This page lists the characters that appear in the Dance in the Vampire Bund manga and anime series created by Nozomu Tamaki.
Vampires can be both born or created from humans. In the former case, 'True Blooded' vampires descended from a progenitor paternal figure continue through the female line, currently represented by Mina. In the latter case, vampirism appears to have an infectious aetiology, possibly a form of retrovirus. Unlike many vampire stories, transformation into a vampire is not a conscious decision but rather is caused by a vampire feeding off of a human. In recent years a "vaccine" has been developed to prevent transformation, but is only effective for up to 48 hours from the time of infection. In all cases a human turned into a vampire who is not cured with the vaccine has a genetically coded mandate to unilaterally and unconditionally obey the person who turned them into vampires. While vampires can be "reprogrammed" using different DNA to allow them to switch allegiances they retain this mandate for absolute obedience, which leaves them entirely at the mercy of the vampire they are currently programmed to obey.
Compared to humans, vampire emotions are significantly more potent, causing many vampires to become violent, gluttonous for blood, and very often sexual deviants, in an effort to satiate those powerful urges; however, there also are vampires – chiefly among them those who were turned against their wills – who instead choose to become "Fangless", pulling their own fangs in order to hold onto their former human values. Such vampires face persecution from both sides, however, human and vampire alike; it is revealed early on that the creation of the Bund was in large part to provide a haven for the Fangless to live peacefully.
All vampires have a 'True Form', which is a physical representation of their innermost self, and is a very similar transformation to that of werewolves. This form can be almost anything, from a giant bat, to a lizard, to a spider, to, in Mina's case, a succubus-like figure. Very few of the vampires in the story have shown their true forms. Similar to other fictional vampires, Dance vampires are considerably more physically powerful than humans in both strength and speed; able to lift heavy objects such as cars as well as overpower and outrun humans with ease. They possess remarkable regenerative abilities to such an extent where they cannot catch common diseases such as the cold and the cells of their bodies remain active even within a part of their body that has been severed; thus, a vampire may reattach a severed limb without so much as a scar. Vampires are also considerably agile, able to leap several feet into the air in a single bound and perform parkour and acrobatic feats with relative ease without tire.
In addition to human-derived vampires, there are also the "True Bloods": vampire families who possess "pure" vampiric ancestry, undiluted by human blood, whether by mating with humans or by being transformed. These are the most powerful of all Vampires in the world, but are restricted by tradition and codes of conduct when it comes to dealing with each other. Vampire blood-purity dilutes over the generations. This has resulted in a strictly hierarchical, almost feudal society where the older, higher vampires of purer-blood reign over the younger, lower vampires of weaker-blood. This has caused great resentment on the part of the weak-blooded vampires, who are often treated as second-class citizens and even slaves, even though they are officially recognized as an essential part of vampire society as laborers, soldiers and servitors. As a result of this class-dynamic, the lower vampires often occupy the ranks of rebels, rogues and murderers within the vampire community as well as a threat to humans.
In the storyline, currently the vampire world is ruled by the royal family, the Țepeș represented now by Mina. There are only three male "true blood" nobles left: Rozenmann, Ivanovic, and Li.
The "Dance" vampires are best classified as "living vampires", sexually reproduce, and are still living despite being able to live with injuries fatal to humans. In one notable instance, a vampire had her organs removed to hide a bomb within her body.
The Țepeș are the royal family that rules over the Vampire world. Currently, there is only one member of the royal family left.
The Three Clans are the most powerful of the vampire clans, save for the Royal Family itself, and are led by Rozenmann, Ivanovic, and Li. It is revealed that prior to the story, the three lords devoured the other noble clans and pursued the Royal Family. They succeeded in their campaign resulting in the extinction of the "true bloods" and the death of Queen Lucretia. However to keep the true bloodline, one is to be married to and shall bear a child with Mina, as she is the only true-blood female vampire left. In the anime, it is heavily suggested one or all of them are controlling Telomere, a terrorist group created to kill Mina. Also in the anime, they all are forced to swear their allegiance to Mina once their assassins are all defeated by Akira.
There are three Maids that are often seen serving Mina. They are often featured in the omake chapters spreading rumors about Akira and are fans of Yuki's manga. They are very strong as they are able to fight off an armed squad by themselves.
The following characters are humans who became vampires:
The Earth Clan (地の一族, Chi no Ichizoku) is a family of highly evolved wolves that have developed to look like humans. They have been in the service of the Țepeș family of vampires, particularly Mina Țepeș, for generations; they act as the Țepeș empire's military and special-ops units. They are born with significantly stronger and more resilient bodies than humans, keener senses of smell, hearing and sight (including night vision) slightly above that of wolves, incredible speed and agility sufficient to run up the sides of skyscrapers and leap several feat with a single bound, and can walk around during the day, unlike vampires. Their strength is comparable to that of vampires, if not noticeably above as they can slaughter most weak vampires with ease and with lightning speed, even those in their true form. Werewolves are Immortal as mentioned by Akira in the manga when he said that werewolves are Immortal (although he was leaving silver-related injuries out of this statement). The protagonist, Akira, is the son of the head of the Țepeș Beowulf forces, Wolfgang, and a Japanese woman. Akira has been Mina Țepeș' familiar #1 servant for nearly his entire life. It was revealed in chapter 35 that all members of the earth clan are male. It is also revealed that in order for a Werewolf to reliably sire a werewolf offspring, he must impregnate a woman while in his transformed wolf-man form. Only about 30% of male children become werewolves otherwise. This act is an extremely traumatic effect on the woman which can lead to physical and/or psychological damage. Even simply gestating a werewolf child can have traumatic effects due to the demand for nutrients by the fetus during gestation. Later it is revealed that the lack of female werewolves and incompatibility with vampire blood is due to genetic faults engineered into the werewolves to limit population growth and the prevent werewolf-vampire hybrids. It was also revealed in the manga that before Mina's time, the Earth Clan was evenly divided among the Pure Blood vampires but the royal family destroyed the other branches of the Earth Clan to maintain power. However the Earth Clan themselves secretly accepted the survivors and allowed them to intermingle with the Țepeș Earth Clan. Most of the Werewolves are fully devoted to Mina but there are those that resent the Princess and her ancestor and passively act against her. These Werewolves are called "The Outer Clan."
The Eight Elite consists of the best hunters in the Earth Clan. Each specializes in different types of weapons. They are also in pairs of two.
At a time the Three Vampire Lords were considering who got to mate with Mina, since she must mate with one of them to create a pure blood Vampire, being the only pure blood female vampire left, as well as she can only give birth once in her life. The Lords came up with a game where each one summoned their best assassin and whose ever killed Akira would be who she had to marry.
In the anime there are many differences, most likely due to the shorten time frame, where the assassins were killed off relatively quick and the Chinese assassin being only one person instead of two.
Telomere is a mysterious terrorist organization that is behind the attacks on The Bund.
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