Strike the Blood – Episode 3: Right Arm of the Saint III

Impression:

I don’t hate Strike the Blood, I simply don’t love and or like it… Don’t get me wrong, if you’d given me this show to watch three years ago, I would have loved it; it’s as simple as that. But now that I’ve truly indulged in quality anime and seen what can be achieved, I can’t help but feel disappointed with Strike the Blood. I feel as thought I’ve seen it’s story one hundred times before, I feel as though it’s characters are bland and banal – I’m done with Strike the Blood, and here’s why:

Let’s talk about Kojou and his slowly developing harem of girls. All you have to do is look at the promo poster to realize that, “Hey! This guy’s surrounded by babes!”, and I just can’t stand it when the protagonist attracts girls for no reason. An example of how it should be done is ‘A Certain Magical Index‘, a show in which the main character often becomes inundated with women whom he’s saved in previous plot arcs. The thing is, these women don’t stick around for long and, if they do, it’s because they are quality characters, with distinct personalities who don’t need the protagonists presence to appear interesting. Sadly, Yukina does, without Kojou’s presence she’d be some bland girl with a guitar case – it’s as simple as that. I can’t even count how many times a girl blushed in this episode for no logical reason: “Ooh, senpai, who’s a white haired vampire, that receives nosebleeds when he smells a girls’ wallet, wants to walk around with me! I can feel the heat rising in my face…” It’s stupid! And I can’t stand it. Sure, Yukina has her redeeming moments, but when she, the girl who’s meant to be observing the Fourth Progenitor, can’t even defeat enemies that he can, what’s the point of her even being there? She’s useless. Her presence makes no logical sense.

But let’s actually talk about episode 3, the homunculus, the battle and the decapitation that will probably be resolved by either, A, the fact that he’s a vampire, or, B, some weird mumbo-jumbo magic spell that saves everyone a part from everyone and only Kojou. If this show does anything right, it’s the battle scenes. They’re fluid, they look nice and, well, you can’t go wrong with a good battle sequence (unless you do). This entire episode was really based around fights, fighting and a little bit of exposition in-between, which, I suppose, is par for the course when dealing with this genre of anime, but it’s done in such a weak and repetitive manner that I can’t take it anymore. Battle, ooh senpai you saved me, blush, random high school scene, battle, ooh senpai… need I go on? Kojou isn’t dead. We all know he isn’t and that, I feel, is a story telling flaw if there ever was one. Give the guy a concussion, make him loose his memories – I don’t care, just don’t play the dead card when it’s so obvious that he’s not. We’re only three episodes in for God’s sake! That said, nice screaming there Yukina! Nice, healthy lungs…

I’m just saying, but Yukina told Kojou to leave at the first sign of trouble… so, what do Kojou do? Oh, you know, he gets riled up for no logical reason and gets killed. Smooth. I’m not even going to entertain the idea of talking about Kojou and his stupidity, so I’ll just move onto my next bullet point: the sympathetic homunculus. But of course the murderous entity has feelings, it must obey orders even though it’s clear and Planet of the Apes “No!” moment will occur imminently. Ah, I’m just ranting now… let’s end this charade.

This show is the most cliched thing I have seen in a white, mimicking the like of A Certain Scientific Railgun, Campione! and other such shows of the genre. I understand that cliche’s are bound to happen, it’s only natural, but when I can predict and sigh at everything on screen… it’s tedious. The characters are dull, the shows is annoyingly convulted by nature and… and I can’t do it anymore. I don’t know about Dan (the other guy bloggin this show), I mean, he can blog about this is he loved this episode, but… Sorry everyone, Strike the Blood is officially…

 DROPPED.