The Record of a Fallen Vampire Is Finally Getting an Anime — And It Looks Dark as Hell

Some vampire stories are about surviving the night.

Others are about finding the person you lost centuries ago.

The Record of a Fallen Vampire is very much the second kind.

After more than 20 years since the original manga began, Kyo Shirodaira and Yuri Kimura’s dark fantasy series is finally getting a TV anime adaptation, scheduled to premiere in 2027. The announcement arrived with a teaser visual, a first promotional video, and the first members of the cast and production team.

And honestly, this feels like exactly the kind of forgotten 2000s manga that was waiting for the anime industry to catch up with it.

A Vampire King Looking for His Queen

At the center of the story is Akabara “Red Rose” Strauss, the former Vampire King.

Thousands of years ago, Strauss lost both his kingdom and his queen. Humanity couldn’t kill the queen, so instead they sealed her away and created thousands of false seals designed to make sure Strauss would never find her.

So Strauss does what any immortal vampire king with an absurd amount of determination would do:

He keeps looking.

For centuries.

His search puts him in conflict with humans and dhampirs, who have their own reasons for wanting to prevent the Vampire King and his queen from ever being reunited.

But the real problem is something much stranger.

Enter the Black Swan

Strauss isn’t simply being hunted by an army.

He is being hunted by a curse.

The Black Swan manifests inside the body of a young human girl once every 50 years. Each incarnation inherits the power of the previous ones, becoming progressively stronger and more dangerous.

Its purpose is simple:

Destroy the Vampire King and his queen.

The anime’s premise revolves around the 49th incarnation of the Black Swan — potentially the strongest one yet — and whether Strauss will finally run out of time.

That’s where the premise gets considerably more interesting than the average “vampires fight vampires” setup.

This isn’t just a supernatural battle.

It’s a centuries-long game of revenge, curses, sealed memories and impossible love.

And nobody seems to have clean hands.

A Manga From Another Era

Here’s another reason this announcement caught our attention.

The Record of a Fallen Vampire isn’t a brand-new property created to ride the current anime wave.

The manga originally ran in Square Enix’s Monthly Shonen Gangan from 2003 to 2007, eventually collecting its story into nine volumes. VIZ Media began releasing the English edition in 2008, with the complete English release spanning nine volumes as well.

That puts the series firmly in that fascinating generation of early-2000s manga that existed before streaming completely transformed how anime fandom worked.

Back then, discovering a series often meant stumbling across a volume at a bookstore, finding a scanlation recommendation online, or hearing about it from somebody who had very specific taste in supernatural manga.

Now, nearly two decades later, The Record of a Fallen Vampire gets another shot at finding an audience.

And this time, it gets to arrive through anime.

The Anime Has Some Interesting Names Behind It

The first cast announcement puts Yuma Uchida in the role of Akabara “Red Rose” Strauss, while Aino Shimadavoices Bridget Irving Frostheart.

The production team is also worth watching.

Mankyu is directing and handling series composition, jimao is designing the characters, and Evan Call is composing the music. Animation production is being handled by ZERO-G × Liber.

And Evan Call is probably the name that immediately jumps out.

The composer is known for work on series including Violet Evergarden and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, which makes his involvement particularly interesting for a story that relies so heavily on atmosphere, melancholy and a sense of enormous amounts of time passing.Because if there’s one thing this story should feel like, it’s old.

Not simply “medieval.”

Old.

Like something that has been waiting in the dark for thousands of years.

Why This One Is Worth Watching

The vampire genre has gone through practically every possible mutation.

Sexy vampires.

Sparkly vampires.

Teen vampires.

Vampire hunters.

Vampire academies.

Vampires fighting other vampires.

But The Record of a Fallen Vampire comes from a different moment in the genre.

Its appeal is closer to dark fantasy and supernatural mystery than straightforward horror. The central mystery isn’t simply who is the strongest vampire?

It’s:

What actually happened thousands of years ago?

Why was Strauss’s queen sealed away?

Why does humanity fear their reunion?

What exactly is the Black Swan?

And how much of the history Strauss remembers is actually the truth?

Those questions give the series something much more interesting than a simple hero-versus-villain setup.

Strauss is simultaneously the protagonist, the monster humanity fears and the person at the center of a centuries-old conspiracy.

That’s a pretty good place to start a story.

The 49th Black Swan Is Coming

The anime is currently scheduled for 2027, although a specific premiere date has not been announced yet.

For longtime fans, this is obviously a long-awaited adaptation.

For everyone else, this might be one of those cases where an old manga suddenly becomes the new thing everyone is talking about.

And honestly?

I’m always interested when anime digs into its own past instead of constantly looking for the next brand-new property.

There are decades of manga sitting out there with strange ideas, ambitious worlds and stories that never got their chance on screen.

The Record of a Fallen Vampire just happens to be one of them.

A fallen king.

A sealed queen.

A curse that has survived generations.

And a 49th Black Swan that might finally be powerful enough to end everything.

Maybe some vampires really do take their time.

The Record of a Fallen Vampire
Anime: TV series
Premiere: 2027
Based on: Manga by Kyo Shirodaira & Yuri Kimura
Akabara Strauss: Yuma Uchida
Bridget Irving Frostheart: Aino Shimada
Director / Series Composition: Mankyu
Character Design: jimao
Music: Evan Call
Animation: ZERO-G × Liber