This week’s column looks at three recent shojo and seinen titles. Up first: Bloody Kiss (Tokyopop), a romantic comedy about a girl who inherits a house — and two vampire roommates — from her grandmother. Also on the agenda: Maria Holic (Tokyopop), a boarding school comedy with a cross-dressing twist, and X-Men: Misfits (Del Rey), a shojo-fied take on the perennially popular Marvel franchise.

BLOODY KISS, VOL. 1

BY KAZUKO FURUMIYA • TOKYOPOP • 192 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

“He can’t kill me! I have stuff I have to do today!” So says Kiyo, a perky law student who discovers that the house she just inherited from her grandmother is occupied by two male vampires, both of whom have designs on her neck. Kiyo seems more annoyed than surprised by her unwanted house guests; in her eyes, the handsome Kuroboshi and Alshu are nothing more than an impediment to her career goals. The vampires, however, each view Kiyo as a prospective “bride,” or blood source, and endure repeated insults and karate chops pursuing her. When she isn’t squabbling with Kuroboshi and Alshu, Kiyo has a full schedule: she fends off an unscrupulous real-estate developer, takes a job as a nightclub hostess, and makes decorations for a school dance, all while pursuing her dream of becoming a lawyer and clearing her father of a crime he didn’t commit.

All of this activity camouflages the fact that Bloody Kiss is actually a very simple, opposites-attract love story between a strong-willed heroine and a gruff but kindhearted suitor. There isn’t much tension, nor does the plot take any unexpected twists; about the only novel element is Kiyo herself, as she’s unusually focused on achieving financial independence and professional success. The artwork is as cookie-cutter as the plot, with its tousled-hair vamps (one has short hair, the other long), sailor-suited school girls, and non-descript backgrounds. It’s all completely forgettable, but as vampire manga go, it doesn’t bite.

MARIA HOLIC, VOL. 1

BY MINARU ENDOU • TOKYOPOP • 192 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Following in the footsteps of her late mother, Kanako enrolls at the Ame no Kisaki School for Girls, where she hopes to find her “soul mate.” But unlike her mother, who married one of the male faculty members, Kanako is looking for female companionship. “I can’t deal with men at all!” she declares. “One touch and I break out in hives!” The first student Kanako meets appears to be a sweet, friendly blond who shares Kanako’s predilections. Kanako is in for quite a shock, however, when she accidentally spies Mariya changing clothes: Mariya turns out to be a boy who’s going to elaborate lengths to fool the student body into thinking he’s a girl. To prevent Kanako from revealing his secret, Mariya trades places with her roommate so that he can closely monitor Kanako’s activities and terrorize her whenever she seems poised to rat him out.

Though it elicits a few yucks, Maria Holic strains too hard for comedic effect to be truly funny. Manga-ka Minari Endou has a couple of inspired ideas: Kanako’s dorm, for example, is overseen by a power-mad upperclassman who views death as reasonable punishment for simple transgressions (e.g. failing to address her by her proper title, “Miss Dorm Leader”). Many jokes grow stale quickly, however; Kanako is afflicted with hives and nosebleeds over and over again, wavering between disgust and arousal. One might be tempted to interpret such running gags as evidence that Maria Holic is, in fact, a satire on yuri manga, but the mean-spirited humor isn’t smart enough to poke holes in the genre’s cliches. Volume one may be light on fanservice, but the Older Teen rating suggests Maria Holic’s true purpose: offering male readers behind-the-scenes access to the bathrooms, bedrooms, and locker rooms at an all-girls’ school. Can panty shots and nipple-less nudity be far behind?

X-MEN: MISFITS, VOL. 1

STORY BY RAINA TELGEMEIER AND DAVE ROMAN, ART BY ANZU • DEL REY • 200 pp. • RATING: TEEN (13+)

Taking their cues from shojo titles like Fushigi Yuugi, Ouran High School Host Club, and Yurara, writers Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman offer a fresh origin story for Kitty Pryde, re-imagining her as the sole female student at Xavier’s School for Gifted Hotties… er, Youngsters, where she falls in with a fast crowd. Purists may grumble at the idea of magical girl X-manga, but good-looking mutants and romance have always been part of the series’ mythology. The real problem with X-Men: Misfits is the execution, not the concept. Telgemeier and Roman try hard to please readers on both sides of the superhero/shojo divide, stuffing the story with B- and C-list mutants while putting Kitty Pryde in the middle of a classic manga love triangle: she’s the cute but unremarkable girl vacillating between a passionate, outgoing boy (Pyro) and a reserved, introverted one (Ice Man). Events unfold so quickly that the art seems to lag behind the story. Anzu’s fight scenes are staged decently, but emphasize her limitations as a draftsman — namely, a firm command of anatomical proportion and an ability to convincingly depict bodies in motion. I didn’t mind the bishification of Pyro and Magneto — here depicted as a dandy in a striped suit — though long-time X-Men fans may balk at the character designs, as most of the menfolk have acquired razor-sharp chins, artfully dissheveled hair, and impossibly thin noses.

The bottom line: X-Men: Misfits is a smart idea that bogs down in its own ambitions, satisfying neither hardcore tights-and-capes fans nor girls who prefer Boys Over Flowers.