The Vampire Virus, also known as the Vampire Plague or Vampirism, is a highly evolved virus in Monster Musume that turns its hosts/victims into Vampires.
Despite claims to the contrary in old folk tales, the vampire virus is, similar to the Zombie virus, extremely weak and only able to infect the body of a host that is already near death as the immune system of a body at full health will easily dispose of the viral infection.[1] To this end, if a vampire desires to infect an individual they first feed on them until their victim has lost enough blood to be near death. With their white blood cell count low and their body otherwise preoccupied with trying to sustain itself with depleted resources, the virus can freely infect the individual with virtually no resistance from the individual's shattered immune system. When the conversion process is complete, the victim will become a classification of "Vampire". It should also be taken into account that Vampires can spread the virus not only through their saliva, but also through their mucous membranes, so that any direct contact with a Vampire can pose a low but still potential risk.[2]
Although it is claimed that the Vampire Virus "transforms" a victim into a Vampire, this isn't really the case because victims of a successful infection doesn't sprout wings or fangs and basically, they only becomes a carrier of the virus. Due to this, there are a theory that modern Vampires like Curie and Wladislaus are possibly only bat-like Liminal species, which were infected by a now extinct species of true Vampires, although there are no substantiating proofs for this theory.[2]
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- While human mythology only covers human-turned vampires, Wladislaus Drakulya implies that some Liminal species (such as Harpies, Lamia and Devils ) can become vampiric beings just as easily as humans.[3]
- In the official English translation of Volume 12, Wladislaus also mentions Werebeasts among the liminal species that can be turned into vampires, but in English fan-translations and the German translation, he talks about "war beasts" instead, so it is not known whether the mention of the Werebeasts was perhaps just a translation error.
- Certain research institutes such as the Black Lily Innovations Research Laboratory view the Vampire Virus as a valuable raw material in medicine, for example, which is partly the reason why Mr President has secretly smuggled Curie into Japan.[4]
- According to the description of the Vampire Virus in Curie's secret pages, its affects seems to be more comparable to rabies in the sense that the victim is affected by a virus through which it can infect others with its saliva, although unlike true rabies the victim does not loose their minds and don't die from the virus. This makes the description of the Vampire virus in Monster Musume to one of the few in fantasy stories in which the virus is neither supernatural nor magical and could actually even be explained logically.
- It is not known whether a vampire victim infected by the virus in the manga series would feed on blood or receive any other characteristics of a normal vampire, such as her weaknesses to sunlight and her allergies to garlic or silver. If this is not the case, the victims would only differ from other members of their species in that, as carriers of the vampire virus, they can infect other living beings with a very low probability.
- Although Vampires are undead in most legends, the fact that Wladislaus died of a disease is proof that the vampires in the Monster Musume franchise are living beings, as an undead cannot be afflicted by a disease. Due to this, it can also be assumed that the Vampire virus in Monster Musume, in contrast to the Zombie virus, does not turn its victims into a undead, especially since Curie's secret pages point out that the victim only becomes a carrier of the virus.
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