Blood+ episode 23

[timepiececlock]

Ooh, cliffhanger.

I knew what was going to happen in the last scene as soon as Riku headed toward the music on his own, but then I think we were intended to guess it. I bet he's gonna die this time. He's come too close to dying several times already. And unlike Kai, he's not much use as a fighter being still a kid and all. Kai's not terribly useful yet either, but he's certainly getting there.

Speaking of which, I continue to enjoy nearly every scene with Kai. He's not my favorite character in that I want to write fanfic about him or anything, but from a storytelling point of view, I'm consistantly impressed with the realism of his character development. He acts exactly as you'd expect someone in his age and circumstances would react in these situations. He makes two steps forward, one step back. And it continues to be believable. Riku, on the other hand, is handling all of this stuff too well.

David's always good that way too, as a character. I totally buy into him as a career military professional who runs special ops in a secret organization. He's refreshingly professional and businesslike, for an anime character in a secret military organization.

Hagi continues to not annoy me. This is because he continues to almost not have a personality. Luckily, what bits of personality we saw in the flashbacks were promising. But at 22 episodes already, I hope next season, after Saya's memory is fully restored, he actually shows some of that personality. Because right now he's a lot like wallpaper. Not bad, but not noticable either. Feels a like a waste of a main character to me, especially considering how interesting the other Chevaliers are. Actually, now that I think about it, Hagi's at his most interesting when put in contrast to them-- I hope there's more of that in future episodes.


Speaking of future episodes... is anyone else on my flist but me and herongale watching this show? Why not? You guys should watch it. It's a solid, quality action series. Sure it doesn't move me to extremes of emotion like FMA, but you don't pass up a quality action anime with a well-thought-out storyline. Such things are hard to come by.

I know I don't talk about it all that much, though. I dunno why-- I guess maybe it feels like a book to me. I don't often have much to say about it because I'm waiting for the next chapter, but I expect that I'll have a lot to say at the very end. How much I like this show is really going to depend on where it goes, when all is said and done. I'm intrigued by a lot of the stuff that's happened so far, but I feel like we know way too little to just say it's a great show. It's a good show, but is it great? I don't know yet. It certainly could be. Or it could just stay at pretty good. It's all in how the plot eventually plays itself out.

Comments

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I may watch this eventually. I have so much other stuff to get through first, tho.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Only 23 subbed episodes are out and 25 raw, out of an intended 52 I believe. So you have a while to get caught up. And really, it's a series that you can afford to wait for and watch in clumps. I watched the first 12 or 13 episodes in a marathon, and that probably helped my interest a lot, because the series has somewhat odd pacing. A lot like Monster, in that some things are fast and other things take a while.

Still, I think you'd like it. You probably should make a note of it and download it for future watching, when you're sick one day or something.

For me, it's one of those shows where I'm technically impressed (animation, sound, production, acting, writing), consistantly interested in the plot, but not squeeing over the characters. I don't dislike the characters (they're fairly well-developed and all interesting in their own ways, also impressive for an anime), but I'm not in love with them.

It really, really feels like a book to me at times. I've had this reaction to certain series before, but I can't remember any titles off the top of my head.--- OH! Wait, wait. I know what it reminds me of. It reminds me of The Twelve Kingdoms. Which also felt like a book to me. Which I highly reccommend.

One thing that has made the show really stand out for me, though, is that the settings keep changing. So far various characters have gone to: Japan, Korea, Vietnam, France, and Russia. The cast is multi-ethnic and multinational, and the plot jumps from location to location as the story flows. It's a nice change from typical anime settings, and also one of the things I like about Monster. Which I need to watch more of tonight...

What's weird though is that the vampire stuff is not at all what I expected it to be. It's kind of about vampires, and kind of not... and kind of is. Very hard to explain without giving the wrong impression.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I watched the first two eps of Blood+, and it really didn't interest me.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I can see that. I marathoned about 12-14 episodes (can't remember exactly) in two days, but it was slow in catching my interest at first, and I might not have continued if I didn't have the episodes in front of me. In episode 8 or so, once it got out of Japan and into the main story arc, it started picking up my interest a lot more.