You know how often action series like to set themselves at high schools? You know how often the bad guys just ignore the most perfect targets of high school students? Yeah. This show realized that too. Holy crap that was intense! This is horror! The pacing still was excellent and the portrayal of the cast as ordinary high school students is really paying off now!
I’d also like to direct you to this interview, of the director of Blood-C and the director of Blood+ (and who has been pretty much writing every installment of the franchise). That, combined with this episode took away all of my doubts for this series: this is gonna be awesome.
The interesting thing is that the Junichi Fujisaku fully intended this Saya to be different from the Saya of Blood+ and really intended this series to make use of its creative freedom. And I have to agree that this so far has been an awesome way to expand upon the Blood Franchise. Heck, the director was intentionally planning to make the series END, while still leaving open room for the movie which will be completely different, which is EXACTLY what I’ve been hoping!
As for why I didn’t mind this series in the beginning, even though I have given up on series who started with very bland characters. For one, the execution really helped: for me, Blood-C immediately had a really tight atmosphere, and used its flashbacks combined with its battles really well to build up a sense of urgency for the cast. It puts them in a context and made me interested in what this series would look like when it really fired off. Compare that to R-15 or Baka To Test to Shoukanjuu Ni, which were just slurs of bad acting and jokes that didn’t work, with nothing that really caught my attention.
All in all, I do not think that the characters in this series are badly acted or portrayed, like for example what happened with Uta Prince and Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel, which both did try to tell some overall story, but completely lost me on how completely stupid they were. Saya herself may not be smart, but this is on a different league compared to the stupidity of the shows mentioned above. The acting here is restrained, instead of characters trying to act all over the place in the hopes of catching attention. Those are the characters that I find to be the most obnoxious the most often.
Overall I like the way this show did its cross-overs. Interestingly, it’s not the only series to have done that this season, with Blade and all. The best cross-overs can really enhance both shows and add some new things and introspectives, while being excellent stories that are still watchable on their own, no matter whether we’re talking about in-universe cameos or alternative universes. That’s why I’m not a big a fan of the Votoms alternative movies: they felt rather random and didn’t seem to add much depth to the Votoms franchise and they weren’t really interesting to watch. Same for the Precure All-Stars movies: I found them to be rather boring and they didn’t really add anything significant to Heartcatch Precure.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
And that marks the hat trick of Awesome ratings. I suppose it was an awesome week for anime.
eeeeh NO! Iorogi is NOT another version of Kurogane! Its just the same seiyuu and they made fun of it! If you had read the Kobato manga you would now that!
I don’t want to sound rude, but it’s really irritating when you state stuff like it’s a fact, and in reality its just plain wrong.
Baka test and R-15 try be diferent every episode, this is serie is the same thing every week, random school and random battle, this is stupid in the sense is to repetitive and with don’t met to well the others characters, Uta prince a less with know well, Saya is boring, don’t have any carism. you just like be imparcial with Clamp
oh and of course DogWata is the same as holicWata because he owns a shop that fills wishes… ^^;;;
Your wish-reference to Kobato doesn’t make any sense, too, because the wish dind’t link to any other CLAMP-series, the wish wasn’t made in the holicshop.
As for the episode: why did Saya AGAIN wait until many people were slaughtered before doing something? I hope this isn’t just lazy writing.
But nonetheless i liked the second half of the episode, it was intense. (damn censoring)
Iorogi is not another version of Kurogane, not that I think- though they do have very similar personalities, but I think that’s just a CLAMP thing.
I think Watanuki is Watanuki, regardless, because think of it- Yuuko was the thing that tied the universes together with her existence. I don’t think there’s a parallel existence of Watanuki, especially after knowing WHAT he is (if you have read the manga you will understand that there is no copy of Watanuki because he in itself is a copy of someone’s existence, or rather shares that existence). I think what really made Blood C so worthwhile to me was that it seemed a lot like Casshern Sins- they both started off somewhat off track (seemingly) and took time to get where they wanted, but once they did, they rocketed off into a very stable series( alas, for Casshern Sins, the ending was really rushed). The atmosphere was excellent in this episode and after reading that interview, you can really tell that Junichi fully intended to mix that ‘boring, mundane usual life’ with something so unexpected to give the perfect result of horror. Now both are intermingling and it’s giving very powerful effects as shown in the past two episodes.
