SPOILERS!!
Blood C
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| Saya - Blood: The Last Vampire |
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| Saya Otonashi and Hagi - Blood+ |
Blood C is an anime/manga series produced by Studio Production I.G. and manga creators CLAMP. Like the anime series Blood+, which aired 2005-2006, Blood C is related to the Blood franchise which started with the 2000 anime film Blood: The Last Vampire.
Like the other Bloods, Blood C is about Saya. Born in the 18th century, Saya has been using her vampire-like powers to rid the world of whatever demon is threatening it, but she must eventually go into a 30-year hibernation and when she gets up she has no memory of her previous life.
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| Saya Kisaragi - Blood C |
In this series she is now Saya Kisaragi, a young girl who lives in a temple with her father in a small town. Like in her previous lives she goes to school like a normal teenager by day and hunts demons by night. Her father diligently trains her as a miko and a sword fighter, but Saya also uses her supernatural power that enhances her skills and gives her eyes a demonic red glow. No one, not even her friends, know about her double life, so they have no idea that they are constantly under danger of being devoured by horrible demons, whose sole purpose seems to satisfy their appetites. Therefore Saya must use her powers to protect the town and all those she loves.
I have heard many people complain that this series is nowhere near as good as Blood+ and there is general dislike for Saya’s new personality. I think a lot of this hate can be explained because many of these people, like me, were sorely disappointed that the series did not continue where Blood+ left off and were expecting the story to be about Diva’s children or something. And to make matters worse there was no Kai or Hagi (I will never get over that *cries*). Despite the fact that I am obviously a fan of Blood+ and my opinion might be a tad biased, there were things about this show that were just not acceptable.
One being that this blood installment lives up to its name like its movie predecessor. It was terribly gruesome. Certain scenes still have me cringing and holding down my lunch, and I’ve seen some pretty awful animes, like Vampire Hunter D and Afro Samurai. So far every episode of Blood C made sure to include scenes of fountains of blood shooting into the air or bodies being ripped apart and eaten. And all of it is done in such a sadistic way that it makes you wonder how twisted were the minds of the people who wrote this show. Being the anime fan that I am, I enjoy watching seemingly normal teenagers defeat monsters twice their size, and since there are fewer heroines than heroes doing so, I love that Saya proves again and again that she can kick butt and take a beating as well as any of the anime big boys. But even though the fighting was very clear and exciting, it was over the top violent and grotesque, and that ruined it for me.
Secondly, I can understand the hate toward Saya. I did not dislike her, but she bordered on annoying for me. I loved her look (only in anime someone can sword fight wearing glasses and extremely long hair lol) and because the animation of the show was outstanding, the best of the three Bloods I believe, there wasn’t a scene of Saya swing her sword that I didn’t want to freeze and put up on my wall, but unfortunately this was not enough to make me like her.
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| Sugar |
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| Spice |
I know it was part of the plot to emphasize Saya’s kind sweet nature, especially to show the sharp contrast with her ruthless hunter side, but like I’ve seen in many animes before, the clueless goody two shoes act was way too much, making it unrealistic and tiresome.
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| All three men were eaten while Saya watched |
Saya is beautiful, polite, athletic and everyone likes her, so basically she’s roll your eyes flawless, except for the fact that they threw in the ever popular “one imperfection” where the girl is a total ditz. This means she is made to look cute by being unbelievably innocent (naive), she’s oblivious of the guy who practically worships the ground she walks on (dimwitted), and she can’t walk two steps without falling (klutz) but somehow is able to perform leaps and flips that defy gravity when fighting monsters. Also I found it ridiculous how many people die under Saya’s watch. For someone who’s as skilled as her and so adamantly swore to protect everyone, you’d think there would be less deaths, but Saya on several occasions is slow to draw her sword, moves like she has lead in her shoes when the monster is running toward a victim, and even left one of her friends outside with the monster =S
And thirdly was the monotony of this show. I know Blood+ took awhile to get anywhere too, but let’s take into account that it was 50 episodes long, while Blood C is only a measly 12. Instead of getting straight to the point, which is customary of animes of this short length, half of the episodes followed the same pattern. Saya goes happily skipping and singing to school (rolls eyes), she’s usually late cause she’s helping old ladies cross the street (rolls eyes some more), for most of the day she has boring inane conversations with her friends (who are not very interesting either), goes home and then has a sickening well-animated fight with a nightmarish monster. Even when you finally start learning that there is something more to the story, it is revealed slowly with one sentence of info per episode, or in some supposedly deep musing done by a talking dog and an anonymous voice, neither of them making any sense.
The snail pace along with the violence nearly made me abandon this anime several times, but my curiousity and love for anime art and over the top battles made me stick with it. I give it a 2 out of 5. For those of you who just want to see awesome fighting, this show has some of the best I’ve ever seen, almost as good as Rurouni Kenshin, but don’t get into it expecting well developed plot or characters because you will be disappointed. This Saya needs to go sleep again and wake up as someone less shallow.
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