Synopsis: Blood Lad follows Staz, a vampire that is obsessed with the human world, and Fuyumi, a human girl that was killed and turned into a ghost after wandering into the demon world. Staz promises to help Fuyumi regain her humanity by bringing her back to life, as it means that he would be able to visit the human world.
Chris’s First Impression:
Blood Lad. Episode 1. Was it interesting? Yeah. Was it funny? I guess so (although humor is completely subjective). Is this ‘Hataraku Maou-sama!’ without the fast food restaurant? Kind of. Was the OST good? Yeah, I thought so. The character designs, were they okay? I didn’t like them (but again, character designs are subjective). Am I looking forward to episode 2? I guess I am. Does that sum up everything I have to say about Blood Lad? Pretty much, but I’m going to ramble anyway.
Blood Lad is quirky and it’s this trait that it thrives on. Whilst using a potent mixture of situational humor and wacky scenery to gain attention and create a comical atmosphere, Blood Lad also attempts to use witty one liners to grab the audiences attention… whether it does this successfully is up for debate. The humor in Blood Lad isn’t for everyone, in fact I’d go as far as to say that if you don’t usually like anime stereotypes, such as the ‘moe’ character with seemingly half a brain, turn away and run. This anime is going to be 50% angry vampire with ‘childlike’ tendencies and 50% big breasted moe girl with a tendency to get 1+1 wrong… just saying… I ‘like‘ these sorts of characters and find the combination of the two to be quite funny and a norm in the romance genre of anime, romance being a ‘sub-genre’ within Blood Lad. If you don’t like these types of characters you’re not going to like Blood Lad. End of.
Speaking of our main characters… Staz is quite the lad, eh? Apparently Hell is where you go is you’re a gangster and or sell man eating flowers… Right. I think that Staz as a character is a ‘love him or hate him’ type, I mean I originally thought he was quite annoying and, whilst still thinking him to be ever so slightly vexatious, I think that he slightly redeemed himself by crushing that guys heart with his… mind? That aside, Fuyumi… is hot has big boobs is kinda silly spurns my lust sets carnal desires aflame is very interesting indeed. So she somehow managed to walk into the Demon World? Nice one. How does that even happen? What kind of imbecile walks into a portals evidently brimming with dark energy? Silly girl. I think the dynamic that Staz and Fuyumi are going to create is going to be A. hilarious and B. flat out awesome… and you’ve got to admit… the fact that she actually died is pretty funny… (not in the sense that she died because, well, let’s face it, we’re all going to die, just the fact that she died in the way she did, when she did and how she did, I mean, we saw that plant fly up into Staz’s room and we all knew what was going down… oh! And you’ve got to love how she ended up naked afterwards and Staz didn’t even notice it until like five minutes had passed… very Highschool DxD)
Shiny boobs aside, I really liked the OST and, whilst we’re on the topic of music and the OST, I liked the opening a lot, more so I feel than the ending which was somewhat sub-par. The OST fit the mood and feel of the anime perfectly and shone best during comedic scenes and or slower paced dramatic scenes.
That is all.
What other menial things can we talk about?
The animation?
Meh, it’s what’s to be expected from Brain’s Base, nothing mind blowing, but good enough to not interrupt my viewing pleasure. The character designs are also… interesting, seemingly fluctuating between vampire and humans. Seriously though, Fuyumi has these massive eyes that don’t even remotely complement Staz’s thin, darkened eyes… just saying… Other than that, I think they were pretty standard, nothing to write home about.
And, in a way, I guess that’s how I would sum up Blood Lad; nothing to write home about. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, it’s funny, the premise is interesting and the OST is pretty nice, but that’s about it. We’ve seen anime like this before and it’s been done better. This was one of those ‘setting up’ episodes that really does nothing to give you a real feel for the anime and what it’s going to be like, I mean, it’s pretty much the first five minutes of Hataraku Maou-sama! expanded upon with less Devil’s vs Angels and more Gangsters vs Botanists, y’know?
Possibility of Blogging(?): Maybe, i’ll give it three episode before I decide though…
I’m not sold. I need to see what life in the human world is like and how Staz deals with it before I decide to watch, let alone blog about Blood Lad. Where Episode 1 lacked content, Episode 2 should be full to the brim… hopefully. There are still two more ‘main’ character to be introduced it would apparently seem and I’m looking forwards to the dynamic that they bring to the show so… yeah. I thought it was okay.
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Eva’s First Impression:
Coming soon…