What I’m really glad is that you can go back through this series and catch on the really subtle moments and dialogue that what were once usually tasteless random things, are now essential ‘oh!’ moments where you realize there’s two (or more) things being said. I’m a huge fan of subtlety and I guess that’s why I’m such a passionate fan of this show, and I’m really glad they’re doing stuff like this.
With only four more episodes left, I have no doubts that there will be more than enough time to really get things juiced up and flowing, and enough story to crossover to the movie, as once again, intended. All I can say to the people who thoroughly expressed their distaste for this show and how ‘pointless’ it was is that, well, I told you so, and not many people bothered to listen.
Will never understand your bias for this, if I didnt know better I would think its a bee-train series LOL
I keep watching it for the gore only, skip all the pointless slice-of-boredom scenes, it gives me satisfaction seeing all those generic characters die one after another
And god damn, why censor the best part of the anime? “Oh heres an anime based around gore… Except were not showing you any”, yep, makes total sense
You may have your opinion just like any other person; however, I do not see the need to slander other anime in the process. Blood-C is no masterpiece to put up on a pillar.
Bakatest Ni is not a show for someone like you who is not a fan as it is a sequel and it actually does work in its own context. It is a comedy & thus the acting is very different than something like Blood-C. Each episode certainly looks & feels more different than Blood-C as well.
I do not dislike Blood-C but it is nowhere near as tight as you describe it.
Uta-pri is cheesy shoujou & knows it so it acts accordingly. Heck, it even tries to be silly to make it more interesting if you ask me! Every character in that is entertaining in their own way. It isn’t trying to be realistic or anything. Same with Twin Angel, it is silliness for the sake of silliness. The characters in Blood-C really don’t make themselves all that likeable. Also, you always talk about character development and there really is very little in this series aside from Saya more or less…
I do not see why you should drag other shows through the mud when they are aiming for something different than what you are comparing them to.
It’s so nice to read someone who gets Blood-C and doesn’t fall into the whining bandwagon (not that there’s any room left there). Thanks for your reviews psgels!
Ok so I am going to rant here, sorry about that….
***rant starts***
Did we watch the same episode…it was awesome? How is that so?
The only thing good about the show to date is the fighting and with the over the top censorship taking out the best bits it too is now a big fail. Truly I could almost like the show for its awesome creatures and fights but not this watered down milk.
They won’t show violence, they won’t show nudity, perhaps next they plan to show us a blank screen with bleeps over the voices. C’mon is this for real?! How can you watch this and get anything from it.
How can the main character just stand that with a vacant and blank face and watch her ‘friends’ get killed. It was so unreal and forced.
She’s been killing the damn things every night for weeks. She’s no blushing virgin monster slayer so why is she acting like one?
And the worst part of this is the clear direction its going to . The story does not take place in the real world but in some made up mind game.
So at the end can we now look forward to the tiresome and trite standby of ….wake up little one, it was all in your mind. Just a bad dream. No one was killed but we had fun messing with your head. Bah!
This is not a story it’s fluff and stuff pretending to have a story. They then dish out this fluff like it’s gold and they are the tightest misers on the planet. How much more mud is a viewer supposed to suck up? I have watched anime that tells a better story in the first 10 minutes that this one has told us in 9 full episodes.
I for one will give it a big miss from now on. There are many other shows that have a solid story and art.
****end of rant***
jzar… not getting anything from it… hmmm…
I hate how the general populace thinks we watch anime for violence and nudity, and losers like jzar are just fanning the flames.
The final blow to this series is what jzar said; the resolution of the plot has been pretty much predictable since episode 3 or 4, so all the so called build-up (uninteresting and mundane by the way) has no value. The only good at the beggining was the action, but even the animation of the fight scenes is now of the worst just from this year.
