For Saya Kisaragi, life on the surface is perfect. She’s a klutz but a well meaning young girl
who loves her father, her school, her friends, even those who don’t care for
her. When the sun goes down and school
ends, Sayas true mission begins. Armed
with an ancient sword an abilities beyond that of a normal human, Saya wages a
one woman war against a legion of demons known as the Elder Bairns. Yet as hard as she fights to protect the
world she loves, Saya cant help but notice that her perfect life may not be so
perfect…
BOO Dear Readers.
Welcome to the month of October, the month of scares, ghouls, monsters
and other things that go bump in the night.
For the last few years now I’ve tried to leave the month open to a more
darker, horror themed Anime.
This month
we’re getting a slew of Vampire related titles starting today with the latest
iteration of the Blood franchise: Blood-C.
Based on the hit short Anime film Blood: The Last Vampire (we’ll be
looking at that later this month), Blood-C has an…interesting beginning that’s
both annoying but also very peculiar.
Perfect looking girl with a perfect looking life who also slays demons
in her nighttime hours?
This might be
worth looking into.
Blood-C is actually the third “Blood” story in the
franchise you probably didn’t know existed.
Aside from the short film that began it all, there’s also another TV
Series Blood+.
Seeing as how it’s been
forever since I’ve seen the short film and I’ve never seen the prior show, I
wont be comparing their shared lead heroine, Saya, and instead will judge her
based on what I see presented.
And right
now she’s…a mixed bag.
Sure she’s got
the looks and the skills but it’s the two halves of her life and personality
that I guess are meant to cause a mix of emotions.
Saya’s a nice girl: kinds, sweet to the point
of extremely naive and obtuse, easily distracted, constantly late for school
and a hit amongst her friends.
You’d
never imagine looking at her that someone so constantly bumbling could be a
kicker of ass when the lights go out.
But wow is she and it’s usually when Saya is in this demon busting form
that her episodes shine with a mix of well choreographed fight scenes, proper
scary monsters and a hefty amount of blood.
No the problems are her daytime hours.
Saya’s days seem to be in some form of
endless repetition (might be on purpose but I’ll get to that later).
She gets up, bumbles to breakfast with a cute
coffee shop owner, gets distracted by a random puppy, late to school, hangs
with friends until sundown and then demon slaying time.
The first four episodes all follow the same
type of formula to the point where you might wonder if it’s worth sticking
around afterwards.
The action is great
but Saya repeating the same mistakes in some way and having the same
interactions with her cast of colorful cliché “friends”, including a pair of
creepy twins and the resident bad boy, can get grating.
Also, Says constantly singing about her happy
little life has got to stop…it’s just not great.
Like I said though, there’s a mystery here and among the
highly repetitive day in, day out routine, something is very…wrong, for lack of
a better term.
I get the feeling Saya is
constantly pampered by everyone around her for a reason and that reason might
have to do with those amazingly beautiful blood red eyes she pulls out to
activate her ultimate slayer mode.
I do
know that every version of Saya in the Blood franchise has her as…well
something else.
She isn’t human, that’s
for sure.
But here it looks like she’s
being closely observed by something mysterious and yet somehow obvious.
Coffee shop owner Fumito is chief among the
usual suspects.
Those red sugar cubes
hes giving Saya with her coffee is somekind of blood treat, right?
That’s the most obvious clue.
But who else is in on what Saya really
is?
What about her “father”?
Is he really her dad?
What about her sexy teacher at school who
clearly hits on her at one point?
She
claims to love science and I’m sure if she knows what Saya is, teachers got
plans.
It’s almost like Twin Peaks in a
way: perfect little town with a dark mystery leading to a dark truth about
supernatural forces at work…and poor Saya and all her cuteness is caught in the
middle.
The monsters Saya faces, the Elder Barins, all vary in
design from Buddha Statues to evil looking Chocobos to a demonized Train Car (I
wonder if that’s a call back to Blood: The Last Vampire’s most famous
scene…probs thinking too much on that one).
I’m sure the scarier ones are being saved for later but Saya’s initial
foes aren’t pushovers and each gives her a hard enough time.
Saya isn’t invincible and takes her fair
share of damage, which probably brings out her berserker side.
Still, all the monsters and Sayas slaying
specialties are brought to us by the folks at Production I.G., who have
animated the prior Blood installments.
We’ve also got famous Anime power house CLAMP handling the character and
creature designs.
Incase you might not
know, CLAMP is the all girl team behind many 90’s mega hits like Cardcaptor
Sakura, X-1999, xxxHolic and their magnum opus Tsubasa: Resevoir
Chroincles.
They’ve designed the best
looking Saya in my opinion.
If you can look past the repetition of Saya’s day to day
routine and spot the clues lurking beneath, Blood-C might have a promising
story to look forward too.
The action
isn’t bad and there are enough spooky scares and atmosphere to make it a good
Halloween tale for the season.
Honestly
though, I’m just waiting for the “perfect day” façade to drop and the real
scares to get going.
We’ve got two more
weeks of this ahead so I’m sure we’ll get there sooner rather than
later...cause man if Sayas gonna sing again I might have to mute the TV.
See ya next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment