I enjoyed it. I prefer the anime, but this also works. The comparison isn't one-way since certain characters work better here, thanks to their actor.

The premise is unchanged, of course, and the script roughly covers the anime's first season. Kaoru Yamaba doesn't appear, but that's fine. We don't have the running time of a TV series and the film's understandably keen to reach the second vampire. That's a wise choice, since the vampires' conversations and viewpoints give a lot more context to Mori Ranmaru's characterisation. I still like Kaoru Yamaba, mind you, but we don't need her. She adds vertices to the love polygon, basically. A film has to boil a narrative down to its essence, although I'm sure she'd appear in the sequel if one got made. The finale suggests that it's possible.

The film's biggest innovation is character intro songs. Yes, this is technically a musical (early on, while characters are still being introduced). I don't hate this idea in principle, but it includes rap. Mind you, the latter demonstrates where the "Babanbabanban Vampire" title comes from.

The tone's sillier than I'd expected. Obviously, this story isn't realistic... but, even so, Franken's singing introduction is stupider than I'd have expected and that pile of defeated enemies he's standing on is so cartoonishly big that the people at the bottom are surely getting crushed to death. (We're not meant to consider such things, though, in a light-hearted film like this.)

Going through the cast...

Ryo Yoshizawa's Mori Ranmaru is fine. I preferred the anime's vampire character design and his crush on Rihito looks even dodgier at first glance in live-action, but Yoshizawa's likeable and basically gets the role right.

The kids are fine. Charming, endearing and perhaps a bit bland, but that fits the characters. Rihito Tatsuno (Rihito Itagaki) is pretty good. Shinozuka Aoi (Nanoka Hara) at first struck me as insipid, but she ended up getting the most laughs from me. My favourite performances here, though, were Franken (Mandy Sekiguchi) and Sakamoto-sensei (Shinnosuke Mitsushima), both of whom bring enough to their roles that I prefer them to their anime counterparts.

This is a likeable franchise. Obviously, it's as dodgy as you choose to see it as, with a core concept that's begging to be taken the wrong way. The film's toned down the gay a bit, but not much and the important bit is still that Mori's waiting to taste Rihito's virgin meat when he turns eighteen. Will that mean opening a jugular? Well, we'll see. The vampires are learning to be more human. Anyway, personally, I find this series appealing and I'd be very happy if this movie got a sequel.