Nice by the way notintheface, calling people in the internet “losers”. Jzar DID talked about the plot but you decided to focus in just one part of his comment.
@Jzar:
I don’t know what you guys were expecting when you were watching this show, but it sounds like what you’re looking for is something similar to a pointless plotless show where people’s heads get ripped off and there are naked women around. Blood C is not just a gore show, and if anything, it is not its fault for the censors- I wish people would stop complaining about that and realize that’s a distribution problem. The channel itself decided to censor those scenes, not the show itself. So your complaints there aren’t really going anywhere.
Saya is not a human being. This is a shock to you, I know, but it’s been kind of shown with her reactions to her classmates more than anything in that she is stupid because she is so oblivious to the environment around her. That is why despite her resolve to protect people, people will inevitably end up getting killed, because she is brainwashed as a machine just to kill the Bairns, but has not comprehended why she must do it, or the value of human life. I agree that watching Saya stand there watching her classmates be mercilessly killed was as much of a disappointment as it was a shock (you think she would have learnt by now) but it only adds to the horror factor.
I don’t understand your ‘blushing virgin comment’, this is not Saya from Blood + or the Last Vampire. This is a completely different Saya. People need to stop having expectations that cross over from the sister series when really this is just a parallel spinoff and has (yet) nothing much to do with the other two series.
I’m sorry if you think this show is a disappointment, but you are the exact problem with the anime community- a reason why anime quality has continued to decline, because it just caters to these sorts of desires- mindless violence and such. Congratulations.
@Snowolf “This is a shock to you, I know, but it’s been kind of shown with her reactions to her classmates more than anything in that she is stupid because she is so oblivious to the environment around her.”
Look at what he said; he skips over all of those scenes. How people can say they skip over half the show AND say that there is no plot is beyond me, but there you have it.
THX to Psgels for pointing out that interview, BTW. I have been enjoying the series so far, and it was interesting to hear from the director on the subject.
Wow you are overrating this show way too much. At least your approach towards Hyouge Mono was more tolerable. It’s neither great nor godawful, but all your praises just sound totally delusional.
Mango: sorry, I did not mean to drag these through the mud. I merely tried to explain why I didn’t mind Saya’s character, while I did mind a lot of other shows with stupid characters. Taht part was meant to be entirely personal.
“Will never understand your bias for this, if I didnt know better I would think its a bee-train series LOL”
Ha ha ha. I’ve been thinking that myself, indeed, but there’s one major difference: with Bee-Train, their characterization always rocks in many subtle ways, while in Blood-C, the characterization is deliberately simple, leading to quite some different effects, but also a few problems here and there. The abovementioned lack of character-development being the biggest one for me.
jzar: like others have pointed out: the censorship was just TV-station policies. These problems won’t be there for the DVD-releases. If you want just to watch gore and nudity, go for Shigurui, Freezing, High School of the Dead or perhaps even Kemonozume (not that those shows are bad, of course, but they’re much more focused to delivering just that). With Blood-C, what struked me much more is the context in which it’s placed, where the entire setting is deliberately mundane. The atmosphere is very important in this series, so if thst didn’t work for you, I can understand why you’d be frustrated.
Also, in regards to the claims that Saya just waits for her classmates to be killed off, and how that isn’t realistic, I have two things:
– First of all, as Snowolf mentioned it has been very much hinted that Saya has a strange concept of the value of human lives, and doesn’t seem to understand that.
– Second of all: let me ask you, if you saw a random person in danger and you’d have the resources to help him/her out, prevent him/her from getting hurt or potential saving his/her life, would you do it? Or would you just stand motionlessly like everyone else around you? A significant percentage of people bevhaves like the latter. I’ve personally experienced this effect first-hand, and it is very un-settling.
Saya made a promised to the Elder Bairns to kill all the humans to protect their kinds. She’s now remembering bits by bits cause her dad’s influences and the food(drug) she been consuming are wearing off. So why the hell would she try to protect classmates?!
