Strike the Blood

Kojou Akatsuki's days as an ordinary high school student in the Demon District of Itogami Island come to an abrupt end after a fateful encounter leaves him with the remarkable abilities of a vampire.

It isn't long before he is thrust into the center of attention when it is discovered that he is the fourth primogenitor, an immensely powerful vampire whom most consider to be merely a legend. Fearing Kojou's destructive potential, the Lion King Organization sends in an apprentice sword-shaman, Yukina Himeragi, to monitor, and should he become a threat, kill the boy deemed the world's most powerful vampire. Forced together by circumstance, the two form an unlikely alliance as Kojou comes to terms with his abilities and they both struggle to protect the city from various emerging chaotic forces.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Himeragi, Yukina Main

Taneda, Risa Japanese

Akatsuki, Kojou Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Aiba, Asagi Supporting

Seto, Asami Japanese

Rihavein, La Folia Supporting

Oonishi, Saori Japanese

Kirasaka, Sayaka Supporting

Hayama, Ikumi Japanese

Minamiya, Natsuki Supporting

Kanemoto, Hisako Japanese

Kanase, Kanon Supporting

Itou, Kanae Japanese

Astarte Supporting

Iguchi, Yuka Japanese

Akatsuki, Nagisa Supporting

Hidaka, Rina Japanese

Yaze, Motoki Supporting

Oosaka, Ryouta Japanese

Nakayama, Nobuhiro Producer

Kananiwa, Kozue Producer

Fukuda, Jun Producer

Nakagawa, Jirou Producer

Reviews

May 7, 2014

afterwards

Recommended

The tags "Action, Ecchi, Fantasy, School, Shounen, Vampire, Supernatural" actually summarize the show pretty well, with the exception of "school" perhaps. If you want to watch a normal guy who stumbles upon ridiculous powers and then proceeds to save the world and get a lot of female attention; then here you go.

One of the things to appreciate here is that what you see is what you get. It's a straightforward anime you can get some escapism/ good sequences out of (be them of the girls or of the action). I also think that the first few episodes are quite representative of the series as ... a whole; so your interest should be fairly easy to gauge early on.

-Story
7/10 - as expected, the story isn't outstanding, it simply does its job here. Strike the blood's strong point is not going to be its plot. The story works in arcs, with new villains/ girls being added or focused on in each arc. There are some overall trends and developments but its nothing special. I'd call it overly simplistic - however actually for a show that I watched to just distract myself for an hour or so I found this to be a positive. I'm not sure if some of the satire or irony that came across was intended, but if it was then I tip my hat to the writers.
The story does work for the genre(s) in mind here - pretty much the plot will be bent to better accommodate scenes where Kojou can be a hero or save the girl or can get into a better fight. But that's fine because that's why people will watch the show in the first place.
Without wanting to give too much away, I think certain plot devices were quite clever. Overall I think the plot serves its function quite well, but because the plot is obviously going to be side-lined in such a series there is a limit to how good it is.

-Art
9/10 - Probably the anime's best point is the art. The characters designs, as well as the background and effects for fights, etc. are well done and ultimately are very effective. The art style is certainly easy on the eyes, and the sequences often fit the anime well.
I can't really think of many negatives here - perhaps some money was saved on certain designs but in my opinion the art here almost makes the show.

-Sound
7/10 - Like most modern animes, there really isn't much to comment on here as its just simply decent. I thought the OPs were fine, as were the endings. They are not something I'd personally want to listen to outside of the show, alongside the background music, but they contribute pretty much as you'd expect them too.
The voice acting here is good as far as I can tell. Kojou isn't meant to be super charismatic so it fits the plot, but its nothing to write home about.

-Character
6/10 - The characters are ok, given that the pretense of the show is to break character models and focus on action and harem.
Kojou is (axiomatically) fairly likable and for most people easy to relate to. This is no surprise given the escapism theme (/self insert theme). I don't particularly like Kojou, and I found him a bit overly simplistic. But the fact that I have an opinion is evidence for him actually having a character (which is more than can be said for certain animes in similar genres).
The girls are all quite distinct and well developed, apart from their at times inexplicable devotion to Kojou (but then again, harem). I think Himeragi Yukina probably has the best developed character, and she actually has some development/ perspective added, although this is also stunted because of the harem nature of the show.
The villains are, in general, awful and almost completely one dimensional. But it doesn't really matter because most of the time they are on screen they just get destroyed by Kojou.

