Warning: This review will contain some spoilers. In my goal to watch every BLrelated anime in existence I wandered into Night Walker. Considering my love for vampires it was a nobrainer especially once I took a look at the cast. While all the character designs are fairly solid I particularly like Riho the main character Shido sticks out with his adorably rumpled long purple hair and his oldfashioned suit. I fell for him immediately. The plot is fairly simple slightly broody amnesiac vampire solves monster crimes and is haunted by the man who turned him into a vampire Cain. While he investigates he is accompanied by his three friends two of which are his adoring female love interests though I will admit both Yayoi and Riho are surprisingly well fleshed out. This shouldnt be surprising considering it was based on a 1993 eroge one which unfortunately I was not able to find any Englishlanguage resources for. Perhaps Ill come back to this review later if I can find a Japanese copy to look through. What I did find surprising however is just how different the two seem to be. While yes there are boobs and gore in the 1998 anime it seems altogether less concerned with eroticism and violence and more with tragedy as well as adding significant BL elements to the plot. Does it do this particularly well? Well... This series for some reason is effectively split into two halves the first four episodes which have something of an arc to them and the rest of the series which is entirely episodic. This divide is particularly noticeable due to the sudden change in the character designs Shido has bluegreen eyes when not in Vampire Mode Riho has brown eyes Yayois hair is suddenly black. Cains hair changes both style and color and he looks both younger and a bit more feminine. Some of these seem to be done to reflect the original games style as these colors are present in the opening that is used from the very beginning but Yayois hair is also brown in the original and Im actually not even sure if Cain is in the original game... but thats besides the point. There is also a major change in the amount of nudity and blood after episode 4 Shidos signature moves his own blood crystalized into weapons all become rather glittery and pink to tone down the violence even more. Its also worth mentioning that nudity largely disappears from the series until the finale. The first four episodes are mildly episodic while leading up to a major battle between Cain and Shido where Cain begins to reveal some of his plans for... something? Its altogether rather vague related perhaps to vampire world domination but youd think the next 8 episodes would elaborate on it right? Well no. Cain is killed in a fight with Shido at the end of episode 4. For the rest of the series we only see him in flashbacks as Shido reflects on his life before he came to start his detective agency. Except... no again. He appears at the very end of the very last episode to reveal that all the horrible happenings of the episode were just a dream... and to kiss Shido which was a win for me I suppose. Im not sure why there was such a split in the series. It must have happened during production as evidenced by my former statements about the opening and the fact that the episode airdates seemed to have been consistent. I feel reassured that some fellow fujin are just as confused but intrigued by the weirdness behind this series.https://twitter.com/akihito302/status/1307666671193128963 Its quite evident to me that Cain and Shidos relationship was very inspired by Anne Rices Interview With the Vampire and you can see clear inspiration taken from Claudia and Louis relationship in Riho and Shidos. But Im still confused as to why they chose to a 1993 eroge to be the basis for their Interview With the Vampire fanfiction. Despite overall being in my opinion not a very good series theres something interesting about Night Walker a puzzle I want to solve although Im not sure if there are any real answers. I hope to return to this review in the future if I make any more discoveries. BL Rating: 4/10. There are some solid scenes in there but if you were expecting a series focused entirely on the BL elements its not here. Youre better off watching a compilation of Cain moments. Art: 7/10. The character designs are quite cute and the animation can be good but overall its nothing very special. Story: 5/10. Its episodic. Its not the worst thing Ive watched but it leaves you wanting quite a bit more. Some episodes hit very well I rather liked Yayois backstory episode and others leave you high and dry like the finale especially. Overall: 6/10. Worth taking a look at if you like niche anime and vampires but will probably not be satisfying for the average modern fujin looking for something a bit more gripping in the homoeroticism department. That said I did find a wonderful little fansitehttp://www.geocities.ws/mistressnightwalker/ dedicated to the series and I understand why older anime fans might have liked this series so much when BL was so much harder to come by.