I’m speculating here but I assume it really isn’t in her nature to protect humans. Being a vampire, her instinct should tell her that their just food. Her only motivations on killing the elder bairns was the promise she made. One of her classmates said to her in the show, how was she be able to smile when two of their friends were currently missing.
This being a Clamp show, I’m reminded of Sakura from TRS, the other girl without memories. It wouldn’t surprise me if Sakura is Saya on this show. That the promise is related to getting her memories back. That explains dog Watanuki’s presence.
Could you please delete the part about Iorogi being another identity of Kurogane?
Interesting comments.
“—-I’m sorry if you think this show is a disappointment, but you are the exact problem with the anime community- a reason why anime quality has continued to decline, because it just caters to these sorts of desires- mindless violence and such. Congratulations. -snowolf”
My only expectations were to enjoy a good story from Clamp. Really, that’s it.
I didn’t make the choice to show gore or mindless violence but the anime has made it part of story they wrote. Since they don’t explain the violence it is mindless, i.e. no reason beyond kill the monsters that eat people. I much prefer a show that makes you think and draws you into it’s world because its so interesting.
Choosing to allow the big white out was very disruptive. The creators could have planned the edits better and or just cut those scenes. They could have then included the deleted scenes in the DVD. Many other shows have done this no problem.
I don’t know the other stories around Saya. Should I need that background to be able to enjoy it or find it lacking?
“With Blood-C, what struked me much more is the context in which it’s placed, where the entire setting is deliberately mundane. The atmosphere is very important in this series, so if thst didn’t work for you, I can understand why you’d be frustrated. –psgels”
I don’t mind the mundane bits, heck I even enjoyed the singing. I do agree it creates great contrasting atmosphere, which is why the censorship was so bothersome. I think this could have been done so much better, they held back too much for too long to really make the story flow.
I can see why you do like the mystery approach but with so few episodes it can so often then feel like a rushed ending, which I find a tad tiresome and formula.
I was really wanting this to be a great anime and I don’t think it works as presented. That for me is the real frustrating part…..waiting to understand what is going on in this world. I am just tired of that style of story telling.
Clamp has a certain reputation because it has made stories that are interesting and entertaining. I just don’t see how this one works as a stand alone story. I will know to expect less from clamp from now on.
“I don’t understand your ‘blushing virgin comment’, this is not Saya from Blood + or the Last Vampire. ”
I was referring only to the show itself. The anime has shown this girl killing the elder barin night after night. She has experience, she has been shown in every episode to be very much a veteran combat fighter— ‘She’s no blushing virgin monster slayer’ refers to this fact.
The story to date hasn’t really explained anything about why Saya does anything. Just extremely tiny hints, which I usually like just fine, but it they didn’t give out enough hints to allow me to understand. Thus her actions make no real sense.
A mystery is cool, I like figuring things out. Fighting unknown creatures for undefined reasons. Awesome, Great art even better, yet after 9 episodes I feel a bit cheated of story.
“Mango: sorry, I did not mean to drag these through the mud. I merely tried to explain why I didn’t mind Saya’s character, while I did mind a lot of other shows with stupid characters. Taht part was meant to be entirely personal.”
While apologizing and then still calling the characters stupid kind of negates the apology, as I said, it’s your opinion and your blog. I personally don’t really care for the characters in Blood-C while I enjoy others. To each his own. I just wish you’d learn to phrase things less harshly, but I don’t think many bloggers know how to do that…bleh, don’t mind me…
The un-edited episodes air on a different station 1 day after the niconico stream so if you wai a little bit instead of gobbling it up immediately you will get your unedited and not be able to complain about edits.
@Jzar:
Well, the entire REASON behind the show, or rather the main plot of it, is to see WHY these monsters are here, WHY they are eating humans and what this Covenant means. So I don’t really understand how you’re saying that a.) the violence is mindless when the violence is the mystery of the show, and is connected to the mystery of the plot, and b.) how this show isn’t making you think, because it’s making you think quite hard. Not on a level of Mawaru Penguindrum where there are a lot of hidden allusions and symbolisms, but enough to make you question who’s actually part of the facade here and who to trust. Heck, I’m not even sure if I can trust Watanuki- everything in this show is deceptive, from the setting to the ‘father’ of Saya.
