Saya’s literally in a class all by herself now, since the monster ate the rest of the students.
What They Say:
A brand new “Blood” brought to you by the dream-team of Blood x CLAMP. The original animation “Blood-C” at last begins.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the way the previous episode unfolded in beautiful, brutal and bloody manner, Blood-C finally felt like it was about something. With the creature showing up in the classroom and ripping bodies apart, chewing them with ease and causing nohting but panic as they race around trying to find someplace safe to be in a seemingly closed off room (that really isn’t), the creature has very easy prey because the students just stand there as the thing roams the halls devouring their fellow classmates. Okay, okay, they do actually cry about what’s going on too. It’s the kind of sequence where you love the way it’s so blatant in what it does with the bloodshed and violence, but also hate the utter stupidity that climbs into it.
Considering the size of the school and its small student body, it’s a wonder that the critter doesn’t chow down on them all within just a couple of minutes. Some of the kids are pretty much focusing on their own survival and self interest, but whether they do that or try to help others or just stand there, they’re all dying anyway. Saya for her part does fight against the creature, but she takes a whole lot of damage herself until she finally gets past her own psychological issues and actually fights hard. What’s absolutely hysterical though is that while the show either whites out or blacks out lots and lots of violence against students, it has no problem with showing Saya gutting the creature that killed and devoured them. In detail. Bloody, bloody detail.
The aftermath of the carnage takes a curious turn as it mostly just shuffles Saya off to recover after Kanako does a little trick on her to get her to sleep. When she’s back at the shrine in the dark of the evening, only the dog that talks to her is the one that she deals with as he’s questioning who she is, who she wants to be and what it is that makes her who she is. It’s plain that Saya has an internal struggle over memories that are trying to surface but are blocked and understanding them will be key to her actually being able to move forward with her life. Even more disheartening with the show is when Tokizane shows up in the middle of it and the two have an “emotional” encounter over what happened to all their classmates. As male as Tokizane may be, hearing the news that his entire class has just been gutted really doesn’t seem to have done that much of a number on him.
In Summary:
At this stage of the game, the only reason the series rates well in the grading department is because of the animation itself. It’s not for story, since it’s paper thin at best, because even as it tries to start moving things forward, it’s not really capable of doing so at any sort of pace that makes sense. The characters are weak beyond words in personality and the acting is so bland and monotone that you want to hit your head against the wall with your average conversation because it becomes even more dull. But the action… that sells it completely. There are real issues to take with how its presented story wise, but the action, violence and sword play in this episode are great and kept me rivited during that whole sequence. It’s just that after that, it went so poorly that it nearly put me to sleep.
Grade: B
Streamed 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.
