If you're looking for a reverse harem, do not watch this series!
Diabolik Lovers is a far cry from the average reverse harem, so far that I have a hard time considering it one. True, there are six hot guys competing for the female lead, except for their sights are set less on winning her heart and more on sucking her blood. There is really no romantic element to speak of until the very end, and even that is rather shallow.
::Story::
The summary for this series is very misleading (read "entirely wrong.") This is not a sweet story of a girl with latent psychic abilities meeting six
...
lovable vampires, this is a story of a girl being betrayed and forced to live with killers. This ends up being inconsequential, however, and the series doesn't really care about having a story until the last four episodes anyway. Until then, each episode is the standard reverse harem roulette of "which guy will be featured this week?" These episodes do very little to engage the viewer besides show some juicy scenes of the boys attacking Yui. These are not for the squeamish as they involve physical abuse and implied rape. When the actual story-line gets off it's rump and makes an appearance, it's too late. There are only four episodes left to cram all the plot that should have been there from the beginning, so the writers just throw what they can into a giant jumble (with a few more fang-rape scenes) and hope to make it to the end. To their credit, those last two episodes are a doozy!
::Character::
A fair amount of credit is due for the way the characters are written in Diabolik Lovers. While they tend to fit general reverse harem stereotypes, there is something about each of the men that makes them special. I think it's that they're absolutely wretched people. As someone who has become jaded with the genre, I feel that this aspect alone makes this series worth watching. For instance:
Reiji, the strict, serious one (he got glasses, don't he?) Bespectacled and respectable, until you find out that he is a horrible sadist.
Ayato, the brash youth who comes off as a jerk but turns out to be.. a jerk.
Kanato, the adorable shota who ends up being completely unbalanced. (Yandere, anyone?)
Raito, the playboy who loves to tease, but really has a heart of gold (except he doesn't.)
Shu, the cold, distant one who never becomes warm and cuddly. Ever.
Subaru is really the only character that seems to have any sense of decency, and I believe this is why he is somewhat of an outcast. Despite his hotheaded nature and tendency to punch things, he's an all right guy. Go figure.
Yui is pretty much the blank slate heroine. The only memorable thing about her is her uncanny ability to get herself into bad situations. True, she's locked in a house with six vampires, so there aren't really any good situations to be had, but the girl is constantly asking for it. "Oh hey, that guy who always talks about beating me seems troubled, I should see if he's okay-- Oh geez, why you bite me??"
I appreciate that these vampires are REAL vampires. No noble men haunted by their lust for blood here; these guys are pretty cool with being horrible, incorrigible vampires, and I like that.
::Sound::
I thought the performances of the entire cast were fairly good. Hikaru Midorikawa is sexy as ever. Yuki Kaji seemed to have fun as Kanato and I always enjoy hearing him scream. My only beef with the voices was the noises a couple of the characters made while sucking Yui's blood. Ayato's squelching, smacking noises really put me off, and the"chomp" sound Subaru made whenever he bit down was hilarious. The music was nothing to speak of, well or ill.
::Art::
Fairly reasonable for this sort of series. The dark, faded color palette really suited the subject. I had some issue with character design, mostly in the clothing choices. Each boy wore basically the same school uniform with minor personal touches. Some of these, like Kanato's off one shoulder jacket, suited the character, but others, like Ayato's rolled up pants leg, just looked odd.
::Enjoyment::
I wouldn't really say I enjoyed this series, but I guess I watched it to the end so there must have been something there. If nothing else, it was an interesting experience.
::Overall::
I stress again -- if you are looking for a reverse harem, this is not the series for you. Honestly, unless you are starved for hot anime guys and have a strong stomach for sexually toned violence, this is not the series for you. If that sort of thing floats your boat, go for it. No judgement here. What it comes down to is that this series is really worth little more than a string of pseudo-sexual scenes with inconsequential dialogue and little plot. I can see it's worth as pure pornography, but not as a story. To be fair, as this is based on an otome game, what else would one expect? I think the producers of Diabolik Lovers are unashamed of what it truly is, and rather than try to fluff it up and make it a reasonable series, they ran with it. I applaud them for that. Somewhere there are women who need violent girl porn who are clapping, too.
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Dec 18, 2013
Diabolik Lovers
(Anime)
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If you're looking for a reverse harem, do not watch this series!
Diabolik Lovers is a far cry from the average reverse harem, so far that I have a hard time considering it one. True, there are six hot guys competing for the female lead, except for their sights are set less on winning her heart and more on sucking her blood. There is really no romantic element to speak of until the very end, and even that is rather shallow. ::Story:: The summary for this series is very misleading (read "entirely wrong.") This is not a sweet story of a girl with latent psychic abilities meeting six ... 
Sep 13, 2012
I went into this series after being very disappointed with the OVA and at first I was pleased by the improvement in the artwork and general story. Then I watched past the first episode. After the main characters are chosen as the Six Saint Beasts, and are charged with keeping the peace on Earth, one would expect the story to unfold and become more interesting, but unfortunately it just drops off into random monster encounters and a whole lot of griping about how Zeus (the God figure) is doing a bad job at keeping order in Heaven and on Earth. Still, it would be enjoyable
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Jul 3, 2009
Saint Beast: Seijuu Kourin-hen
(Anime)
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Don't expect more than light shounen-ai fluff out of this one -- you'll be disappointed. Story-wise, there isn't much to see here. The first few episodes are monster of the day type encounters that are supposed to give us some insight into the main characters (while simultaneously placing them in position to be slashed with each other.) The story picks up in the last two episodes, at which point it promptly ends without actually coming to a conclusion. The action is scant, and consists mainly of posed characters dashing across the screen making slashing attacks that do more damage to clothing than to anything else.
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