I don’t know who are exactly the ones who put together the fight scenes of this series, but I once again have to praise them, because in that aspect this series is the best of the season. Even though the runner-up Dantalian no Shoka has a bigger budget and also plenty of interesting visual ideas for itself, this one goes a step further in the way in which it animates Saya’s struggle with the monsters she fights. It’s not the writing that rocks here, it really is the animation that really brings those to life.
As for the rest of the series… I still like it a lot. It’s indeed unfortunate that it uses many cliches, but for me at the moment, the good points overshadow the bad points enough to make me not bothered by it. I mean, this show has obviously been building up for its first three episodes, and with that I don’t mean a complex story, but I’m more pointing towards its atmosphere. Whether everything has been balanced out properly is unfortunately something we can only say a year and a half from now, when the movie has properly aired. With that, I can understand the inclusion of the fights that Saya has: they have two functions: to build up the atmosphere themselves, and offer a sharp contrast with the slice of life scenes to prevent this series from really getting dull, seeing as how mundane the quiet scenes in this series are.
At this point, I don’t feel yet that Blood+ is wasting its time. But then again, we can only tell that for sure when everything has aired. In my experience the really unbalanced series only tend to show this from their middle part, not their first three episodes.
As for the criticisms on the characterization, I can understand some of them. Saya is a bit dull, and it’s during the quiet scenes that the animation also dulls in. I still think that these past episodes have been great ways to get to know the cast, though, as ordinary high school students. This episode explored how they spend their time after school and other mundane stuff. What makes it different from the series with dull characterizations is that 1) the acting is good and solid (most of the overacting you’ll hear here is those twins, and Saya actually doesn’t have the vocals of a J-pop idol), along with the dialogue that talks about inspired topics, courtesy of Clamp.
Now, the end of this episode was excellent foreshadowing, and it seems like the plot is also going to get interesting next episode.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Now, the end of this episode was excellent foreshadowing
Sure, if you call dropping a huge anvil on viewer’s heads a “foreshadowing”
yes, I see what CLAMP are trying to do , they are trying to repeat their TRC twist, happy go lucky to wtf mindscrew.
But they screwed up. Horribly. While TRC starter set of chapters till tokyo was still enjoyable and had a very good amount of foreshadowing, these 3 bloodC episodes pretty much came out as incredibly bland and boring cliched shonen show.
ALl three episodes are basically the rehash of first episode, again and again.
If it does not get better in next episode, I bet all the ten viewers who still watch this will drop it, and no twist can prevent that.
Did you see that Saya just watched the man got smashed and didn’t even bat an eye over his remains? If it’s not serious foreshadowing, I don’t know what it is.
I know I’m watching it till the end. I’m starting to see interesting theories about the story. One of them is that the whole town is an experiment ground, where most of the town’s people (or at least the father, the cafe shop owner, the teacher) are in on an long-termed experiment on Saya. Not everything is as it seems. Heck, even the repetition (with minimum changes) across the first three episodes may be due to the structure of the experiment itself.
I agree with Tanuki; you could see that her eyes finally flashed red which I guess is the trigger for her to kind of bring out [insert whatever similar but not similar connection to Blood+]. Those lines at the end may have not just referred to her ‘awakening’ and her slow development of turning into something more than just Saya Kisuragi, but also a development in the plot and the monsters themselves.
The teacher is definitely shady. Possibly the main antagonist, IDK. I agree that the town because of its little accessibility and the fact that it is so small was probably a site for some sort of research that the teacher was involved in and she wants to examine/research Saya. I also have a funny feeling that the cat is the black haired bad-tempered classmate that Saya cares about (forgot his name).
I will admit though that despite me loving the pacing of this show it IS going too slow; if I remember correctly there are only 11/12 episodes in total? So they have 8 episodes to wrap this up and I’m scared it’s not going to get done. All in all, I love this, but personally, Blood + was much more exciting and interesting (but this is due to the fact that it was a 50 episode anime?)
@Snowolf: If I remember right they already have planned a movie for Blood-C.
I was also curious as to why Saya didn’t give a damn about the guy on the train getting brutally murdered. I hope it’s foreshadowing otherwise it makes no sense.
It was shocking that she didn’t? Really, I thought it was perfectly consistent to what was built up of her character so far.
Her emotions are…incomplete, to say the least from my understanding. That’s why she said her father finds that she lacks “common sense”. Not as an insult, but that might have been an accurate to put it. She can taste things, find them sweet or particularly tasty, indulge herself with various pleasures and other positive emotions, like the wanting to pet cute things or to please her father.
What she lacks are the negatives; sadness, fear, remorse, contempt, possibly even pain. That’s why she would always say “If you get hungry, you’ll get sad.” She has heard of such human emotions as sadness, as possibly something unpleasent or discomforting, though her not having them makes her look for other means to associate herself with them. And the discomfort of hunger is what she believe to be the acclaimed human “sadness” she was told of.
That’s also why she is so air-headed about her reverse harem, and potential love interests. Love is a bit more complex of an emotion, that’s not completely something positive. Her only having positive makes her inhumanly pragmatic.
She has similar value as human, similar understanding of good and bad, desirable and not desirable, and has similar understanding of happiness, though possibly understanding to that of a grade-schooler. Aside from having the capacity to be indulged by what humans are commonly indulged by, I’m doubtful she’ll feel much at all if those things are taken from her.
