Blood-C

Peaceful schoolgirl by day, fearsome monster slayer by night, Saya Kisaragi is leading a split life. Equipped with a ceremonial sword given to her by her father for sacred tasks, she vanquishes every monster who dares threaten her quiet little village. But all too soon, Saya's reality and everything she believes to be true is tested, when she overhears the monsters speak of a broken covenant—something she knows nothing about. And then, unexpectedly, a strange dog appears; it asks her to whom she promised to protect the village, curious as to what would happen if she were to break that promise. Tormented by unexplainable visions and her world unraveling around her, we travel with Saya through her struggle to find a way to the truth in a village where nothing is as it seems.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kisaragi, Saya Main

Mizuki, Nana Japanese

Nanahara, Fumito Supporting

Nojima, Kenji Japanese

Dog Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun Japanese

Motoe, Nene Supporting

Fukuen, Misato Japanese

Tokizane, Shinichirou Supporting

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa Japanese

Motoe, Nono Supporting

Fukuen, Misato Japanese

Tomofusa, Itsuki Supporting

Abe, Atsushi Japanese

Amino, Yuuka Supporting

Asano, Masumi Japanese

Kisaragi, Tadayoshi Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Tsutsutori, Kanako Supporting

Miyagawa, Miho Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Maruyama, Hiroo Producer

Furukawa, Shin Producer

Uryuu, Kyouko Producer

Reviews

Sep 6, 2011

-redux

Recommended

Let's be honest, Blood C is probably one of the most controversial animes I have seen in all of my time of watching anime. Never have I seen so much bitterness and hatred against a show. Well, let me be the first to present the opposite of the mainstream opinions: I loved Blood C (gasp!) Before you turn away however, please let me explain.

Blood C is literally a creative liberation from the two sister series in the Blood franchise; the only connection (so far) is that they all focus on a girl named Saya who wields a sword and fights monsters. Blood + had 50 ... episodes, and thus had plenty of arcs and time to develop its very large cast- Blood C, on the other hand, at the most, has 12 episodes, and thus uses most of its time to build up atmosphere. Which it excels at, at the expense of fleshing out the secondary characters. Before you rain on my parade, there are a few things to note; Blood C is part of the Blood franchise, which includes the movie Blood; The Last Vampire, and Blood +, the sequel anime show. Please, please stick this in your head now: Blood C has absolutely nothing to do with these two installments. It is a mere sister series with the shadow of the concept. Thus treat this as an entirely new show.

That said, I will put it out forward: Blood C is either a show you are going to loathe or that you are going to love. Most people hated it, some people liked it. I loved it. It is not for people who are looking for interesting fabulous fleshed out characters (this is coming from someone who is the biggest sucker for character development). This is a show that focuses on atmosphere and building it. It is a horror series. It is not an action series, though the action scenes in this show are some of the most creative, well animated ones I have seen.

It is literally horror at its best- I assure you that if you're a sucker for the type of horror which is more psychological than just pop-outs, this show is for you. If you hate slow build ups, move on. The first half of Blood C focuses on instilling the surreal setting and life of the show into your head. I won’t deny it; the first four episodes or so are pretty dull because they are monotonous; Saya sings a song to school, chatters with her buddies, and fights a monster. What you don’t realize is that this is all- and I mean all of it, pay attention to all the details- for a very good reason, which comes later. This is the part where I admit that there are some flaws; this could have been easily condensed into three episodes max. It still does a good job of developing a very eerie aura though; you have the constant feeling that something is very wrong about this town, and yet you can’t place your finger on it. There's an eerie tension consistently kept despite the seemingly innocuous events; a tension that's about to snap and yet you don't know when or how.

