Still a better vampire apocalypse story than Seraph
What They Say:
In a fictional version of New York City, called Hellsalem’s Lot, a young man named Leonardo Walch suddenly finds himself mixed in with an organization called Libra that fights super criminals. Blessed with super vision himself, he now battles to help save the world from a criminal called Femt, the King of Depravity.
The Review:
Content (warning as this review may contain spoilers):
Well that was…pretty weird. Last week’s episode was largely a character focused one and the show’s zany style helped to reinforce it. This episode on the other hand seems to be getting things back on track with the main story. I say “seems” because the sequence of events that goes down here is pretty bizarre even by this show’s standards, but thankfully that doesn’t mean the show is any less fun for it.
So the show starts out with a cold open involving Leo meeting a mysterious looking boy while on the train. When he tells the others at Libra about it, it turns out the boy may have been a “Blood Breed” aka a vampire. The gang thinks they can get some good info from it so they enlist the help of the organization’s vampire expert called Lucky Abrams. The reason Abrams is an expert is because he’s been cursed by one, and thanks to that he’s effectively a doom magnet but hilariously enough the disasters only affect the people around him and it makes for a few good laughs. He decides to make use of Leo’s eyes in order to track down an elite group of vampires called the Elder 13.
They go to the center of Hellsalem’s lot where the vampires are supposedly located but to everyone’s shock it turns out there’s way more than just 13 vampires to deal with and they find themselves on the crux of a vampire apocalypse (sorry Seraph of the End, looks like this show’s stealing your premise). Libra goes into fight the Blood Breeds and Klaus manages to seal them, however the gang cuts it close and with how many vampires are lurking beneath the city it looks like it won’t be the last they see of them. However Leo feels that if nothing else, the others know they have to continue to struggle against those circumstances regardless of how futile it seems and it’s something he takes to heart.
So if any of that was confusing to you, rest assured you’re not alone on that end. However it does look as though there’s a method’s to the show’s madness as it does establish a few things. There’s a lot of questions raised in this episode and it’s almost overwhelming but it’s overwhelming in a good way. Firstly it seems like the Blood Breeds are going to be ongoing antagonists, and the one Leo ran into in the beginning of the episode is known as the Lord of Despair, meaning Femt’s probably a vampire too. It also seems like White is related to the Lord of Despair and is probably actually a vampire herself and not a ghost like she claimed. The show also plays with showing events in chronological order again as one of the last parts of the episode shows a future (?) event where White leaves Leo’s apartment after having met everyone else.
There’s a lot of questions raised in this episode and so much so that it’s almost overwhelming. However I’m extremely curious to see how all these questions will be answered and it’s already starting to, so for now it’s overwhelming in the good way. Although the confusion of the episode is equally matched by sheer fun that is fights against super vampires and Matsumoto’s over the top direction sells it pretty well so it more than balances out. Hopefully it won’t take too long for more answers to start rolling out but for now the show’s still more than enough fun to make me stick around for the long haul.
In Summary:
Blood Blockade Battlefront brings out one doozy of an episode this week as it rolls out a lot of potential new story elements with little room to breathe. They’re made a little easier to swallow by being presented in a fun package though so it’s still holding my interests pretty well rather than being a turn off. It’s still not entirely clear what this show is going for yet but for now it’s a good ride and I have more than enough faith in the people behind it to believe the destination will be worthwhile.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Funimation, Hulu
