Vampire Princess Miyu (吸血姫 美夕, Kyūketsuki Miyu) also read as Vanpaia Miyu) is a Japanese horror manga series by Narumi Kakinouchi and Toshiki Hirano, as well as an anime adaptation by the same creators. The anime was originally presented in a 4-episode OVA (Original Video Animation) licenced by
AnimEigo in 1988, and was later adapted into a 26-episode television series licensed by
Tokyopop and released in 1997. The furigana for the title indicate the pronunciation as
Vampire Miyu or
Miyu the Vampire. The kanji are a play on the Japanese word for "vampire" (kyūketsuki, lit blood sucking demon), replacing the last character of "kyūketsuki" with the character for "princess" . This also leads to the title sometimes being called Kyūketsuki Miyu.
Plot
Its central characters are a vampire girl named Miyu and her demonic companion Larva. Miyu is the daughter of both a human and a shinma (demon) and as such she was awakened as the guardian whose destiny is to hunt down all stray shinma and send them back to the darkness.
Most locations in the series are evocative of traditional Japan.