Vampire

A vampire (吸血鬼, kyuketsuki, lit. "blood sucking demon") is an undead, immortal, humanoid oddity sometimes referred to as "the king of oddities." Vampires are nocturnal monsters that suck blood not only out of impulse and hunger, but to create servants who in turn become vampires in the process. Sucking blood also seems to empower them, reinforcing their various powers.

Vampires are also known for consuming not only human flesh, but nearly anything at all, including other oddities. If a vampire does not wish to make a minion out of their victim, they will eat them whole before their vampirism awakens. Eating oddities is a proficient way to get rid of them.

Like all oddities, vampires thrive on the fear humanity has for them. Legends of vampires originated in the western world, which eventually became real when enough people learned of them. Vampires had no known presence in Japan prior to the first appearance of Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade about 400 years before the series takes place. While not of Japanese origin, due to their description and literal translation as blood sucking demons, they are sometimes associated with the Japanese demon: oni (鬼).

Appearance

Appearances vary between many vampires, enough that telling them apart from humans can be difficult if their unique features aren't easily visible. Vampires are most prominently known for having sharp fangs which allow for blood sucking. Pointy elf-like ears are also sometimes visible, though it doesn't necessarily seem to be a strict trait. While no vampire in the series has been seen transforming into a full bat, it does appear some are able to sprout bat wings out of their back.

Abilities

As dubbed the terrifying "king of oddities", vampires have a plethora of different abilities.

Regeneration

As "immortal" beings, most injuries have little significance to vampires due to their intense regeneration skills. While the speed depends on the vampire, almost any injury can be healed within minutes. If a body part is lost, it will evaporate and begin to grow back from where it was cut off. In addition, application of vampire blood or saliva can also heal the wounds of humans.

Exclusive to the Kizumonogatari films, the regeneration process is shown to rapidly transition out of an infant form.

Energy Drain

A supposedly rare trait, a vampire can drain the living essence out of a victim (including other oddities) by sucking their blood.

Shape-Shifting and Matter Generation

Vampires can shape-shift their bodies. Dramaturgy uses this ability to forge his arms into swords for combat, while Episode transforms into mist in order to teleport. During his fight against Guillotine Cutter, Koyomi Araragi uses this ability to turn his arms into tree branches to ensnare his adversary. Vampires can also shapeshift their clothes to whatever they want, as seen with Shinobu Oshino's various attires throughout the series.

Vampires can further create objects out of nothing using matter generation. The Kokorowatari blade most commonly wielded by Shinobu is a replica created through this ability. A vampire's matter generation is not limited by the complexity of the object, seen as Shinobu is capable of creating a fully working Nintendo DS.

Shadow Submergence

Shinobu hiding in Araragi's shadow

This ability allows a vampire to submerge and hide inside another lifeform's shadow to bypass their weakness to sunlight. The inside of the shadow where the vampire hides within is supposedly made to look like however they want it to be. Shinobu Oshino utilizes this ability to create a royal couch to rest on whenever she is in Araragi's shadow.

Night Vision

Vampires have the natural ability to see in the dark because of their nocturnal nature.

Mind Searching

Vampires can search for memories that they can't remember by forcing their hand through their skull and into the brain, a somewhat messy process where blood and spinal fluid constantly spurt out, though the fluids evaporate instantly due to their regeneration.

Ceiling Walking

Likely to resemble bats, vampires can stand and walk on ceilings as if they're on the floor. Shinobu sometimes does this in Araragi's room.

Supernatural Physical Abilities

Araragi 's vampire speed

Vampires clearly have supernatural levels of strength, speed, and durability. After turning into one, Araragi was easily able to run and jump at incredible speeds and became more muscular even after mostly turning back into a human. When in combat situations throughout the series, Araragi relied heavily on his remaining durability as a former vampire to survive having much of his body ravaged and fatally wounded. Kiss-shot's durability was so powerful that she did not notice her own heart was missing from her body until Araragi revealed it to her during the Kizumonogatari arc.

