Call of the Night Volume Five sees Ko starting to question why he wants to become a vampire and the potential repercussions that his questioning could have.

Call of the Night Volume Five
Written by: Kotoyama
Publisher: Shogakukan
English Publisher: VIZ Media
Release Date: December 14, 2021

Even though Ko is the main focus of the series, Volume Five actually opens with a scene of his friend, Mahiru, going to visit with Anko Uguisu, the private detective that was introduced in Volume Four. He brings his concerns about Ko to her, and she tells him about how dangerous vampires are. As this is going on, Ko is thinking over Anko killing the vampire he and his friends encountered in Volume Four. This bothers him so much that he goes to see Nazuna. After explaining what happened to her, and she gives him her thoughts, Ko thinks he can overcome his fears if he faces them. Ko seems to think that this has started to quell the disquiet he’s had, but he soon finds out he’s wrong.

Mahiru calls Ko out one night as he’s making deliveries for his parents’ flower shop. After making the deliveries, Mahiru starts getting to the real reason he wanted to spend time with Ko… to tell him what he learned from Anko about vampires. This leads to Mahiru strongly asking why Ko wants to become a vampire. And as he thinks, Ko realizes that his reasons take him into circles and starts feeling confused. Mahiru keeps pressing the point about what Ko would do after being turned into a vampire, and this confrontation ultimately plants a seed of doubt for Ko. The next time he talks to Nazuna to try to get some reassurance, she actually says something surprising: being a vampire is boring. Of course, Ko becomes frustrated when he asks why she only talked about the fun parts of being a vampire. After this conversation, though, he realizes that she was giving him a warning. One thing I wanted to point out with this scene between Ko and Nazuna is the fact that it takes place at Ko’s house, and we learn that Ko’s parents are divorced and that he lives with his mother who tends to work at night. It’s interesting to note that these details about Ko’s life weren’t explicitly stated until the fifth volume of the series. As a reader, I’m glad to finally have this information because it helps me to better understand how Ko was able to sneak out of his house at night so much without being caught by his family.

After that scene with Nazuna, Ko decides to turn to Anko, thinking she’d have some answers for him. She’s coy with him when he asks questions, and then says he’ll likely never turn because he can’t feel love. If he can’t feel love, he can’t turn into a vampire. And if he doesn’t turn, then the vampires would likely kill Ko because he knows too much… and that something could happen to Nazuna. When Anko gives an ultimatum to Ko and he doesn’t give the answer she wants, Anko calls the police to alert them of a boy roaming the streets at night and that they should be on the lookout for him. At that point, Ko is on the run, and is no closer to resolving his inner conflict than he had been before his meeting with Anko.

Ko finds himself being saved by Haka, a vampire he had met in a previous volume. When Ko goes to Haka’s place, he learns something… interesting about this vampire. It turns out Haka isn’t the gender Ko assumed that they were. Haka isn’t able to help Ko with his confusion, but he learns through a text that Haka receives that Nazuna could be in trouble. Since Nazuna is realizing there’s the potential that Ko won’t turn, she asks the vampires leave Ko alone and to not kill him. The leader of the vampires seems to enjoy playing games with both Nazuna and Ko through this section, though. In part, she’s upset, but I think it’s more that she just enjoys teasing and toying with them.

We then see Nazuna going through her own questioning, realizing how she’s basically been lying to Ko all this time to try to seem cool to him. When Ko finds her and the two of them have a confrontation, it ends with Ko insisting that he’ll fall in love with Nazuna and that he promises to never bore her. Nazuna surprises Ko by giving him a kiss, but she thinks in her head that they can keep working on their relationship as friends. I was glad to see that Nazuna had to go through some doubts and questioning herself, and that it wasn’t just Ko in that situation. Honestly, I’m picking up that these two likely do have feelings for each other, but because they’re so awkward and not used this particular emotion, they don’t realize what it is that they’re feeling. I can’t really say whether I ship these two or not, but I do pick up on that sense of a potential relationship.

Right near the end of the volume, we see Mahiru with the girl we’d seen him with in an earlier volume of the series. It turns out she’s a customer at the bar where Mahiru consistently is delivering flowers to, and that he’s into her. He confides to her about Ko, although he’s vague about the exact situation. The girl is named Kiku Hoshimi, and she comes up with the idea that she and Mahiru should find Ko so Mahiru can apologize to him. When they find Ko and Kiku introduces herself, Ko he realizes that Kiku is a vampire. Now Ko is confused, because of how much Mahiru was pressuring him about why he wanted to turn into a vampire earlier in the volume. When Ko confronts Kiku, she keeps asking Ko to not say anything to Mahiru. While Ko seems to accept that Kiku is a nice vampire, he insists that Kiku should tell Mahiru the truth. While she doesn’t want to, she realizes she has to when Mahiru comes up to her. Kiku had no idea that Ko was knowledgeable about vampires since Mahiru hadn’t told her, so this complicated things for her. But, surprisingly, we see that Mahiru is okay with Kiku being a vampire. Which, as we see from the final panels, doesn’t bode well for Mahiru, because Kiku isn’t really the nice vampire that she pretends to be.

Wow… a lot takes place in Call of the Night Volume Five, with quite a bit of it causing some major story progression to take place. While it’s obvious we’re not at the end yet, the plot points that happen here make it clear that the story is getting more dramatic and gives the impression that the story is getting closer to a climax than it had been at the end of Volume Four. I suspect we haven’t seen the last of Anko, even if she did call off the police report she called in. I’m seriously afraid for Mahiru, between the potential of him being turned into a vampire by Kiku and the fact that Anko will likely be ticked off at him after warning him about vampires. Who knows what Anko might to do Mahiru if Kiku succeeds at turning him into a vampire.

I’m actually quite surprised at how invested I have become with Call of the Night. I never would have guessed after reading Volume One that I would find myself being riveted by this story four volumes later down the line. After setting up the characters and their world and initially building on that world primarily through comedy, I never would have guessed just how dramatic this series would end up being. And the change in tone doesn’t really feel jarring or sudden. I think there had been some subtle hints that the series would start to take a serious turn over the previous couple of volumes, but Volume Five made the dramatic side of the story much more prevalent. At this point, I think readers who read the previous four volumes and have already invested this much time into the series will enjoy reading Call of the Night Volume Five.

Another enjoyable entry in the Call of the Night series. I was uncomfortable with the portrayal of Haka though. I feel like their identity wasn't represented in a respectful way, and it was just brought out of nowhere. I'm interested to see how and if Ko and Nazuna's relationship progresses, and what will happen with Mahiru and Kiku!

Ko struggles to answer the question of why he wants to become a vampire. Nasuna makes a deal with the other vampires to protect Ko. She struggles with her true feelings for Ko. Ko's friend Mahiru unwittingly falls in love with another vampire. Cliffhanger.