Chiaki J. Konaka

Having not read more than the first few issues of the manga (and that was nearly fifteen years ago), I wasn't sure what to expect from this anime adaptation, that I'd been told caught up to the manga half-way through its run and had to invent an ending for itself. And so I'm not too surprised the series was a mixed bag. I personally find the 'hi, let me declare stiltedly everything I am, want and plan in this scene before we start interacting' thing to be very awkward and annoying, show more completely ruining the flow and realism of any scene, but I know from my limited experience with anime it is a genre and culture thing, and so I both expected it and don't hold it against the series. What do I hold against it, though, is spending a lot of time on supposed protagonist Seras Victoria, and then never going anywhere with her. She doesn't do anything of importance, doesn't contribute mentionably to the resolution, and her internal struggle against the vampiric bloodlust is as empty and pointless ends up being as any plotpoint I've ever seen in anything. I realise they had to wrap the show up on their own without aid from the manga (which is where this character's plotline is set up), but failing to find a satisfying trajectory for the de facto series protagonist is deeply disappointing.
On the plus side, however, the show is very immersive. There are oodles of amazing visuals and cool sequences, and the hints at a larger world and mythology are very intriguing. The latter unfortunately also becomes a bit of a let-down when the series abruptly ends without exploring any of it at all, but I hope and suspect the manga (and the newer OVA adaptation following this one that stays truer to the source material) deliver more on that score.

All in all, you could do worse with a thirteen 20 minute installments series of vampire action-horror, but you could also do a lot better. That said, there was enough to like here that I'm now kind of curious about the original manga again, or even the later OVA adaptation ... show less