Given all that, it’s not a contrast at all, between how she acts during the day to how she acts during the night. She simply acts in a manner that’s consistent with the situation she’s in and what she happened to be doing. There only seem to be one because she is consciously keeping what she do among friends and when fighting demon things separate.
woo, that smile she gave was creepy! And there were some really good suspenseful moments in the second half!
But…that’s about it. The fact that the thing I’m mostly looking forward to next week is the the relationship developments is not a good sign. This isn’t supposed to be that kind of show (shojo, I guess). I was really hoping for something more interesting in the sci-fi realm when I started and what they have just isn’t cutting it.
But I can’t say I hate it. I’ll still be watching it next week.
This episode of Blood C was amazing. The monster reminds me of those old school monsters that are pretty rare these days. So far, I’m liking this adaptation of the Blood franchise.
Let’s face it… We’re trying to come up with arguments that this doesn’t suck. But so far, it does. It needs to redeem itself fairly quickly. There are so many plot holes, its like comic swiss cheese and nothing makes any sense whatsoever. It’s been 3 episodes of the same unanswered questions told over aastonishingly silly backdrop. I’m not writing it off yet, but they could have done a better job with this….
When Saya delivers the finishing blow, she smiles in a sinister way which is way off her happy persona.
I know a lot of people are dropping this show already since this episode already repeats the same formula of episode one. I guess that they didn’t noticed the details very carefully and that something is very strange on that town.
The episode was better than the one last week, I think. There’s progress with the plot (Saya was able to actually TOUCH the dog… amazing development for the plot!) and the fight at the end seemed quite creepy, especially with Sayas part in it. There were also some mysterious lines that seem to be important but in the end nothing conclusive. So the series keeps hinting at a (hopefully good) twist, I’m fine with it but this episode (again) filled the time with stupid dialogues thanks to Saya and this doesn’t really make the waiting entertaining while the series keeps hinting at a development instead of really showing one.
But Nana Mizuki is a JPOP Idol.
Another crappy episode, and the bloodshed in the fight isnt gonna save it
If the next one is like this AGAIN Im dropping it, I dont enjoy seeing the same thing over and over
If this is considered an excellent episode to you, then an episode of Naruto must throw you off your seat.
What’s up with the trolls who still post in Blood-C threads after 3 episodes they apparently hated, just to dump on the show and point out how wrong it is for the blogger to like it? Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?
Anyway, this show gives me the creeps in a good way and I’m looking forward to what’s to come.
Seriously I don’t know what most people were expecting, I mean it’s a clamp series, and it hinted since the very first line of the first episode that this series would be a character study with the Blood franchise as backdrop for scenery. Having that in mind I have no complains, we even got great animated fight scenes, a dark and grin atmosphere and lovecraft styled monsters.
Most people are complaining about repetition and the slow way by wich the plot is moving, I can’t help to think that you people would be happier if lots of monsters atacked the town and all the characters would get weapons and fight. Meaning you would ratter get a Highschool of the Cthulhu. If that’s it then lose no time and drop it already, because I don’t think it’s gonna happen.
@xxxholic_wing:
Actually, I’m sure most of us have noticed that.. Blood-C’s not exactly the most subtle show when it comes to foreshadowing. Way back in episode one I knew something was off and that this was “too good to be true”.
It’s not merely a question of repetition, but a feeling that there’s very little new information being added per episode. If any less was added per episode I’d feel like I was watching Haruhi’s Endless Eight all over again.
But more than that, people clearly weren’t wanting a cheery highschool slice-of-life that’s a bit eerie. That’s all there is to it. Some of us will stick around hoping that eeriness will amount to something, but others aren’t as patient.
Ended up reading a book while watching the episode. This series may not be for me.
I agree that while I’m pretty sad for people dropping this show because of the apparent ~ repetition ~ (I for one am a sucker for slow paced, fleshed out character/development so I find it intriguing that this Blood anime is taking a new spin on that) I will admit that it is going a tad too slowly for my tastes. Whereas Mawaru Penguindrum relies on subtle symbolism I think Blood C relies on subtle detail/ setting; the fact that monsters appearing out of nowhere in a lake, on a mountain, in the forests, in a broken train- these small things are going to add up very soon (hopefully).
And yes it is confirmed that Blood C will get a movie so I’m hoping this will be enough to flesh out all the points before the movie takes it on into full time action but at the same time I want this series to be able to stand on its own and not just be a leg for the movie? So.
While I think that it’s a bit too pessimistic to drop this series now and claiming it’s bad without having seen the ending (which is clearly the most important point of this series), I’d also say that it’s far too optimistic to believe this series is good right now because everything this series does will make sense in the end thanks to an honestly great plottwist. That’s just wishful thinking. The revelation at the end can be great but the way it builds up to it simply isn’t entertaining for me. There isn’t much to love about this show if one only looks back to what has been done until now. It wasn’t really necessary to take three episodes for saying so little about the plot.
This is Extreemly boring, I cant watch anymore…and its only 11 episodes… oh and *they planned a movie* doesnt help, who the hell wants to wait another year and a half to see the full story, kinda like that harumi suzumiya shit back in the day, by the time the second season came around, people had just stopped giving a fuck at that point.
oh and to the people getting offended that someone dumps your favorite show: Its an opinion, you dont have to read it, in fact if you dont like a comment, you can just scroll down and ignore it…pretty ingenious isnt it? this thing called internet/computer/technology