Saya’s abilities are good, but she proves here that she’s not incapable of making significant mistakes.
What They Say:
A brand new “Blood” brought to you by the dream-team of Blood x CLAMP.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After three episodes of nothing but simple school adventures, a somewhat ditzy and silly girl, various romantic potentials and the occasional moment of action, Blood-C has proven itself to be a significant disappointment this season. Even worse for those watching the show on Nico Nico, the comments stroll in from the start wondering if anything will happen this episode, making it a social experience that’s self fulfilling in a lot of ways because if the audience feels nothing is happening, and it’s right there on the stream from the start for all to see, it just predisposes you even more. And you may even get tempted to just close the tab right then and there and move on to something else.
The first half of the episode focuses more on this school based drama, though it’s a bit more narrow in its approach as it works with Saya’s potential interest in others and a look at her blood and what it means in a very roundabout way. Unlike past episodes though, it doesn’t wait until the final minutes of the episode to get to the action sequence, which is made a bit more intense this time around as we see others are caught up in it all when the oversized creatures she’s fighting get their hands on a couple of workers that are nearby in the middle of the night. It makes for a particularly brutal scene, really making it clear just how nasty and violent they can be, and it also shows us that Saya isn’t invincible as she gets tossed and sent into unconsciousness rather easily. It does serve to also show that she’s the type that gets right back up as soon as she can and goes toe to toe with them.
There is a bit more menace to the fight this time around, not only because there are others involved, but because these creatures are communicating more directly with her and making it plain that they have little interest in her as a real opponent. They also play dirty, which is the whole point of a fight like this as it’s all about winning, but it comes off more as them making it clear to her that she’s inferior and that she had best not interfere with their larger goals, things that are beneath her understanding. The show gives it all a proper menace with the dialogue and atmosphere, though the critters aren’t terribly threatening visually for the most part. The action is definitely solid though and it again points to some strong choreography and design for it.
In Summary:
Blood-C doesn’t exactly redeem itself here, but it offers more in this episode than the first three overall in terms of what’s going on. But it’s not enough to really win you over when you get right down to it. You still have a hard time shaking the feeling that nothing happens for so much of this that it’s reaching that line of pointlessness and you wonder how much more time you want to invest in it. That’s not what you want a show to give off for a vibe, and it’s definitely doing that even when it finally does hit something that hints more at what’s going on. The main thing the show has going for it still are the visuals and atmosphere of it all, but that’s a hard thing to make as the sole selling point.
Grade: C
Simulcast By: Nico Nico
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
