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Vlad Love is one of the most bizarre comedies to be released in the 2020s, one that seemingly people are overthinking or being harsh to, because such a simple yet sophisticated absurdist comedy is something well done, even if it's not everyone's cup of tea. These kind of comedies were commonplace before the 2000s, when the worries for plot continuity were little and people just wanted to have a laugh without thinking much. Vlad Love does attempt this, by showing the hilarious situations of living with a vampire, yet with elements that characterize Oshii's dry humor like those seen in Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai! such as self-referential ... humor, 4th wall breakings and a lot of unrelated dialogue with non-sequiturs. Vlad Love is also a parody of anime and particularly, copyright laws, yes, there are a lot of references to copyright in Japan which is a country particularly strict with these laws, especially when it comes to parodies, I loved when they said K*nami like it was a class of insult to the company, something I found brilliant, in fact, most of the jokes are pretty intelligently made, although not all did click with me.

Outside the jokes and the fact it's just a light comedy, I'd like to note the artstyle and experimental animation approach: The backgrounds and characters look so nice, and they had a creative way of showing the characters in squares while the action was happening in other angle; while that for some it might look weird, I love how it looks and how it gives this anime a strong identity deviating from generic styles. The voice acting is fine for the most part, but Romi Park's performance as Chihiro was phenomenal - Please listen to her as a lustful nurse, she sounds great -. The soundtrack is good and the openings are phenomenal, especially Where You Are whose animation and music had such a beautiful visual which I cannot get enough from. The characterization... it's a comedy, don't expect much depth from any, don't overthink it, they're good enough for the genre and topics of the anime.

So in conclusion, if you are of the ones that likes dialogue-driven comedies with dry and intelligent humor, Vlad Love is an excellent option, and if you liked the humor of Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai! you'd also love how Oshii executed the humor here. I really don't get why the dislike for this anime, it might not be the best in the universe but it's a harmless addition to comedy anime at worst. I found this good, especially since the stuff found under the 6.00 mark in this website is considered untouchable while at times it might have a nice surprise like this one.

If someone asked me to summarize the Avant Garde genre in one video, this would be THE video. Kabuki Sawako is one of the most underappreciated people here, I think her works are great, and I value she is not afraid of showing what she wants to do: peak bizarreness.

I really did not know what to expect just from viewing the picture, what I saw is the LAST thing I've ever expected. One of the most BASED works of art to ever exist, you must see to believe because you WON'T know what to expect. Watching it was a surprise, a pleasantly weird surprise drizzled ... with epic classical music. Who said you CANNOT mix that song with whatever appears on screen? THERE ARE NO LIMITS AND THIS SHORT SHOWS THAT VERY WELL. At this point I am not sure if this is a work of art or the best shitpost I have ever seen or even both. Who knows? But what I'm sure you won't be indifferent after watching this, you might feel disgust, fear, anger or even euphoria like I did, I really did laugh at this, this was a marvelous 2-minute experience.

I imagine the working of of this videoclip being like:

A: Hey, what do you want it to be in the videoclip?
B: Well, I want nice 3D Landscapes made in Unity...
A: Uh-huh
B: AND PUT LITERALLY EVERY ASSET YOU FIND THERE.
A: B-but sir...
B: DO AS I SAY. And move the camera in a crazily hypnotic way while playing with rendering distance settings.
A: Uh... Like this?
B: YES! PERFECT!
...
Would you believe there are TWO videoclips on MAL that are literally 3D landscapes? Yeah, but what makes 2005 interesting is that the camera goes WHOA, and when I mean it goes WHOA I mean it goes WHOA. Oh right, it's Avant-garde, so it means there must be something that makes no sense other than artistic value. In this case, you might find random objects floating on the screen, why? IT'S AVANT GARDE, THE WORD "WHY" DOES NOT EXIST. Sit back while you watch junk floating in the air while listening to a banger and looking at fast-switching landscapes.

All in all, imo it's one of the most creative works made in the field of avant-garde videoclips. If you are interested go take a watch.

What can I say of 10 frames made in MS PAINT literally looping for 8 minutes? Well, that might sound surprising but that's all. ALL THE """"""""""ANIMATION"""""""""" PRESENT. NOTHING. ELSE. HAPPENS. AT ALL.

The music is really nice but I am not rating the music, and even if I took the music into account the sync with is close to nonexistant. The """animation""" barely has anything to do with the music. Heck at least they could have animated the lip sync and drums correctly and consistently and it would have been a decent short with a bizarre MS Paint style, but well, this is the apex ... of laziness in every piece of Japanese animation. Even Katsudou Shashin showed more love.

No thoughts, only dancing tube.
No thoughts, only reminders of the best of 2000s and 2010s internet meme culture with kitten gifs and V A P O R W A V E.
No thoughts, only a banger song.

Among the avant-garde shorts you'd find on MAL, this is one of the mildest and probably most enjoyable to watch. This is definitely one of the best ads I've ever seen for a product I am not sure what is it used for, never change your ads, Japan.
I think I will have the AC-NES-AC-AC-NE-SU-AC-NES-AC-AC-NES stuck on my head for the next decade at least.

