Saya’s happy little life crumbles around her as her
school and friends fall to a merciless attack by the Elder Barins. Haunted by visions she doesn’t understand,
Saya is now at her weakest and most vulnerable.
At last, those who have been pulling the strings in a terrifying
experiment reveal themselves and divulge the truth. Is Saya the kind and happy Shrine Maiden
fighting to keep a promise to her mother?
Or is she something else entirely…something that has been asleep for far
too long and now seeks revenge? The
whole truth can now be told.
Yeah it was all one big lie. High school Saya, her town, her father, her
friends. To quote Invader Zim, “LIES!!!
LIES!!! WHEN WILL THE LIES ENNNNNND???!!!!”
By rights, Blood-C did answer just about everything, it’s just
stupid. Most of Saya’s “friends” were
cutthroat criminals, who weren’t really dead by the way (the final episode
changed that outcome though). Her father
was a monster like she was and her teacher was just a scholar looking to expose
Elder Barins…of which Saya is one. But
the most shocking revelation of all? The
one who was pulling all of the strings behind this production it was…CAFÉ OWNER
FUMITO?!!!...my God could you sense my sarcasm writing all of that?
About midway through the revelations, it dawned on me:
Blood-C feels like the middle arc of a much larger Anime and one that went on
too long without getting to the good stuff until it was too late. Plenty of shows have a short arc where a main
character loses their memory or is somehow rewritten to be a whole other person
and slowly have to find their way back to their true selves. Blood-C dragged this through the mud for 11
full episodes before Saya finally became True Saya again. Ten of those episodes included Saya forcing
herself to deny anything was wrong beyond her failures to save her “friends”
and fellow classsmates. Short version:
This show knew how to waste time and did so right until the last episode, being
a bunch of build up it was so certain was going to be mindblowing that just kind
of led to a ton of…well nothing really.
The final episode probably had some of the best bits of
the entire series. Most of this was
because Saya was awake and we were able to see the confident, beautiful Elder
Barin bad ass unleashed and in action. The
problem: zero resolution. Oh sure, her
so called “friends” were taken out in increasingly gruesome fashions but not by
Saya herself. So much of me wanted the
more stereotypical scene of Saya “Waking up” without anyone realized (except
for Fumito cause he thinks he’s perfect) and Saya kicks everyones asses. No, that would actually be a fun “F YEAH”
moment and Blood-C isn’t about that noise.
Instead we got to see Saya slice her way through the bunny demons from
Hell and her “father” Tadayoshi. It wasn’t
quite the effortless ordeal but ill still take this red eye sporting Goddess
over the squeaky clean and naive Saya anyday (sorry fake Saya)…she can keep the
cute uniform though.
One of the finales biggest problems was its decision to
go all in on the Elder Barin carnage as Fumito set a rapidly multiplying Bunny
Elder Barin on his fake town to basically clean up the evidence of this whole
ordeal. Even by horror standards, this
was overly excessive and scary stuff to watch.
Seeing people get munched on, dismembered and eaten like Kabobs is
just…wow stuff that isn’t for the squeamish.
It’s almost like the creators and animators were more focused on going
out in as much blood soaked insanity as possible, with the bad guy getting away
btw, and ignoring gore with a purpose.
Again, Ninja Scroll or even Devilman Crybaby (which some of the imagery
definitely invoked) had reason for their bloody battles, for style and for
thematic purpose. Blood-C does neither,
instead playing out like a sick and twisted dark fantasy of watching hopeless
hordes get slaughtered with Fumito smiles all the way to his getaway. Honestly, people get it bad but I think Sayas
fake schoolmates got it worst. And I was
full on annoyed when Nene and Nono popped up ok and more in unison than
ever. Sure I wanted them to pay for
being deceitful and evil pieces of work but…God not like this, not like this.
Oh and what about Watanuki? The Dog who granted Saya a mysterious
wish? Honestly, I don’t get the wish nor
why Watanuki even needed to be in Blood-C other than for CLAMP to say “Hey a
lot of our works are connected and here’s the latest tether”. What a waste of a guest cameo and what a
waste of an opportunity for a great show.
Blood-C had promise but decided to ignore it in exchange
for a frustrating mystery, an aggravating heroine and copious amounts of gory
violence that might require a visit to the restroom afterwards. The show looked fine for the most part:
Production I.G. rarely disappoints in that department and for all my frustrations
with how her character was handled, Saya’s design is the cutest here than in
other Blood iterations. Some of the
action was fine and that brief moment where Saya was back to her full self
showed was awesome. But Blood-C is an
incomplete tale that ends on a pretty dismal cliffhanger. Again, this show should have started with
Saya before Fumito captured her and had this experimental amnesia arc as the
middle arc before Saya goes after Fumito in the final act. Instead, we get a poor high school girl with
supernatural abilities trying to hang on to a reality that isn’t real and drags
this out way longer than needed while the body count racks up. Even if it was all a lie, it was a dull and
needlessly violent one. If I get around
to The Last Dark I might try…or I could just accept even that wont tie up
everything in a nice bow and just let this one be. At least I got proper sexy Saya slaying
monsters in a school girl uniform for a little while, doesn’t make this show a
total loss.
Blood-C gets a 4/10.
Next week, we head back to Saya’s first adventure and the
short film that kicked off this mini franchise with Blood: The Last Vampire. See ya then.
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