When and why did vampires become so popular in the past few years? The only conclusion that I could really come to was the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. It's the series that sucked the blood (and money for that matter) out of adolescent girls everywhere. Why? Somewhere along the line I think our society forgot what vampires are supposed to be. The premise of ‘Vampires’ were originally made to be terrifying beings that were both intimidating and powerful. If you don't know what I'm talking about regarding what a vampire ideally should be, I would promptly direct you to Hellsing Ultimate where you may bask in the bloody goodness that is Alucard.
The story of Blood Lad is pretty unoriginal. Vampire meets a human girl, the human girl gets into trouble, and the vampire becomes the hero to save her. Pretty cliché. The plot of Blood Lad, however, is pretty good. The demon world is interesting in itself based on the premise of the 'bosses' that control territories, the hierarchy of demons, and the Demon Acropolis (where top tier demons reside). Material is presented at a good pace that keeps the audience interested rather than confused; at a ten episode run, that's quite a feat. One last thing that I want to mention is that Blood Lad is lined with constant references to other anime and anime characters. If you're like me and enjoy knowing what is being referenced, you'll think or say something to the equivalent of, "Fuck yeah! I got that reference. Sweet!" as you give yourself a high five.
The art/animation of Blood Lad is good. It's an anime of 2013 and thus there it's essentially a basic standard to have good animation and art. The action scenes look nice, the characters look good, and everything flows well overall. Nothing to complain about here, but also nothing to brag about. The sound portion is decent enough. The OP and ED are both pretty good; I enjoyed them both, but they aren't something that warrants watching and listening to every episode. There are a wide array of voices for the characters and I liked how fitting they were for their respective characters.
I enjoyed watching the characters of Blood Lad interact. Each of them is interesting in their own sense of the word. Staz, the main protagonist, is a vampire of prestigious class/breed and 'boss' of a territory in the demon world. He’s also and an otaku that aims to quench his thirst for something that isn’t blood; he's infatuated with all things from the human world, but mainly things from Japan. He collects anime, manga, video games, Japanese attire, and becomes entranced by anything new from the human world. This is also part of the reason he is attracted to Fuyumi, the female lead. Fuyumi is a human girl from Japan who ends up wandering into the demon world accidently and subsequently turned into a ghost after dying. She entrusts her future to Staz in hopes that he can return her back to being human. She's really shy, quiet, and humble for the most part. Bell, a spatial magic sorceress, acts like a second female lead. She's provides quite a few comedic moments and often teases Staz. She's clever and deceptive, but also is also quite the softie. While those three are the really prevalent characters, many other characters take up their fair share of screen time such as Wolf, Braz, and Liz. I don't think there was a character I legitimately didn't like in the whole series, however there also wasn't much meaningful development for the series’ characters either.
Overall Blood Lad is entertaining to say the least. I enjoyed what it had to offer for a story about vampires and the supernatural. Fan service is really prevalent in this series and did become slightly a nuisance for me; it seems they took every opportunity to showcase cleavage and added it in. The series runs for only ten episodes, which is a shame because it leaves a lot of questions unanswered and feels rather incomplete. If you're looking for a fun, simple show to watch, Blood Lad might be what you're looking for; just don't expect any deep themes or depth that makes a series great.