Tl;dr - it's harem, don't expect interesting or insightful characters. For a harem, the characters are ok.

-Enjoyment
8/10 - Although the show has its flaws, its quite good fun to watch, and I found it a nice contrast to studying. Because of the art and arc-type plot, it's something that could quite easily be re-watched or returned to, which is a positive IMO.
I would say that your enjoyment of this anime is very dependent on how much you enjoy action and/or harem and/or supernatural genres. The Kojou/Yukina relationship is ok to follow, but this is not a romance anime, and it's something I'd recommend watching when you want to have a break rather than something to stimulate your brain.

-Overall
7/10. Again, the art, the escapism and the straightforward nature of this show are its strong points. It's generic, but I'd say it beats most other shows in similar genres. Why? There's nothing that groundbreaking, just a few subtle nuances that go unnoticed individually but actually contribute to making this show quite enjoyable. Unfortunately the show does fall flat on its face at times for taking itself too seriously and shoe-horning itself into arcing episodes, where it probably had potential to be a better overall show if it avoided this. As is, it remains something lighthearted that most young guys will probably enjoy once or twice (if you enjoy the first few episodes, you'll enjoy the rest. Despite the flaws, there is something to be appreciated here.)

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 28, 2014

Stark700

Mixed Feelings

It’s not hard to figure out what Strike the Blood might be about at first even if you’re coming into the show completely fresh. The key words are ‘blood’ and ‘strike’ where the latter is when our main male protagonist Akatsuki Kojo does his mojo to satisfy his blood lust. There’s hardly anything too original related this series. After all, we get the typical mysterious guy meets young girl in a city on an ordinary day. Then, a not-so-normal event happens and the duo gets caught in events they didn’t think could get both involved. But if we add everything together, Strike the Blood comes ... together as a little more than a show to induce nosebleeds.

Strike the Blood is an animated series based off the light novel of the same name written by Gakuto Mikumo. This is not his first work as he has previously been involved with series such as Dantalian no Shoka, the Zettai Karen novels, and Asura Cryin’. What he brings into Strike the Blood has a little taste of all of those elements in his previous works but transform it into a meat package – a series with a main protagonist that feeds off of others to control its users’ familiars.

An anime series involving with vampires. That’s hardly original in any sense either with its generics. There’s plenty of anime that followed similar ideas such as Vampire Knight, Karin, or Blood+. Strike the Blood takes our main male protagonist Akatsuki Kojo and makes him into a big name in a big city. For instance, most people who knows about his origins and status as the Fourth Progenitor, the world’s strongest vampire. As the title strikes both a bit of fear and respect, it’s no surprise that he is a man to take notice of especially for his observer, Yukina Himeragi. For the duo, their relationship begins kicks off with a rocky start loaded with misunderstandings, confusion, and animosity. Given the fact that Yukina’s job is to observe Akatsuki makes their relationship seem even more awkward as the former would be labeled as a stalker in some ways. At the same time, Akatsuki becomes annoyed by her presence. It’s also not exactly the best combination with Yukina’s anti-progenitor spear always on hand. It seems to serve as a warning sign should Akatsuki goes out of control. Over time however, the duo gets along better with Yukina even developing a seemingly crush on the young man. Outcomes like this should not be taken as a surprise however. While the duo lacks strong chemistry, they share a similar feeling towards those they encounter and the city they live in. It’s through their willingness to help others that ties them together to make the duo stronger.

Based off a light novel series, the series divides itself in arc format with a certain set of episodes focusing on a specific event/character/conflict that requires a solution. In total, there are 7 arcs covering the light novels. More importantly is the fact that each arc focuses on a different character with a different otherworldly conflict. It brings out the diversity that the audience can get accustomed to. There’s all types of otherworldly beings that the show focuses on whether it’s vampires, werewolves, angels, or witches. Along with that, each arc also progresses Akatsuki’s relationships with others as he gets stronger. Unfortunately, his lack of characterization doesn’t shine with his past being left in unexplored territories. This falls under a similar case for Yukina as the audience hardly knows about them beyond their purpose on the surface. Other characters of course also plays their roles in each arc, some more than others with a particular few getting veritable moments. But because each arc changes its tone, audience should be ready to adjust themselves to match the mood with its themes. There might also be some sort of hidden moral that progresses the story although most of it is obscure and seems cliched . Unfortunately for Akatsuki, there’s little focus on his goals or morals as the show itself doesn’t give an impression as if it he had one at all in the first place. With the way he is dressed. Akatsuki is more of the lone wolf and he only gets into situations because of his status.

