Anime: Blood Lad
Studio: Brain’s Base
Crunchyroll description: Staz is one of the toughest vampires in the demon world. But unlike his ancestors, he finds being a vampire to be a serious pain in the ass and prefers to spend his time watching anime and playing video games instead. When a Japanese girl named Fuyumi wanders into his territory, Staz cannot hide his excitement at finally meeting a living human from his favourite culture.
Genres: Action, Comedy, Supernatural, Seinen
Original run: 08/07/2013 to 11/9/2013
Episodes: 10
As much as I love supernatural genre anime, I’m often put off. I’ve watched some really great shows which fall in the genre, but I’ve also watched some duds, and my search for my absolute favourite supernatural show continues (though props to Erased and Parasyte which are leading the pack). Supernatural shows can be convoluted, packed with conflicting lore and hard to follow, but done right, they can be exciting and a fun break from reality.
Blood Lad follows the story of Staz. C Blood, a vampire and the boss of his territory, one of the most powerful demons in the demon world. Staz is an otaku, fascinated with the human world and amassing a collection of manga, anime and figurines that would put most IRL weebs to shame. When a Japanese girl named Fuyumi enters the demon world by accident, Staz feels like he’s hit the jackpot – that is, until she dies. Staz vows to resurrect Fuyumi, who is now living in the demon world as a ghost.
Straight off the bat, it’s revealed that Staz hates being a vampire, he finds it incredibly arduous and has no interest in doing ‘typical’ vampire activities, like drinking blood. He’d much rather stay indoors and watch anime, or play games. I really liked this juxtaposition and it was fun to see Staz reluctantly using his power, as well as see how he feels about other demons.
Blood Lad is chock full of fan service. All female characters have boobs that are disproportionately big, not to mention which employ their own laws of physics. There are upskirt shots aplenty, and situations where Fuyumi in particular is found in compromising positions. It’s a little off-putting, and I definitely think the show is strong enough to not have to rely on these sorts of things to keep interest. However, I’m not a fan of overt fan-service in the first place, so even if this was perfectly placed and tonally perfect, I probably wouldn’t have liked it anyway.
Around the midway point of the season, the show introduces a ‘big bad’ who is supposed to be a super demon, the toughest ever and who noone can defeat. This turns out to be incredibly anti-climatic, and easily defeated. There’s a hint that this could develop in the future, but as I’ll discuss later, this goes nowhere.
The fight scenes themselves are really cool and well animated. With the anime being set in the demon world, each character has their own strengths and powers, and it was really interesting to see these powers being used and the different tactics of how the powers could be used to their advantages and even against them.
Blood Lad features a great cast of supporting characters, from Staz’s own allies to his enemies and beyond. I didn’t feel like there were any weak characters, apart from perhaps Fuyumi herself. She just sort of goes along with whatever everyone tells her to do, and doesn’t really ever voice her own opinions or say what she wants. I get that she’s in a strange world (and also kinda dead), but she was just sort of subservient and submissive, which was disappointing.
Speaking of disappointing, the end of Blood Lad is infuriating. Don’t go into this anime if you like things wrapped up neatly. For whatever reason, there isn’t a second season, so it just ends with no resolution. It’s all perfectly set up for another season, but it just doesn’t exist, and the only way for me to get closure is to add the manga to my to read list.
Blood Lad is super fun, and doesn’t take itself seriously at all. I laughed out loud on several occasions throughout the series, and came to really love a lot of the characters. The lack of a satisfactory standalone ending loses Blood Lad some points, but in general it’s an enjoyable watch.
We’ll kick off with my new anime additions. If you remember back to the 
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I love me a supernatural type folklore anime, I think it’s so interesting to see folklore tales from other countries. I really enjoyed the first episode of Kemono Jihen, I thought it was really mysterious and exciting, and I hope it explores more of a detective side of things in future episodes.
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I really loved the first episode of SK8 the Infinity! I felt like it did a really good job of establishing the world, and the characters, and it was really energetic and fun. It was so colourful and vibrant too, it had me hooked on the first episode!
Any anime wanting to focus on figure skating has a hard job ahead of it after the success of Yuri on Ice!, but I think Skate-Leading Stars does a good job of stepping away from the traditional figure skating perceptions but introducing a new concept in skate leading. I love sports anime anyway, and I’m definitely spoiled for it this season. Skate-Leading Stars worries me somewhat because I think it’s quite hard to create a convincing concept for a sport you’re inventing for the purposes of a show, but hopefully the characterisation and the concept is strong enough to pull through! It certainly seems like it so far, but whether they can maintain that through the season remains to be seen!
I haven’t watched that many isekai anime, I think really only Rising of the Shield Hero in fact, and Sword Art Online if that counts. It’s just not a genre that overly appeals to me, but the promo picture for this looked cool and the concept was interesting; a 34 year old recluse is killed and reincarnated in another world as a baby named Rudy, who then grows up and learns magic and decides to live the life he always wanted in his previous life. If I’m honest, I’m not sure how long I’ll stick with this. For the most part it is pretty cool, I really like the concept and seeing Rudy learning magic and it’s kind of fun to see his inner thoughts which have retained the memories of his previous life and the actions of him as a child. My issue is it’s so crude. I’m not a prude by any means, I’ve watched my fair share of ecchi, but this just rubbed me up the wrong way. One of the first things Rudy does is internally comment on how big his mothers boobs are and makes an remark about looking forward to breastfeeding. There’s also a comment later Rudy’s internal voice makes later on about wondering if another character has reached puberty yet in a really crude manner. I’m uncertain how long I can stick this one for, but I’ll see how I go!
As I stated in my IDOLiSH7 review, I’ve got really into idol music and IDOLiSH7 has opened the way for me for idol anime. I-Chu seems pretty generic so far, it was enjoyable enough but nothing really stood out to me in the show in terms of characters or concept.
Let’s get it out of the way – first up in the mystery box was King’s Game. This is the only one of the five that I’ve actually seen (technically I haven’t watched Roar of Awakening, but I have watched season 2 of Attack on Titan). I actually started it when it was airing, and stopped watching because I didn’t like it much. I then got fed up of it being incomplete on my AniList, so I finished it off earlier this year for Anime August. I still didn’t like it much (I gave it a 5/10 when I rated it), but against my judgements I will keep the bluray as I might give it a second chance later down the line – perhaps the disjointed way I watched it didn’t help with my overall dislike of the show.
Next up, as mentioned above, was Attack on Titan: Roar of Awakening. For those who don’t know, this is a recap movie retelling the ‘Clash of the Titans’ story arc in season 2. I’ve seen season 2 of Attack on Titan, albeit a long time ago when it aired, and I don’t have any of the other seasons or recap movies in my collection. If there’s anything I hate, it’s an incomplete collection, so I kind of feel obliged to fill in the rest of the collection if I end up selling Roar of Awakening on.
Speaking of preorders, my copy of Ride Your Wave also arrived. I first saw Ride Your Wave when it was showed at Scotland Loves Anime last year, and it was my favourite film of the whole festival. I’m so excited to watch it over and over again, it’s definitely up there in my favourite anime movies list.
Culture Shack 