There's plenty of anime and manga about vampires trying to blend into human society out there, but not as many of them are terribly concerned with how their vampires pay their bills. Which, in some ways, makes sense—vampires wouldn't be too concerned with keeping the lights on, I suppose. But that's where Dracula’s on the Night Shift! (DotNS) differs. DotNS follows Yura Toraki: a vampire—our titular Dracula—who works the graveyard shift at a convenience store. He lives in an ordinary apartment, sleeps on an air mattress, and eats instant noodles—despite being a vampire, he lives a pretty low-key life for the most part. Or at least, he did until he saved a girl named Iris from getting attacked on his way home from work. Because Iris, as he soon learns, is a member of the Dark Cross Knights—she is, in other words, something of a vampire hunter - and also in need of a place to stay. One thing leads to another, and she decides to live with Yura for a while. And that's more or less how the series opens up.

If you read all that and thought it sounded like a plot that could've been ripped straight out of a The Devil Is a Part-Timer!-esque light novel, there's a good reason for that. This manga is an adaptation of the first volume of The Devil Is a Part-Timer! creator Satoshi Wagahara's light novel series of the same name. Notably, however, this three-volume-long manga ends after the equivalent of the light novel's first volume. Although, to clarify: Yen Press' English release of DotNS compiles the entirety of the manga into one book.

Having not read the light novels for either DotNS or The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, it's hard for me to say with much certainty just how many parallels there are between these two Wagahara works, outside of a shared anti-Bailey School Kids naming convention (you might better remember these as the “[Insert supernatural being here] don't [insert pedestrian thing here]” book series from your elementary school library. EX: Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots, Frankenstein Doesn't Plant Petunias, etc.). And although it's not quite the same as being able to compare their light novels, I have at least watched the anime adaptation of The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, so I can at least confidently say that between it and the DotNS manga, there are some pretty evident commonalities between the two works: for example, a similar sense of humor, and a similar struggle with being markedly less entertaining when it's trying to distance itself from its more lighthearted side.

Despite ostensibly being a manga about a vampire working a night shift, DotNS isn't the What We Do in the Shadows-style comedy/slice-of-life series you might expect at first glance—because it's not really a comedy/slice-of-life series at all. While there are some humorous moments sprinkled around, Yura's day-to-day life as a convenience store employee actually has very little bearing after the first few chapters, which is a shame, because that sounds like that could make for a really fun comedy manga. This manga is more of an action/adventure series than anything else. After the premise is established, most of the rest of it boils down to Iris and Yura teaming up to take down more vampires together. And yes, this sudden shift is just as jarring as it sounds.

There are some silly moments sprinkled around here and there, but for the most part, this manga takes on a more boring and restrained tone that lasts until its end, leaving expectations (a goofy slice-of-life series about a vampire who works at a convenience store and lives with a vampire hunter) and reality (a temperate series about a vampire who teams up with a vampire hunter to eliminate other vampires) in two completely different places. This imbalance might not feel like such a negative thing if only either this new story and/or the characters were particularly engaging, but the story is heavily weighed down by how profoundly uninteresting its main characters are. It's hard to care why Yura is helping Iris with her missions, for example, when I don't feel like I have a reason to care about—like alone like—either Yura or Iris to begin with. More attempts are made at fleshing out Yura than Iris, but all it does is just make him feel more and more like an edgy shounen protagonist the further the manga gets. This feels like an issue that easily could've been side-stepped, or at least minimized, if this manga spent more time focusing on his daily life as a vampire who works at a convenience store, but alas.

But lest I sound too negative, it's worth highlighting that the art is nice, and there's some interesting worldbuilding happening in the background. And as I've said earlier, this manga has its funny moments from time to time. Arguably though, even that works to its detriment, because it's funny enough that it makes me wish that it stuck with being a comedy/slice-of-life more in the vein of the first season of The Devil Is a Part-Timer!

This manga just hasn't left me feeling invested enough to want to keep going. Sure, there's a chance that the light novel addresses some of the issues I talked about. But this manga just hasn't grabbed my attention enough to feel inclined to find out. Dracula's night shift, as far as I'm concerned, is also a closing shift.