So whereas the first half spends its time just fleshing the atmosphere and setting of the world Saya lives in, and the latter half spends the next half tearing that world down. Allow me to present you the latter half of Blood C, which absolutely shines like no other. Halfway throughout this show, you are literally smacked in the face. Repeatedly. In each episode. This is the real deal- you are given cruel reality of the situation; and goddamn, it is cruel. It is merciless. I am not just talking about the gore, which mind you, is on par of that of Narutaru, which has some of the most disturbing scenes I have seen yet. The gore is of course, censored (not the show’s fault, the network’s fault, something which will be fixed when the DVDs come out and dear lord then you can let your stomach churn), but that’s not what makes it horrifying; it’s the way the gore happens, the way no one is spared in this show, the sounds which are so gruesomely realistic. This is not a show for the faint of heart. But the gore is only the sprinkles on the actual cake. The cake is the series of red herrings and plot twists that wrench your heart. You will witness in horror, how everything in front of you, how every trope known to anime kind, is smashed and ripped apart. If anything, Blood C excels at building atmosphere and horror. The fight scenes are as fabulous as they are gruesome. But yes. Blood C's purpose and key to the show is how it builds up the plot layer by layer, paranoia by paranoia. The villains are completely ruthless, and there is no battle fought without someone dying.

The characters are where things get messy. There’ s two very good reasons why none of the cast except Saya is fleshed out. Nevertheless, they are pretty stereotypical, and are very CLAMPish. But once again; you don’t really end up bothering about them for good reasons. Saya herself is very likeable; you come to empathize with her situation if anything and while you might get irritated with her….inepititude, at times, you have to understand what she’s going through. In the end, this show is about her for reasons you have yet to find out, so don’t be quick to judge!

Which brings me to the last, and most important aspect of an anime; how it ends. I have two huge problems with anime, as someone who has seen more than enough for a lifetime.

1.) The ending is rushed. You have no idea how frustrating this is. This is not a tv drama in which a season’s ending can be bad and can pick itself off the ground later on. This is a conclusion and nothing is more irritating and annoying than loving a show only to see the worst plot holes and resolution possible.

2.) Animes that build up to a movie, or huge series, tend to be terrible. Let’s look at two prime examples; .hack//ROOTS was the buildup to the game series, .hack//G.U Trilogy, and it just failed as an individual series because it only left us with very little to deal with and just a fancy commercial to buy the games. Higashi no Eden had wonderful, wonderful potential but got axed by the fact that it was nothing but a mere leg for the two movies to follow. As individual series, these tend to absolutely collapse.

Blood C completely surpasses these two typical faults and succeeds. It paces itself extremely, extremely well; the finale was fantastic and does not leave any open ties that cannot be answered by a movie sequel. The buildup to the finale itself is wonderful, for the most part; while the first part lags a little, it’s not a huge problem and hell, once you’re in, you are stuck in for the biggest ride. Not only does it separate itself as an individual show, and actually solve most of the problems raised in the show and leave a resolution (or many) for it to be complete on its own, but it manages to still raise questions and leave some unanswered so that it can tie itself over with the movie. You are left with a feeling of excitement and resolution; you want to go back and rewatch the series again, but at the same time you’re excited that some big questions are going to be answered in the movie installment.

What's even greater is the subtlety- you can go back through this series and catch on the really tiny 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.


Basically, Blood C was fabulous for me. It had the layered buildup of Shiki, the horror of Ghost Hound and themes of Jigoku Shoujo, and gore of Shadow Star. If you like horror, and well paced ones, then totally go for this. It’s not for everyone though, and it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. It takes huge, huge risks, risks that most series would not go for, but it manages to complete the leap and land with a very solid and steady landing. I personally, I believe Blood C is a remarkable show that pushes the boundaries of the Blood franchise and creates horror by clashing it with the mundane, ordinary life- only making it more frightening than ever.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jul 8, 2011

Ghostalker

Mixed Feelings

Note: This is not really a review, but as what the title suggest, it is an "episode impressions". Will edit this into a "full review" once the series has ended.

Story: Not much to say here other than what most people probably already knew, that this series has the same concept only in different variation to that already found in the other Blood franchises which started from "Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)" and followed by "Blood+ (2005)." As an introductory episode, it left me some very good impressions that this anime is something I’ll definitely be looking forward watching week-after-week.

For the actual episode itself, it begins ... with some interesting discussion about the definition of a person then progress to the introduction of the main character and the people around her. All in all the events was pretty standard for first episodes. The highlight of the episode is in the later part concerning Saya's duty which immediately shifted the mood from lighthearted to serious and the fight in the end which have some good slasher moments.

