Riding on the coattails of a resurrected Vampirella series, Vampi reinvented the scantily clad vampire-who-kills-vampires as a slight manga heroine in the future who relies more on guns and blades than strength and teeth.

The book didn't do all that well, and I lost interest in reading it fairly early in its monthly run. Recently offered the chance to review the first arc in a collected trade, I decided to see if my opinion has changed in six years.

Not really.

First of all, the character isn't Vampirella. More ninja than vampire, she bounces around her many fight scenes with boundless pep, slicing her foes into chunks with an unusual pair of swords that have baton-like handles and, um, earrings? While Vampi shows off slightly less cleavage than Vampirella does, the book does focus heavily on her tightly thonged butt -- so if you like that sort of thing in your comics, order this one right away. Of course, being manga, Vampi appears just on this side of legal in age.

The story flashes back and forth, focusing mostly on Vampi's efforts to infiltrate an evil gang and steal "The Ladder," a DNA miracle that will finally quench her thirst for human blood. The book also zips back in time, when Vampi worked the sound board for a bar band and ran across the Dead Presidents, who are bigots with big muscles, bigger guns and a gimmick.

I wanted to like this series, really I did. But it hooked its wagon to a tenuous connection to Vampirella -- who also has a hard time keeping her own series running these days -- and the manga character, over-the-top violence and aggressive butt-floss just aren't interesting enough to carry it off.