NOTE: THIS IS A SEQUEL OF THE ORIGINAL ANIME. I WILL ASSUME YOU WATCHED THE SERIES COMPLETELY.

Do you know that anime called Shoujo Kakumei Utena, right? That anime that has been praised for its characterization and complex psychological issues, that has some good character development and has the topic of letting go off toxic relationships? Well, forget everything I said because this manga has none of that.

One prominent aspect of the anime is the surrealist and often unexplained events that happened in the background, well, they tried to replicate these events in the manga by teleporting the council members to the duel arena and then ... Utena appears which everyone seems to have forgotten, ah, and to add to that, everyone forgot EVERYTHING that happened at the Ohtori academy because... reasons. I know Ikuhara's works are full of unexplained stuff but this downright does not make sense.

This feels like when you meet your highschool friends after really a long long time at a homecoming reunion and you realize that... they haven't changed AT ALLl. Yeah, I really loved seeing the student council members again, but the fact they're basically the same than when they were teenagers feels sort of disappointing. While I feel glad to know what happened after the series, it feels like they threw most if not all the character development down the sewers.

This manga centers more in the student council rather than on Utena and Anthy, in fact, they barely appear in any of the three chapters. Anyway, if you're curious enough you might want to read this short manga... don't expect much, really, except from maybe some homoeroticism between Touga and Saionji or Miki and Kozue's... uh... whatever that was.

Ah and don't get me started with Juri. This was bad enough to make me remove her from my favorite characters. WHY THE F--K ARE YOU STILL CRYING FOR RUKA AND SHIORI? That is genuine stupidity Juri, you lost all respect I could have for you.

Yeah, what a good revolution to the world you made, Utena. I will make like this manga is not canon.

What to expect from a title called "?". it could be anything, ANYTHING! WHAT'S BEHIND THAT "?"? I WANT TO KNOW! Well, nothing much, if you are not a freak obsessed with the history of animation, I recommend you to pass from this short created way before the concept of anime series was a thing.

The beginnings of animation were of course waaaay too different to what we see today, with many movies like this having just an experimental purpose rather than to be shown to a massive public. "?" is a perfect example of this. In summary it's just three shorts showing whatever could be ... done with animation in 1932, which might have seen impressive at the time but nowadays, 90 years later (at the time of writing) has been forgotten and just seen by people interested in such niche stuff.

Of all the three shorts, Trump no Arasoi is the only one that had at least... something noticeable to tell, some sort of romance with poker card symbols and a fight? I suppose.

Een was an interesting clip to watch to say at least, its message was, although weird, it was well delivered.

Okay, I LOVED the animation way more than I expected, the vibrancy, the transitions, the synchronization with the crying and the expresiveness of all of it was absolutely superb... I'd consider it great if it weren't because it had literally THE WORST sound a human could hear, a baby crying, seriously, it was utterly annoying to hear, fortunately, it's just a minute long so nothing much of value was lost. Artists have really a good potential and I'd like to see more works of them actually, ... as long as it doesn't involve A FREAKING BABY CRYING OUT LOUD.

Well as nobody said it, I am gonna say:
HEAVY EPILEPSY WARNING, THIS CONTAINS WAY TOO MANY FLASHING LIGHTS EVEN FOR HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS TO ENJOY.

Ah, experimental shorts, one never knows what is one going to find in them. and in the case of Aki no Puzzle, I must say it was a terrible idea to watch this alone at late night with a headache.

Five seconds in, your eyes are guaranteed to burn, the author surely made it in order for people to stop watching it even LITERALLY before initial credits finished.

Now into the real thing, we are presented with... uh... er... whatever people see on ... hallucinogens, going from... whatever that was, and whatever that other thing that was inside the jar, and a naked woman balancing on the toes of someone else... Aki no Puzzle is... is it even a puzzle? Not sure, at least some of the frames looked good and it seems like they put effort but still... it seems like it was made for no sane person to enjoy.

Sound was... you know "Suicide Mouse"? I think it's the closest thing to what I heard, a heavily uncanny and depressing music that could make this animation classified perfectly as horror.

Did I enjoy it? Nope. Not at all, other stuff like 00:08 and O had at least some nice music that made the animation enjoyable, but here... nothing plays in favor for enjoying... this.

*sips*

*SIPPING INTENSIFIES*

*SIPPING INTESIFI-* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

*brain.exe stopped working.*

...

... Don't you hate it when you fall into dementia when you're trying to drink your "coffee"?

It was a weird trip, but I liked the animation style and the creativity behind it though, how did something as simple as drinking a cup of "coffee" turn into such a thing huh?

Just disconnect your brain to watch and enjoy it, don't even think on understanding, just look at these transitions synced to the music, babe. Music is a bit depressing at first, it gets more enjoyable by the end.

Anyway, where do I obtain what the protagonist had?
*sips*

This was just a 5-minute short, don't expect this review to be too long.