that are disagreeable. Some viewers may find it slightly cringe, but if I had to think back to my younger more innocent self, I understand so much of the awkwardness between Nazuna and Kou. I’d watch another season purely to find out if Kou manages to become a vampire or not.