While the word ‘diverse’ can be used to describe a favorable stance to adapt an anime’s character cast, there is also generics that makes up the other half. The majority of the main characters are female that falls under some sort of characteristic that comes off as generic as it can be. We have Yukina, the girl that observes Kojo 24/7 as her role. There’s the typical classmate Asagi Aiba with an obvious crush on Kojo. Nagisa Akatsuki plays the role of the little sister with her chatty mouth but lack of understanding of the supernatural world. Then, there’s the tsundere Sayaka Kirasaka whom often says things that means the opposite way around. Each arc also features a prominent character that is the focus of its story. Most of them are always female and shouldn’t be a surprise with a show like Strike the Blood. It’s predictable with most endings of each arc with Akatsuki doing the striking and blood spilled for authentic reasons.

The action of Strike the Blood can be described as thrilling but not anything that blows itself out of the water. If I had to describe it, it would fall under the line of dangerous but also hectic. Each arc features a different conflict so the action tends to diverse itself a bit in terms of presentation. However, one key factor always strikes at heart with Akatsuki’s blood lust. The earlier stages plays it off as a necessity but later on ventures into a more erotic allurement. It shouldn’t be surprising at all with hints given already featuring its fan service moments. There’s the pantsu, honey trap, and misunderstandings all over the place that brings out Strike the Blood’s generics to its core. Surprisingly enough, the show omits the traditional onsen/beach episode. Perhaps it was too busy focusing on its conflicts in each arc to given our characters a vacation or it wanted to go beyond its setting. Who knows? What it’s known is the fact that Akatsuki always gets his fun (not the way he sees it though) in each and every single arc. Fun itself can also give the audience different impression. The show sometimes likes to make fun of itself with little gags. Even the organization Yukina belongs to is hard to take serious at first with a name like “Lion King”. We also can’t forget about some of the dialogues that comes out in the wrong way with most coming out as cheesy. Finally, there’s also bits of romance. Unfortunately, that territory is something Akatsuki seems to have the least interest in. Despite obvious advances, Akatsuki doesn’t seem to show actual interest in any of the girls that approaches him besides satisfying his blood lust. Every meal means he gets a little satisfaction but not in a romantic sense. If you’re looking for a developing romantic story, Strike the Blood is the wrong place to be. Akatsuki is just not a bachelor for his candidates.

Silver Link animated Strike the Blood. On a technical level, the style of the series fits well with its supernatural themes. The Demon District, Itogami City also gives off an impression of aspects with its advancing arts. Most otherworldly beings are depicted accurately with credibility. Unfortunately, some of the character designs lacks a bit with any unique features. The school uniforms looks generic and hardly stands out. Akatsuki’s design makes him look like a loner with his hood covering his head that viewers will feel less attached to. Other characters such as Nagisa Minamiya has appearances that contrasts their age. Supporting main characters are also hardly noticeable despite some of their status. On the other hand, the background art of its city gives an impression of a luxurious display with its aquatic-like attributes.

Soundtrack can come off as a mixed bag. On the surface, it is consistent to match its style. But at the same time, it can come off as just being there with nothing to focus directly on. The OP and ED songs offers a montage of the main characters as well as possible foreshadowing. With a show like Strike the Blood though, the arcs can be predictable already anyways. But for what’s worth, most of the characters’ voice acting is remarkable. The only sting is the dialogues themselves that comes off as cheesy and lacks distinguishing moments. However, I do give praise to their voice mannerism especially for Yukina (Risa Taneda). Even though she just began recently with animated voice acting, there’s promising potential for her with a role of a main character.

