Blood-C Part 2 Episodes 5-8

Saya has won many battles against the Elder Barins but not without cost.  Lives has been lost and now the Elder Barins speak to her directly, warning her to “honor the covenant.”  Plagued by messages she doesn’t understand, Saya’s plight only gets worse when the Elder Barins attack both her school and her friends.  Now even the daylight isn’t safe anymore.  Will Saya be able to save her friends and her home before the Elder Barins destroy them all?  Or is this just the beginning of a larger calamity about to befall the beautiful student?

Man, talk about be careful what you wish for.  Last weeks first set of Blood-C episodes felt a little underwhelming due to the fact that Saya’s “happy life” was at times annoying and other times you could tell something wasn’t right about it and wanted to find out what it was.  Well we didn’t find out much of the latter but damn, things kicked a little into high gear, intense gear actually.  It was raining blood and numerous limbs to an uncomfortable degree…so horror Anime stuff, no biggie right?
 
From the get go, this set couldn’t have been more different from the first.  Somber music and cloudy skies replaced the sunny ones Saya adored so much and it was only a matter of time before the Elder Barins got serious about their “Covenant” demands.  Even the Elder Barins themselves felt like theyd gotten an upgrade.  The Monsters of the Week were the stuff of nightmares: A formless shadow that slayed anything that so much as peeked at it, a gigantic spider that acted in a similar fashion terrorizing Saya’s school, and, probably the scariest, a Monk like warrior with an eyeball for a head (nerve endings as a neck).  Blood-C is knocking it out of the park in the monster department.  So it’s kind of disappointing to see one pivotal foe look like a Beetle Samurai with multiple limbs and swords.  It just comes off as silly compared to the haunting imagery the others exhibit.
 
Still, the monster attacks escalated and so did the violence.  I hear Blood-C is an Anime that is blacklisted in some countries due to how gory it is and I cant blame them.  Snapping humans in half in one bite is one thing.  Seeing their severed limbs lying around is another.  And it’s like a “No Mercy” rule has been enacted.  True, we’ve seen Elder Barins munching on humans before but this time felt like a whole new level of intensity.  Now this is a Horror themed Anime as well as an action one, this shouldn’t be too out of place.  There is a difference between stylistic gore like say Ninja Scroll or Akira and just being plain gratuitous with it like Blood-C.  Saya herself was on the end of several brutal fights and thank God she has a healing factor she isn’t questioning (along with other things, more on that in a second).  Her creepy twin friends, Nene and Nono weren’t so lucky as they became the first major casualties of the main cast in Saya’s war.  Needless to say, between these loses, fights and painful headaches, Saya wasn’t having a good week.
 
Ok, time to touch on main plot theories.  A major clue was dropped into my lap and I’m pretty sure I’m right about this.  The puppy Saya has been seeing made mention of being the owner of a shop that grants wishes.  It’s a bit of a leap in logic but given Blood-C is partly a CLAMP work, I cant imagine they wouldn’t try to tie it in with another…and that other is xxxHolic.  Between the description of the Yuko shop and the Dog being voiced in English by the always recognizable Todd Haberkorn, I’m dead certain Mr. Puppy is actually xxxHolic protagonist Kimihiro Watanuki.  Spoilers for xxxHolic: Watanuki ends up taking over the shop of the Time Witch Yuko Ichihara at the conclusion of that series.  It would explain why Watanuki is even in Blood-C to begin with.  xxxHolic had close ties with Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles, which itself was a multiverse adventure involving every character in CLAMPs resume.  His presence also opens doors as to what the heck is really going on in this creepy little town Saya resides in. 

Saya’s aforementioned headaches came with the inclusion of images, memories of her having a discussion with the guy who’s been narrarrating various points of the show.  We know she was somehow captured and we now she’s been changed as part of this “deal” that’s been made with this guy. I get the feeling Blood-C is going to drag its feet getting to the answers I hope we get before the end of the series.  I feel like for a 12 episode series with 4 episodes left to go, I might need to start bracing for disappointment.  Maybe if we’d spent two episodes of the first set getting the ball rolling a bit more, I’d be more optimistic.  But Saya’s still refusing to let go of whatever illusion she’s under.  She says she’s trying to keep a promise to a mother she probably doesn’t have in the first place and is being easily swayed by her father, Fumito and her homeroom teacher in various ways.  This girls being played and she wants it to keep going for some reason rather than open her eyes as Watanuki wants her to.  God, Saya even started singing in the bathtub and I knew she was gonna do that the moment she saw a rubber ducky. 
 
Well Saya’s dream of a perfect life with friends, her father, Fumito and maybe even romance with bad boy Tokizane might be at an end.  We left things on a pretty major cliffhanger with a menacing Spider Elder Barin making a meal out of Sayas classmates before Saya had to reveal she’s a bad ass with a sword, running to meet the enemy head on in broad daylight.  I don’t know if we’ll get answers to Blood-C’s mysteries next week, it seems to enjoy teasing the viewer as much as it does mocking Saya’s plight with her memories.  Whatever happens, happens, I guess.  Come back Next Monday for the sure to be bloody Series Finale of Blood-C right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.