The cultural festival is just about here and excitement abounds, as does an element of danger.
What They Say:
Episode 10 – ‘Thirst’
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Finding ones place has been a theme of this series and is still a big part of things. The early part of the series focused rather heavily on Kohei for obvious reasons, but even here we’re seeing how important the cultural festival is for Erika since she very much wants to feel like a normal student. Unlike the usual idea in that she’s trying to avoid her vampire heritage, here she’s fully accepting and happy with it, but she wants a normal high school experience as well. She’s thrown herself pretty hard into the whole role that the student council has to take on for the event and really does seem to thrive and enjoy it, which in turn is rather heartwarming for Kohei since he wants her to be happy.
Part of her reason for it is also the take her mind off of her mothers recent arrival and the push she’s making for her to take on a servant. There’s an interesting dialogue about how the world has changed and the old ways shouldn’t apply, but mother always knows best and that Erika may have a thirst that cannot be sated solely by blood bags and the like. Luckily for her, she gets quite a distraction since summer is upon them and that means time at the beach, with lots of bikinis and characters that suddenly have larger chests than you normally think they do, (hello, Hina!) and basically a whole lot of upbeat goodness. Even with the tinges of something larger in there in the relationship between Erika and Kohei, it’s all good summer fun stuff that comes across really well, like most of this series.
Not content with just a beach episode, Fortune Arterial also wants to have a shrine event in which there’s fireworks. Or more specifically, a couple of the group are going through their dance lessons for the festival and they all decide to meet up that night after the practices, completely in yukatas, in order to watch the fireworks. It at least avoids having a big festival event on top of the beach material and it has a good edge of darkness that has been growing the whole time as well with Erika’s hunger rising. Mixing the quieter music with the darkening mood works very well and while you have a very good idea of where it’s going to go, it’s the kind of setup that works and doesn’t feel entirely forced.
In Summary:
Fortune Arterial has a quiet episode for the most part but it’s the kind of show that knows how to use them. While they deal with the cultural festival and the importance of it to Erika, which ties to how Kohei has settled into the school to find himself as well, it’s also about the relationship that the two have with each other. The master/servant angle has been making itself more prominent while not being overdone. It’s the little moments that are growing and pushing Erika down a path she doesn’t want to go as she wants to experience a normal high school life without denying her vampire heritage. The show can only go two routes with all of it in the end, and seeing the choice they make is a good part of the fun here at the very end.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