Once again, that is not the show’s problem. That is the network’s problem. I agree that the censors are annoying but there’s nothing you can do about that unless you go and watch it streaming on the unedited channel, or buy the DVDs.
That’s fine if you think the story could be better- I’m sure every story has a weakness, and by no means is Blood C the best show I’ve ever seen, but I’m quite tired of hearing people complain about it for things that don’t really make sense or are just another way of saying “it’s too slow and since it’s not what i expected it must be bad”. No one said that Blood C would be a pure action based show, and ironically, it’s very character based and takes its time, so I don’t see how you find the episodes rushed at all- if anything, the first three episodes were really slow and repetitious (for a reason), but that’s your opinion so.
She has experience, she has been shown in every episode to be very much a veteran combat fighter (…) The story to date hasn’t really explained anything about why Saya does anything. Just extremely tiny hints, which I usually like just fine, but it they didn’t give out enough hints to allow me to understand. Thus her actions make no real sense.
But that’s the entire mystery! You’ll find out, that’s how it works. Once you come to the end, you’ll want to go back and see how it all fits in. Maybe I’m just accustomed to that sort of buildup- for example, in Fringe, it’s the exact same way. It’s obvious that Saya is being manipulated- now, for what, by what, we have no clue as of yet- but we are learning things slowly, and while that may be frustrating for some as they like their answers served on a plate and quickly, I think the pacing is great here. And Saya is NOT a veteran combat fighter- if she was, she wouldn’t get hurt, and she certainly wouldn’t allow other people to die. A veteran combat fighter not only understands the techniques of fighting but the price of a life, and Saya more than anything is just a teenage girl, who is forced to fight these things without understanding why or what she’s exactly supposed to do. She’s going to be confused, in shock, and faulted. She’s not a robotic machine, but she has been raised like one in many aspects- reasons why her relationships with the other classmates are so awkward because she just doesn’t know how to connect with society.
The biggest complaint I have with this show is the lack of character fleshing for the other characters, but with a 12 episode show it’s not too shabby, I’ve seen worse stuff. But yeah, I admit, that definitely could have been improved on, with all those school scenes before episode 6.
As usual I like the mystery elements of this show the big twist in the episode is that mysterious room and talk of experiments and well the wish being both crucial and out of reach in a way uptil now
what I loved of this episode is the surprise attack but then it cut off which got me irked but that was very realistic to be in a situation like that is quite scary and saya is the only one who realizes what is happening.
but bad points: saya acts silly at times too silly.
secondly: the town seems too quiet even after numerous disappearances which is way too odd.
I don’t mind subtle and enigmatic but this series needs better execution
and yeah the interview explained a lot but in my opinion I think 12 eps can have more and still have subtlety.
I think the action is well and also the elusiveness of characters is to a point good.
Why the hell are
loserspeople still watching this show 8 episodes in when all they can say about it is that they hate pretty much everything it does?@ furukimono
stop calling people losers 😛 Listen some people are fans of the blood franchise so they continue watching it. Others have dropped it.
I am in the middle ground. I like some aspects of the show but hate others.
I see you are liking the show which is good.
there’s nothing wrong with disliking and/or liking it if people give their reasons 🙂
I love comment 17 in this list that makes sense cool thinking
but yes I don’t get the hint much of how she values human life (probably I missed something somewhere)
I think that saya’s character is in conflict with her movie self which was somewhat apathetic to human life but this is where then saya is betraying herself by acting so kind and sweet but really the classmates getting killed and she being static was kinda stupid
because a) saya’s dad and she were kinda prepared for it and b) saya after fighting them for so long did not act in the slightest ready she did the same mistake before and so I expected her a bit different this time it’s ok people are dying but saya’s lapses in concentration is not working out. It’s even something apathetic movie saya tried to dodge.
