Monday, October 3, 2011

Blood C anime thoughts...

Keeping true to the fact that I put anime in the blog title, might as well talk about the one I've been watching since July. Blood C was kinda disappointing overall since it has no relation to either of the previous iterations of the series, at least not until the very end where the main plot twist is revealed. The ending wasn't really an ending at all either, as if they think it'll ever get a sequel. It likely won't because of how mediocre it was until the last half.  This anime is really best understood in 3 phases. By the way this contains spoilers so if you don't want spoilers it's best to skip the next 3 paragraphs and go straight to the last one.

Episodes 1-5 are the annoying phase, where rather than developing generally positive feelings about characters that are supposed to be good, you simply get annoyed by them. In particular, the twins and Saya are the three most annoying characters in the anime. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that Saya is the main character. She basically wanders around clueless as if she was completely unaware of anything outside of her personal little bubble. Basically she's clueless to the point where it's annoying. Also she overreacts to anything mildly startling, which is also incredibly annoying, as well as her singing as she travels between the three main locations in the anime, which are the Cafe, the school, and her home. There is also a plot here where Saya slays Elder Bairns to prevent them from eating people in the village, thus protecting the village. It goes on this way until the very end of episode 5.

Episodes 6-10 are the gorefest phase, where all of a sudden all the more annoying and nameless characters are brutally killed off  (well as brutal as can be seen with all the censors everywhere). There's decapitation, dismemberment from chopping, tearing, ripping, biting, and several other ways. There's even death by crushing/compressing. Basically it's like the authors decided to cut the cutesy bullcrap and throw in unnecessary amounts of gore to distract people from the fact that it's a bad anime, and sadly it works pretty well. Basically all characters with the exception of Saya and a few others including named characters are eliminated in this phase, though in all honesty most weren't really developed enough to really feel for them. It is also revealed that she has amnesia and cannot remember certain things, thus possibly explaining her cluelessness. And then there's the end of episode 10 which moves the series into its final phase.

Episodes 11 and 12 represent the pinnacle of gore and the explanation of why the fuck Saya seems to be suffering from amnesia. Apparently she was captured by the military and was being used for two reasons. To do research on whether altering someone's memories would cause them to act differently than they normally would, and to make a gory as hell movie. Everyone in the village is an actor basically, and main characters who had died were never really dead but were replaced with stand ins, but non main characters were seen as disposable and were actually killed. The Elder Bairns are still real though, but it seems they were covered up by the military and a contract was made with them so that they can only eat a certain amount of humans per year. They are being controlled by the mastermind behind this, the Cafe owner (and honestly the most likable character in the anime up to that point). Saya regains her memories of when she was a vampire, thus somewhat tying it into the original series though the setting is different. Actors that try to free or help Saya are killed off, and then the entire experiment comes to a close and the village is erased along with all 100 or so actors inside thanks to the help of Elder Bairns. Episode 12 is the goriest thing I have seen in a long time in an anime, despite being censored. Never before have I ever though the term "Noob Saibot'd" would ever need to be used to describe someone's method of death (in reference to Mortal Kombat 9's execution move with Noob Saibot known as "Make a Wish"). Despite being censored it still is one of the most gruesome things I've seen in a long time. Also the entire method the village is executed was just done so over the top that it was both gruesome yet comical. The gore is spectacular to be sure, but really it's just covering up a shit plot.

Overall though I'd say the series is worth a watch just for the gore factor after episode 5, but it's definitely weak on plot and fans of the previous two installments probably won't be big fans of this one. I'll give it a 5 out of 10, most of that 5 coming simply from the gore points with a couple points here and there for some decent battles along the way but most of the points it could have had were countered by the several annoyances/ plot holes in the series. For those who skipped the other 3 paragraphs due to spoilers, the last half is much better than the first half because they at least make up for the bullshit with the gore factor. That about summarizes it.

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