In the end, Strike the Blood is another typical series with nothing stellar that strikes hard at home. It has its harem vibes, the fan service, the gimmicky gags, and predictable arc conclusions. However, it does bring out a diverse cast of characters that offers attention. Not only that but Akatsuki isn’t your typical wimpy main lead. He often takes charge despite not like being part a conflict. If only the show focused on him more rather than adding a girl to his harem every arc would bring out much more potential. On the other hand, each arc does have potential with its diversity. While some of it is colored with gags, it does progress the story’s overall themes. It could take a bit of patience to get used to this show overall in the end but that’s how it is really.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 16, 2016

GodspeedK

Not Recommended

Sometimes you just want to turn off your mind and watch a typical ecchi harem anime. You don’t expect too much of it and just want enough fanservice to get you through your rough day. So when you start watching and see the number of episodes you think “Hmm 24 episodes, isn’t it usually 12? Well then this must have some kind of good plot to be this long.” Then you start it, finish it and wonder why the fuck this was made?!

Story 2/10
I want to say this is just a typical ecchi harem show with some action, but it isn’t. Aside from the large ... cast of girls to fit different fetishes and the plain main character that everyone falls for along with the occasional panty shot and the mc getting hit for walking in on them or doing something indecent which isn’t even their fault, it isn’t really like your typical ecchi harem show.
The plot of the show is well… there is no plot. It starts off with our bland OP protagonist who is one of the strongest beings in the world, so they have a little girl oversee him to see if he should be disposed of or not. Initially I thought the organization sending her had some underlying goal in mind, since there is no way they would send a 14(?) year old to handle one of the 4 strongest beings in the world with one of their strongest weapons, but yeah no they actually did that…
3 months prior to the show MC was just a normal guy, but got vampiric powers from the previous strongest vampire. They add a little mystery to that, by not telling us exactly what happened. But they never tell us anything about it because fuck you go read the light novel. In 24 episodes they tell you nothing about the only plot line in this show. The whole show is basically just some episodic arcs with one arc having an event from another arc that the show doesn’t cover so it ends with having some loose ends.
The story has a lot of supernatural beings in it, since the location of where the story takes place is a city full of supernatural creatures that have been “tamed” as in they have a collar, look like humans and the collar goes off when they transform and use magic, but the show never does anything with this.
Since it’s an ecchi, school harem show, you expect it to have that as the main vocal point. But while watching it, I didn’t really feel like that was the main focus of the story. I didn’t really feel like it was just trying to be an ecchi show with a stupid plot put into it. It had quite a few moments where it felt like it wanted to be taken seriously which made me question what they wanted to convey in this story. Did it try to convey that humans are the actual monsters instead of the supernatural creatures? Nope that was never mentioned like I said they didn’t really do anything with it. Well then does it try to show how monsters and humans can live together? Well they do live side by side, but the show doesn’t really make it 100% clear if everyone is aware of that. Even if they are tamed there are so many explosions in the city and shit happening that I wouldn’t know why anyone would want to live here. Well maybe it was about the mc’s friends accepting him as a supernatural creature. Although he mentions telling his friends and it’s frequently asked what is really happening there is always something happening just so he won’t have to tell them for the convenience of the plot. Actually not even convenience, since the story would probably work better if he just tells them. There really is no need to hide this especially for 24 episodes. Same thing for the romance in his harem. Every time there was some progression it’s immediately stopped by having something random happening. For example one of the characters say “I’ll explain what this kiss means on Saturday”. Saturday comes, now I’m stuck on this inhabited island and we’ll never talk about this plot line again. Aside from the fact that it’s stupid that this needs to be explained, it has some real flip the table moments for this. If it wasn’t already obvious for everyone in the beginning, the last episode already tells you who the mc will end up with.
Speaking of the last episode, well it just kind of ended. It was not a bad ending or anything it was just, well, there is more, but you need to read the source material.
The only thing I really enjoyed about the show were the ecchi moments and the occasional good comedy that made me chuckle.