Animation: The color tones used are a bit dull but it fits the overall theme of the series which is more on the darker side. Character designs is very CLAMP; the facial features in distant camera shots appears to be detailed so it is something noteworthy for me. The environmental detail is a bit lacking and doesn’t appear HD quality to me but it was offset by the grainy details that are observable in the animation. I like how the battle is animated in the final minutes, very well choreograph although the enemy lacks detail, it just look like a big piece of moving muddy rock, it could be better.

Sound: OP and ED themes are good but not something I’ll be listening every time I watch an episode of Blood-C. The soundtracks are however great specially in the fight scene; It composed mostly of tracks that sounds strangely familiar which I may have already heard from somewhere else, but the overall impact are great. The voice behind Saya did a very good job giving life to her character and charm (I like the scene of Saya singing, and I felt…Oh! It’s a wonderful voice), I could also recognize some very familiar voices which I’m excited to hear more as the series progresses.

Character: I’ll talk about Saya, so far I like how she transforms from a carefree individual into someone so BADASS (with that fiery-looking eyes); I’m a person with a natural inclination for female characters with strong personalities, granted she didn’t look like someone fitting that description from the outside, but after witnessing how calm she was battling her opponent, I’m convince that she has it inside her. As for the other characters, not much details are revealed so I it is something I will be looking forward next episodes.

Enjoyment: The episode did well and I felt that it did what any first episode should do —- give a good impression to its viewers that will make them look forward watching the series, obviously I have a very good enjoyment on it. Initially, I felt the character design is out of place but after quickly remembering that it is done by CLAMP, my impression quickly rebounded positively. I have watched this episode 3x already before this writing.

Updates:

ep.6: Massive while-lines across the screen, it somehow kills the enjoyment, had to watch the BD versions once it's out.

ep.7: Story is getting more interesting in exchange, the animation quality is dropping considerably compared to the first few episodes

ep.11: Am I suppose to laugh at these episode? It’s amusing and unbelievably funny, I was laughing from disbelief on all the revelations this episode, the way it’s executed, and the character reactions.

ep.12: I say the ending redeems the series for me as it reminded me again that feelings I have from watching episode 1 and other Blood franchises, the very feelings why I watched Blood-C in the first place.

I’m still gathering my thoughts on how to rate this series as it is shown to me, I like to write a proper final impression for Blood-C, it’s a wild ride, but it’s a worthy wild ride.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 18, 2011

artist-retired

Not Recommended

Soooooo, how do you like your revival of a popular franchise? Ruined or half assed, story wise?

STORY: Years ago there was an unfortunate case of assault, the victim? Blood the last vampire, a popular movie that spawned an even more popular over-hyped anime series: Blood+, the perpetrator had no motives, it was a cruel and brutal assault in form of a live action, and ever since, Blood has been hospitalized in a vegetative state and was never heard from again... Until...
In the year 2011 however, a famous group of manga creators, CLAMP, visited Blood in the hospital in order to try to revive it from ... it's vegetative state, in form of a new Blood, Blood Clamp AKA Blood C AKA Blood Crap AKA Blood Crazy...

That's a true story, I swear!

Anyway, I'll cut to the chase and out right say what we all said: What the fuck happened Clamp? I know we can't trust you girls to make a decent ending for your manga anymore (Tsubasa for example), but now we can't trust you girls to do a remake of popular franchises as well? To be fair, lots of people fuck up remakes, but a lot was expected.
Alright I'm riding Clamp too hard here, it's not all their fault for this failure (I'm being as lenient as possible here), Production I.G. shares some of the blame as well (The series creator is supposedly overlooking the creation of Blood C, but apparently he's letting Clamp do what they want and not paying attention to what's going on).

Where do I begin with whats wrong with Blood C, the beginning? The beginning? Or the ending? A beginning that drags on for way too long, which isn't a problem... for a 20 something or longer episode anime, Blood C, however, is 12 episodes long (And with a movie coming up too? They'r clearly over estimating their new series)! With 5 episodes of some of the worse character pondering I've seen in a while, in a supposedly action anime fulled with irritatingly dull cliches and Clamp cliches... Which all of it is even more frustrating towards the end with quite a dumb plot twist.

