Blood+ - episodes 1-7

[timepiececlock]

Blood+

So...it's like the anime version of Buffy. Without the jokes. And with extra Iniative.

Hm. It's interesting, I'll give it that. It's easy to watch, well-animated, well-paced, and none of the characters annoy me yet.


The most pleasant thing to me so far about this series is the characterization. The plot behind the monster stuff has been rather weak and somewhat incoherent: Are they Vampires? Monsters? How do you become one? Are they born or created in a lab? Why is her blood a poison to them? What made her go apeshit back in Vietnam? The character development, however, has been very nice. Especially for Saya, her older brother, and her father.

Saya's a very typical anime heroine, but I like how she's handling her new role. With both fear (understandable) and grace (a nice surprise). She's not stupid or foolish, and her moments are weakness make total sense because in her own mind (without the blood triggered trance ) she's still just a no-name powerless teenager, not a Slayer. Yes, I will keep refering to her as a Slayer until proven otherwise.

I like her family, and I like that we're getting lots of characterization of her family early on, before the other side characters. It makes a nice foundation for Saya's character development, and also gives her a strong emotional base.

The military support group, whatever they're called...something shield? Anyway, they're interesting. David is particularly interesting for he really blends the Professional and the Believer. The doctor we don't know as much about yet, but I'm not without curiosity.

Haji is rather "meh" so far, but in a good way. In a non-annoying way. He's there so minimally that you can't be annoyed at him. It's like being annoyed at a potted plant. He reminds me a lot of Amon from Witch Hunter Robin, except not so much of a prick. Amon was pretty "meh" too, but he had a good dose of asshole underneath his meh exterior, and a decent guy buried even further underneath the asshole. Haji reminds me a lot of Amon in terms of blandness, but also visually. They look alike, except Haji's got slanted eyes and makes an art out of being pale.

I like that there was some brief allusion to something between himself and Saya in the past, but his character development has been put on the backburner to Saya and her family's development. That's a good thing. Obviously he's not going anywhere, and no matter what their relationship (master/servant? lovers?) Saya can't really relate to him anyway until she understands herself. Also, icky. She looks like a 13 year old boy most of the time. Does she age?

That's all for now.

Comments

[jaina.livejournal.com]

Icon love.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I've had that icon for months, ever since I got it. I don't even like Akamaru much as a character, but it's just...perfect.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I have two people telling me to watch this, yet I'm not sure I want to. I'm just not really that into the whole vampire thing. I dig stuff that happen to deal with vampires, but overall, it's not a big draw for me.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I'm only up through ten episodes, but you actually might like it. For one thing, they're not even really vampires. Not really. They're more like monsters. Seriously, only one person in ten episodes got their blood sucked... mostly they just growl and roar and rip things up. They don't even look like vampires-- they look like demons. The heroine looks more like a vampire than the bad guys do. The characters refer to them as "ones who suck blood of life" or something, but they don't. Well they might, but we don't see it. I'm not kidding. So far they're "vampires" in name only, and in practice are just big scary demons.

I'm just not really that into the whole vampire thing. I dig stuff that happen to deal with vampires, but overall, it's not a big draw for me.

I'm kind of confused. Do you mean you like stuff about vampires personal lives but you don't like to watch people get eaten?

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's a pretty confusing statement. It's getting late.

Um. Let's see - I'll watch a lot of stuff that happens to have vampires in them (Underworld, Blade, Hellsing, etc.), but the fact that vampires are the main characters isn't the draw. Mostly, with flicks like that, someone is guaranteed to get his ass kicked. With Buffy, it wasn't the vampire aspect that drew me in there. It was the other weird shit that happened in Sunnydale, plus, the writing. Before it started to suck - no pun intended - around season four.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, in a way-- I like all supernatural stuff but vampires as vampires aren't any more thrilling to me than spaceships or psychics. However, if it's a bunch of cool characters who just happen to be vampires (or psychics, or live on spaceships) then I tend to really like it.

I'm up thorugh episode 16 now, and I really think you'd like this show. It's riding at a solid B+ for me... it could go up to an A, and probably will by the around episode 26 or so, if it lives up to all its promise. As it is, it gets better with every episode and even things that make me go "WTF? I can't believe they're going there, this is going to suck" turns out, surprisingly, not to suck at all. The show's doing a weird dance of both meeting all me expectations and predictions... and at the same time not meeting my predictions. One episode I'm right about the big picture and wrong about the details, next episode I'm right about the details and wrong about the big picture.

It's also pretty addictive. And pretty pretty. They use computer graphics well... very understated but effective application of CG with the traditional animation.

So far I like the characters, but I don't love them. It's a weird dynamic for me as a viewer. I like them all, a lot, but I don't think I'd cry if any of them died. Give me another ten episodes maybe, but not right now. Is that confusing? It's different from something like FMA, where I adored Ed and Al completely by episode 3, and Hughes by episode 6, and Roy by episode 15. I loved nearly every character in FMA, even the ones I hated (Envy, Tucker.) For a show like Blood+ ... I like them and are very interested in what's going on, but I don't love them yet. (In a weird but nicely done way, I like each of the characters more with every viewing. That's how a show should go, I guess, but a lot of anime series make you either like or hate the characters at introduction. This show doesn't.)


Plotwise, this show's pretty cool, especially after the first 6 or 7 episodes. Parts of the plot don't make sense yet in the overall series mythology sense, but the smaller one to two episode plots make sense. And plus, we're...globe trotting! And that alone gets this show mucho points in my book. In 16 episodes the characters have been to Japan, Vietnam, and now Siberia. Two other characters are presumably on their way to France. The cast is multiethnic and multinational, and there's a lot of interesting plot backstory involving the Vietnam war.