Characters 3/10
Oh boy, well if you thought the story was bad, the characters are also quite bad. Not as bad as the story, but still pretty bad.
Kojou (mc): He is your typical nice guy, he says the typical nice things which instantly makes the girls uncontrollably wet, shaking their legs and drooling with lust because which girl wouldn’t if you tell her she looks good in that piece of clothing. Though seriously they all just fall for him for reasons I’ll list in a few moment. Like I previously mentioned he’s an op vampire, although he’s only op at the very last moment of every fight. It basically goes like this they fight the villain, Kojou is useless, Himeragi (the other mc) is holding her own, but they can’t defeat the villain so Kojou needs to get a power up, but he can’t get the power up because his familiars don’t see him as their master yet, because he hasn’t drank any blood. So obviously instead of just cutting the hand of the girl and drinking the blood, he needs to get excited, so the girls OBVIOUSLY need to undress, make out and then he can drink their blood (note that although I’m saying this very sarcastically these were the only real moments I enjoyed). He then gets his power up and defeats the villain. Now note that his power up becomes completely useless against the next villain because every fucking familiar only works on the specific villain that he needs to face at that time, because you know plot convenience.
On to the other characters we have:
Himeragi: The girl who will beat up Kojou for perverted things that weren’t even his fault. She’s also a good fighter who can hold her own. Initially she seemed to be one of the only 2 characters who weren’t bland, but her personality basically stays the same throughout the show just like all the other characters and besides holding her own in a fight, I don’t really see any real personality traits.
Asagi: The blond (Best) girl who’s the only one with a sort of personality and actually tries to further her romance, which makes you root for her, but because of plot convenience that progression comes to a halt and we all know that the best girl never ends up with MC (so fuck!!!!!).
Little sister: She is in there because we need a cute sister. She has a “tragic” backstory for one scene, but this is never really expanded upon, so you can forget about it since her being in the show wouldn’t have made any difference. Also one of the very few girls that don’t want to fuck Kojou. (No incestual she’s actually not blood related moments here. Surprising honestly).
Loli teacher: Because we need a loli teacher. She’s competent in fighting whenever the plot needs her to be and is very serious. She is also not interested in Kojou (as far as I can tell).
Tsundere girl: The ponytail girl who likes Kojou, but can’t admit it. She has some cute moments and surprisingly doesn’t come in between the relationship of the other (on purpose).
Nice princess(?) girl: Who just wants to make advances on Kojou because???
Childhood friend: because we need a childhood friend and she likes Kojou because he’s her childhood friend. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but just go with it.
There are 4 other sort of important side characters, but we don’t care about them. To sum it up, there is a maid girl with no personality, the sort of oni-chan girl, the gay OP guy who only fights when it’s convenient for the plot and that other male character that seemed important, but wasn’t really.
The villains were your typical villain of the week spread out over 3-4 episodes. They weren’t memorable in the least. Sure they had some motives, but they were all really forgettable, hell they weren’t even threatening. There was not one time I felt like any of the characters where in any real danger, I don’t mean in a plot armor kind of way, but there was just no tension in the fights. Sure there were some close calls, but you always knew it wasn’t the end for them.
Overall none of the characters where really interesting or had any real development except for the best girl, Asagi. But at least all the girls were really cute and none of them were annoying well except for Himeragi when she hits Kojou for no reason. Especially when it’s not even a misunderstanding…

Animation 6/10
The animation was pretty solid overall, especially the fight scenes even though the fight’s became pretty repetitive over time, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the animation which they did a pretty good job on. Like I mentioned before the girls were also really cute so ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I mean uhm the art style is really nice, though girls tend to look a bit similar apart from hair style.

Sound 6/10
I honestly don’t recall any ost aside from the song at the end of a fight and I can’t be bothered to listen to the ost, so I’ll just judge it mostly on the opening and ending which were both pretty good. The 2nd opening actually made the series seem better than it was.

Enjoyment 4/10
As you could probably tell, I did not enjoy this anime very much. I went into this expecting this to be just a popcorn ecchi flick that would be 12 episodes, but instead I got THIS thing that for some reason exists and recently even got 2 ova’s. That actually had the ecchiness I was searching for.

Overall 4/10
I feel like this series just lacks a plot, it could have been something more if it actually used its plot elements, expanded on the world and actually tried to do something original with it. The best thing about this show is the stereotypes and ecchi scenes which is obviously not a good thing. It’s definatly not the worst thing I’ve seen, but it could’ve been a lot better. I wouldn’t really recommend this show to anyone you’re better of watching dxd or testament.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Strike the Blood Episode 23 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Mar 21, 2014	192 replies	by PedroKarim64 »» Dec 10, 2:03 PM
	Will I get to see Minamiya, Natsuki... (Question for a spoiler) CrazyButNot4U - Apr 4	3 replies	by CrazyButNot4U »» Apr 7, 3:07 AM
	Poll: Strike the Blood Episode 20 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Feb 28, 2014	149 replies	by EinTheVariance »» Feb 20, 12:11 PM
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