While Blood C isn't afraid to waste your time (Some of the characters act like they're self aware of the nothingness that occurs at one point, I guess that's clever, but it ends up more obnoxious than clever and then there are scenes where a voice keeps talking about things don't stay the same forever, they make you want to tone out all the nonsense... Nonsense that is relevant however), it's also not not afraid to push irritating characters, as a couple of twins with no point of being there at all do all the annoying things you expect them to (I'm hoping that I'm not alone in wanting the twins dead... LOL), an emotionless father, and even the main character, Saya, herself! A clumsy school girl with stupid hair (The animators are either lazy or she uses countless cans of hairspray to keep her hair in place outside of the cool looking action scenes) that has a terrible personally swap between serious sword wielding warrior and cute clueless school girl.

But while Blood C isn't wasting your time (with character pondering), it's showing you spectacular and very bloody (The one it gets perfectly right most of the time) battles. Every episode ends with a fight between Saya and a creature called a Elder Bairn or whatever, often ending up with a bloody shower. These fight scenes are the meat experience of Blood C, they're not battles that you can only experience in Blood C, but they are well animated and well choreographed (Especially the first episode).
However, the blood and gore eventually goes over the top, like Fist of the north star or Devilman over the top. But it's so fucking crazy that it's really comical in a way, especially the final episode, it's one of those so bad it's actually kinda good episodes that makes you wish the anime was like this from the start.

That's the real shame about Blood C, instead of production values, battles, blood, and gore, more time should had went towards crafting a better story or at least one that doesn't feel like a waste of time, especially for the fans of the Blood anime that came before it.
While I am not a big fan of Blood+ or Blood the last vampire, there really should have been at least a little more for the fans that watched those series first. Of course that's a good thing that they aren't relaying on using the same elements from those series, apart from Saya, the creature she fights, and a of course the sword she has to use in order to kill the creatures, but at least throw the old fans a bone once in a while, most of the time it feels like Saya is conserving with absolute strangers, at least have one other recognizable character or element that veteran fans can latch on to.

And there is one more thing to be said, the later episodes drop a huge ball. Let's just say Clamp has gotten extremely lazy these days and has decided to bring up a plot device from one of their previous series to advance the plot. So when I said that there's nothing for Blood fans to enjoy and be familiar with, there's actually plenty for fans of a recent Clamp title... It's actually kinda infuriating that Clamp would actually do something as lazy as that.

The story ends up becoming a retarded fan fiction in a way... But never fully embraces it though, it just overlooks it in a way that it kinda has no point in being mentioned at all.
Another thing that's pretty lazy is the character development and story twists. They are so uninspired that you'd think the creators are making it up as they go along. And the character developments... Let's just say that everything's so half-assed that CLAMP was actually making it proceed in that way just to waste even more of your time...

ANIMATION: Like I said before the fights are well animated (Most of the time), and fans of clamp are treated to clamps distinctive character designs (Skinny, skinny teenagers with long limbs and perfect bodies), But a lot of the characters designs look bland, and Saya's new design looks just plain stupid.

SOUND: Another thing that actually had effort put in it, the music. It's all great, the fight scenes have great background music to go with them, the voice acting is good, but there's one thing you may want to rip your ears out, Saya has a habit of singing, for a long time, about the most pointless stuff. It's hilarious at first, but later you'd wonder, "Is that really important for us to suffer through her American Idol try out practice?"
But to kinda make up for it, both the opening and ending theme music are great (Leave it to the professionals to do the singing Saya), the opening theme song, Spiral by DUSTZ, will be the one good thing you'll look forward to each episode, and the ending, while not as good, is a great way to end each episode.
At least this is one thing that Production I.G. cared about.

OVERALL:
The Good:
+ Cool battles, when they're animated well.
+ Great music and opening theme song.

Mixed:
+/- Good animation, and Clamp character designs/ Clamp characters designs, Saya's redesign.
+/- The last episode/ the last and second to last episode.

The Bad:
- Terrible character pondering, such as Saya and her terrible singing.
- Isn't afraid to waste your time with absolute pointlessness.
- Annoying characters, especially the twins.
- Nothing for even fans of the original movie or Blood+ to keep their interest.
- Clamp relaying on one of their previous series for story development.
- No point of the character developments of anyone not named Saya
- Ludicrously violent scenes to the point of being cartoonish and comical.

Despite what I said, I'm actually looking forward to the sequel movie because if the anime continues to go the way the last episode did, at least Blood C will become Blood Cult hit.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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