@Obsidian
Apparently you failed to get my point. I didn’t call people losers because they dislike the show, but because they’re wasting(=losing) their time and energy watching something they clearly don’t enjoy just so they can go around and bitch about it. Not what I’d call productive behavior.
What’s the point of the censorship?
@RollingCamel
Um…censor? Really I don’t see more to that and if ir irks you (it irks me) just wait for clean releases, it is not the story’s fault (This goes for everyone listing censor as it’s a storykiller)
I like blood-C and it’s concept but was pretty bored by te first 3 or so episodes but still I’m sticking with it because of the potential that is showing and my faith in CLAMP.
I don’t really understand why people who hated come and rant in Psgels page about how bad it is. He loves it so? Bias is really impossible to supress and it makes us state things as a fact because they are a fact for us. We just do not think alike.
CLAMP, someday you’ll cause another cold war with your stories, they polarize people.
I think, the pacing was chosen badly as creating the contrast between everyday mundanity and supernatural became too much of a focus on the mundanity in the early episodes letting it show only one half of the series with the other half seeming rather banal (the hints in the beginning were rather vague and therefore useless for someone watching it for the first time). But the actual structure of this series is having a story but one being told “out of order” so to speak and I’d like the building-up more if it’d have involved more of a gradual revelation, this series is very slow in that regard to reveal parts of its story to the viewer. Having a story that you completely understand only after having you seen everything is fine but I would like Blood-C to be more engaging with its story instead of trying so forceful to keep the viewer from already getting the story at this point.
Right now I wouldn’t like to call anything in this series pointless since it’s one of these series that depends completely on the final big revelation but I do worry whether this series will be able to do all the explaining that is necessary to make nothing this far pointless.
@ furukimono
ok, I did misunderstand you a bit 🙂 but as I said some of the ppl who are fans of the Blood franchise are criticizing which is a given to any franchise but yeah if they had not seen blood before and don’t like it at all and not even the concept of the series then they shouldn’t watch it.
But some criticisms are valid but personally I have mixed feelings about this show having seen its predecessors. I like remixes and retellings but this one has both extremely good points and bad points.
Well I was going to jump in here to bash the show but it seems that everyone got here before me.
“Compare that to R-15 or Baka To Test to Shoukanjuu Ni, which were just slurs of bad acting and jokes that didn’t work, with nothing that really caught my attention.”
Yep, Blood-c is a far better comedy that those two.
(Tokizane sees Saya Covered in blood beside monster chopped in half)
Tokizane: “Are you badly injured?”
Saya:”I will not let anyone else die!”
(Said after five people died right in front of her and she did nothing)
At this point the shows a joke.
Well, the dialogue certainly has its flaws creating these unintentionally funny situations ^^ …
And Saya’s character doesn’t help either, no matter how much sense it makes within the setting to let her behave like that. When she’s too “inhuman” to bother about stuff like logic or common sense, it still doesn’t change the fact that it makes her silly from a human perspective, there are certainly better ways to portray an inhuman character without deciding that “inhuman” is portrayed best by Saya doing or saying things that a normal human would consider irrational or stupid. She also doesn’t do much to progress the story besides depending upon her flashbacks to explain everything to her and the dog giving her the information via tirelessly asking her the relevant questions. And slaughtering Elder Bairns constantly isn’t really the way to go as far as saving the day is concerned since Saya obviously can’t protect everyone (she also doesn’t really try to save everyone because she is just too “inhuman” to understand that concept) and the town-population surely can’t increase with such a death-ratio. But right now it doesn’t seem like Saya is thinking about changing the situation, she still sticks to her known principles despite beginning to have suspicions about the situation. She will probably become more active only once even she has understood what is going on and at that point we’re probably watching the last episode of the series. Well, at least it should give the finale a sense of tragedy when Saya realizes that she should’ve acted much sooner.
that singing ugh
and LOL@ the fanboys trying to defend their precious cartoon show and calling people “Losers” hahah!