What They Say:
The bloodivores and hemomancers fight together to survive. However, their alliance is fleeting—no more than a false friendship.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Episode four of this vampire survival series continues the mystery of where, and when, this Aori warehouse is. Mi Liu, Anji, and Cho Ifen’s rustling through the destroyed office in episode three only uncovered that mysterious blueprint, so more exploring is in order here. As they meander through the dilapidated hallways, the battle back at the cells is still raging on and some of the Bloodivore prisoners are reaching new points of desperation. Chen Fong and Win Chao remain trapped, working with the few hemomancers present to defend themselves against the unstoppable swarm of muscular tooth demons. With all this happening in the warehouse, is anything going on outside to find these supposedly dead inmates? Luckily this episode addresses that, although briefly. So briefly in fact, that it is the very first scene in the episode. A lone police officer is shown perusing a stack of photos containing some familiar faces. These photos are all the death row inmates we’ve gotten to know over the past few episodes, and it seems this officer isn’t exactly believing the “dead” stamp adorning all these mugshots. All these prisoners had disappeared from the public eye and apparently, that is good enough for the government to label them as dead. Quite the coincidence, right? This detective obviously agrees and hunkers himself down for another in what must be a series of long nights at the office.
Back at the warehouse, Mi Liu continues his search for even a clue at where they could possibly be. I only say Mi Liu at this point because his two female companions, Anji and Cho, have been even less than useless at this point. Relegated to helpless woman status, our only real interaction with the two since hell broke loose was either them being rescued by Mi Liu or Cho sexually harassing Anji in the office. This is unfortunate as I wish Anji would’ve been the hemomancer at this point to kind of break the mold of the “special child gets powers” storyline that Bloodivores is appearing to go in. Any wish for a strong (or even present) female character is dashed in episode four as well, though one of them does serve the episode’s title of “Sacrifice”.
Meanwhile, in the cells, the other prisoners aren’t exactly having a picnic of it. Desperately holding up a barrier of empty cells, the lone hemomancer struggles to focus his mind amongst the chaos. Understandably, facing the odds of a brutal demise as one of the Bloodivores considering suicide…with a hand grenade. Not wanting to get blasted to bits because one guy can’t handle the stress, the other prisoners gang up on the poor guy to steal this grenade. Unfortunately(?), the struggle results in his death at the hand of Win Chao, shotgun toting crazy friend from the robbery. In his emotionally heightened state after his first kill, we do get a nice little look into the troubled past that Win Chao and Chen Fong share. We get what is normally our first death flag afterward, though, Chen Fong taking it upon himself as the elder to wander out with the teeth demons to make everything “right”.
Lastly, we shift the last few minutes back to our wanderers, now dealing with teeth demons of their own. Seemingly cornered, Mi Liu orders the trembling young women to run whilst he fights off the attackers. Here is where the episode title comes in hand…though not how you would initially think. Flanked on either end by death, Cho Ifen finds a door to a different room, a lifeline for the girls! In both a selfish and totally illogical move, Cho proceeds to push Anji back out into the hallway, thoroughly sacrificing Mi Liu’s closest friend for her own safety. Sustaining a serious wound but hanging on, Mi Liu scoops her up to find an escape from the tangled up demons, but where? Lo and behold, who should come back Cho Ifen, playing the role of heroine. Luckily, Mi Liu sees through these and cruises right past her outstretched arms, leaving the underhanded wench for dead.
In Summary:
Little is accomplished this episode outside of some development between Win Chao and Chen Fong and the peek at an outside investigation starting to take hold. I wish that more time would’ve been spent on the investigator’s efforts and less on the seemingly fruitless and longwinded battle back in the warehouse. I’m also waiting for a female character that will provide some plot relevance instead of being a fan service laden damsel in distress or backstabbing witch. Art and animation were pretty mediocre once again here, which is at least consistent throughout the series.
Grade: C-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
