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As a fan of the vampire genre and cute bishies, I can honestly say that Bloody Kiss is terrible. The concept of the story is average, but the lack of crucial plot information destroys the story. Bloody Kiss begins with a cute orphan girl who recieves a rundown estate from her unknown grandmother, where two vampires are living. Never once does the girl ask about her grandmother and get to know about her, nor does she ever question if vampires really exist or if it safe living with them. It is never mentioned if this is a world in which vampires ... are known to exist or if they are something of legend. This adds confusion to the storyline and is never satisfactorily addressed.

Art: 7 Not the best I have ever seen, but some of the panels are very pretty. The roses are very detailed and beautiful. The characters and backgrounds are above average, but there is not enough expression or detail to give it a higher score.

Characters: 3 My main problem with the story is the lack of common sense of the heroine. She decides to live in the estate, which is three hours away from her school, commuting everyday by bike. Along with going to school, she works part time to support the free loading vampires. Kiyo fails as any sort of feminist heroine. The male leads are good looking, but predictable and boring. I honestly can not remember one outstanding or memorable characteristic of any of the characters.

Enjoyment: 3 It feels like the mangaka didn't have an editor. The lack of consistency in the plot is comical. How is Kiyo (the heroine) an honor's scholarship student, yet she has bad grades. Why is it that in one scene Kuroboshi drinks Kiyo's blood and pulls away without any blood on his lips nor bite marks on Kiyo? Then, two panels later, the blood mysteriously appears along with the bite marks. Even with all these faults, the manga is an easy read. It has decent flow (most of the time) and gives you just enough enjoyment that you hope the quality of the story will get better in the next chapter. It never does.

Overall: 3 Unfortunately, the story was unable to pull off the cliched plot. This, the lack of clear direction, unclear plot, and lack of common sense harmed the potential of the story.

I would not recommend reading Bloody Kiss, but the extra stories were surprisingly good. Angel Koiuta is slightly above average but very cute. Kyuuketsuki no Onegai can be called the gem of the series. The plot was original and the characters developed during a short time. I would definately recommend checking out Kyuuketsuki no Onegai.

What is it that sets Kekkaishi apart from other shounen anime? Well, nothing really. Kekkaishi had a fairly original premise of two young kekkai users battling ayakashi (youkai) in order to protect a powerful piece of land. In order to protect the land, their rivaling families have lived next to each other for 400 years. Growing up together from a young age, Yoshimori and Tokine knew that their families were "frienemies" and that they should not maintain a close relationship. So the story begins...

Unfortunately, all the unique and interesting parts of the anime had little development, and the anime ... focused on the run-of-the-mill shounen fodder. It would have been interesting if they had addressed Yoshimori's unrequited love for Tokine and what makes Yoshimori's powers so unique, but sadly it was mostly ignored. Another disturbing characteristic was the seeming lack of emotion over death. Without going into too much detail, usually people have a strong emotional reaction to death. Well, in this case, the next episode was back to usual and the death was rather unemotionally brought up only when convenient.

Many parallels can been seen between Kekkaishi, Naruto, and Bleach. Yoshimori is basically a pre-Shippuden, less obnoxious Naruto; while Tokine is a slightly more useful and naggy Sakura. One of the enemy ayakashi is a forgery of Rukia from Bleach. It was pretty blatant character stealing.

Story: 5 Mediocre. It had potential, but the beginning of the anime basically had no plot.

Art: 8 Very good. While it was not my preferred style, the art was crisp and clean. The characters were a little above average, but the backgrounds were beautiful. Unfortunately, they use the same background over-and-over again. Definitely the best aspect of the series.

Sound: 3 Poor. Whoever decided on the theme song needs to be fired. It's one of those songs that is maybe ok once, but that screechy harpy voice makes you angry the second time you hear it. All the ending themes but one were lackluster. Sound effects were normal in the episodes. Obviously, something the series fails at.

Characters: 6 This is what kept me coming back for more. No, not Tokine and Yoshimori, but some fairly decent bad guys. It's pretty sad when you want the protagonists to lose and have the antagonists take over the story. Almost all the characters (especially the protagonists) were one-trick-ponies. They had no discernible character development and felt flat.

Enjoyment: 5 Mediocre. Unfortunately, the last 10 or so episodes do not make up for the 40+ bland episodes before it. I would have rated this higher if the first episodes had been less repetitive.

Overall: 6 Fair. Although the the anime wasn't terrible at the every-episode-fight-weak-random-bad-guys scenario, I could have substituted any episode for the other. That said, the anime did show significant improvement after the 40th episode. Kekkaishi could have benefited from compacting the beginning storyline and reducing the episode count. Quantity does not equal quality.

In conclusion: At this time, I would only recommend this anime to people who are new to the shounen genre. Maybe you can enjoy it more if you have nothing to compare it to. If there is a second season, that picks up were the first left off, I might actually recommend it. That being said, you would have to sift through the previous 40 boring episodes. I would recommend Bleach and Naruto over Kekkaishi (as long as you skip the fillers), and less well-known series such as: Sengoku Basara, Soul Eater, Monochrome Factor (manga is better), and Tactics.