It is not clear if this was specifically because of how powerful she was herself or if it's a common ability, yet Kiss-shot was agile enough to leap across whole continents, as she did when she first arrived in Japan from Antarctica. She later claimed that she was able to travel seven times and a half times around the world within mere moments after having her vampire powers restored during Kizumonogatari.

Other Abilities

Kiss-shot as a vampire was able to destroy things with her eyes by merely glaring at them, causing objects to spontaneously explode afterward. In the Kizumonogatari films, she is also seen being able to send bursts of energy through her hands and create large fire balls as a method of attack.

The manga adaptation of the Kizumonogatari arc portrayed Kiss-shot having a far greater range of vampire abilities such as shapeshifting black demonic armor on herself for combat, creating a large castle to reside within with her matter generation when in Antarctica, and temporarily summoning a colossal dragon-like creature to ride on after her powers were restored by Araragi.

Weaknesses

The Sun

Sunlight causes vampires to catch on fire. Weak vampires will turn to ash instantly, while stronger ones can last longer. Jumping into sunlight is a common way for vampires to commit suicide, although it doesn't really kill them so much as turn them into ash and make it difficult to be revived back into a proper form. Once a vampire is out of sunlight, the flames immediately disappear and no burn marks are left on the body or clothes.

Crosses

Physical contact with a cross causes an intense fiery burning sensation. The wounded area also regenerates at an extremely slow rate.

Silver Material

It seems that this weakness is not limited to just bullets as believed in common folklore, touching any silver matter in general harms vampires as seen when Episode's silver cross weapon strikes Araragi during Kizumonogatari.

Door Invitation

Vampires according to legends need to be invited in order to go through doors. It's not clear if this characteristic truly applies to the vampires in the Monogatari universe however.

Other Weaknesses

• Holy water
• Briar thorns
• Garlic
• Stake to the heart

Other Characteristics

• Strengthened power in moonlight - Shinobu observes how the moonlight is her ally during the Tsukihi Phoenix arc.
• Nearly perfect appearance - Typically, a vampire's has little to no need for hygiene as they take on an beautiful, otherworldly appearance at all times. Their clothes are also essentially a part of their own body, meaning that they can sometimes regenerate with the rest of their body or not be damaged when catching on fire.
• Charisma - Vampires can supposedly hypnotize people to become their victims with a stare, although no explicit examples exist in the series. In Bakemonogatari 15, Black Hanekawa elaborates on this by stating that the victim would become fully and unconditionally obedient. Her explanation was a response to Koyomi Araragi's worry that his newfound popularity with the series' females was due to his vampiric charisma (as suggested by Tsubasa Hanekawa in Bakemonogatari 13)
• No shadow
• No mirror reflection
• Shared senses and feelings with minions
• Tears of blood - Kiss-shot was observed to cry blood when calling for help after first being encountered by Araragi during Kizumonogatari.

Half-Vampire

In certain situations, one can also take the form of a half-vampire. Bridging the gap between vampire and human, half-vampires have half of the strength of a normal vampire along with nearly none of the weaknesses. They can even walk in sunlight and cast a shadow.

Half-vampires don't commonly fit in with vampires or humans, making them act as lone wolves that hate both vampires and humanity. Episode is the only known half-vampire in the series.

Humans with Vampire Blood

If a human's fatal wound is healed with regenerative vampire blood, said blood will rest dormant inside the human and seemingly have no effect. However, if the blood comes in contact with a vampire's weakness, it can cause its possessor to die.

In the case of Tsubasa Hanekawa however, since she was in possession of blood that originated from the legendary Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, a vampire so strong, she bypassed many common weaknesses, such an event did not kill her. Instead, it caused an abnormal reaction in which the blood inside her awakened and temporarily gave her vampire powers.

Known Vampires

• Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicide-Master
• Tropicalesque Home-A-Wave Dog-Strings
• Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade
• Koyomi Araragi
• Seishirou Shishirui
• Dramaturgy
• High-Waist
• Low-Rise

Known Half-Vampires

• Episode

Known Humans with Vampire Blood

• Tsubasa Hanekawa