Sarah Spews Reviews: Blood C

Since that last post was a little depressing, I'm going to lighten things up here by reviewing some of the summer anime shows that I've been watching.

I'm going to start with my least favorite and work my way up to my top fav. I'm saving the best for last!

!!SPOILER ALERT!!

Blood C - 8 episodes, still airing

~Quick Review~

Storyline: Stale

Characters: Forgettable

Animation: Stiff

Music: Generic
Overall: Long, boring, and yet to get interesting

This show is a collaboration between CLAMP and Production IG, both of which are highly esteemed anime production companies. CLAMP has made several of my favorite anime such as Cardcaptor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, and xxxHolic. Blood C is also a spin-off series of a previously popular anime show called Blood Plus.

I myself have never seen Blood Plus in its entirety, but I've heard only good things about it, and it was popular enough to air on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and the Sci-Fi channel as well.

So, it's safe to say I had high expectations for this particular show. Now, only 8 episodes into it so far, I'm finding it hard to continue watching it. In the first episode, you meet the main character Saya. She is sweet, clumsy, incredibly dense, and everybody loves her. She lives with her father in a shrine located in a small bumpkin town. She has a strange daddy complex and she comes off almost obsessed with him, and it's a little creepy. She goes to a cafe down the road and gets her breakfast from the cafe's owner, who is also a close family friend. She sings a happy little song on her way to school and while she's in school, it seems like any other typical high school anime. At dusk, she goes home and her father tells her she is to use the family's katana in order to defeat a creature called an Elder Bairn. The monster is just chillin' in their backyard. She starts fighting it, gets cut up, and when everything seems to be lost, something triggers Saya to tap into her "demonic" persona. Her eyes turn red and she just goes to town on the monster. Of course, not letting the show's title down, there is plenty of blood spewing everywhere. Then, she leaves the bloody mess to sit there and heads back home to clean herself up. End episode.

That is how the first several episodes are formatted. Keep in mind, the fighting only occurs in the last 5 minutes of the show, so everything before that is a bunch of boring dialogue. There are a couple of glimpses into Saya's past, but other than that, nothing is explained. You don't know where the Elder Bairn's come from or even exactly what they are. You don't know how and why Saya came to fight them. While some things have begun to be revealed in later episodes, it's hardly anything to cling onto. There are a couple of characters that obviously have a bigger part to play, but they have yet to shine and so far they have only served to deliver Saya cryptic messages. In episode 7, things really started to kick off, and I was hopeful that the anime would become much more fast paced, but it wasn't so. I just finished watching ep. 8 and it was as slow as the beginning episodes. 

I think the most irritating thing I've come across so far in this series is that Saya waits to fight. For example, in the latest episode, an Elder Bairn attacks Saya's classmates. One of the girls actually first spots the monster when it's outside of the school, but Saya just chooses to stare at it like everybody else. Then, the monster climbs up the building and starts slewing Saya's classmates one by one. AND ALL SHE DOES IS STARE. Here she is, her katana in hand, one of her classmates about to be eaten by the monster, and she's just glaring at it from afar. WHAT THE HELL. Three of her classmates die horrible deaths before Saya finally decides to unsheathe her sword. Then she's all like, "I'M GOING TO PROTECT EVERYONE!" Um, it's a little late for that, honey.

Anyway, this show is pretty awful so far. The storyline has yet to get interesting. The only thing it has going for it are the action sequences and the bountiful amount of blood. I'm going to try and stick with it until the end because I owe CLAMP that much. 

I may review this again once I've watched it in its entirety.

You can also watch the anime here and decide for yourself!

Love&&peace,

Sarah


P.S. Happy September!