Story 2/10:
The story is surprisingly bad. Episode one was almost perfectly copied from popular WIT series Attack on Titan. The premise is pretty generic. Main character is trapped and enslaved in a city by vampires along with many other kids. He ends up the sole survivor as he and friends attempt to escape from the city of Vampires. He then vows to get his revenge. Oh boy. He joins the military force to combat the vampires and for some odd reason the MC goes through school while receiving his training. His school life was irrelevant other than for making friends so the school setting was unnecessary as he could've made friends anywhere else. The setting is extremely unnatural considering the situation
The story continues to progress predictably while MC meets a typical cast of characters which I'll get into. But the absolute worst thing about the series is the dialogue. It's beyond generic and incredibly predictable. From "I'll kill all the vampires" to "I'll make sure no one dies lol". Just as no one seems to think before they spout whatever trash they want to say, they author doesn't seem give much thought to what dialogue can convey. It's as if he tried to take every cool sounding line from previously anime and manga and apply them where possible only to receive the opposite effect of what he hoped.
The weapons systems is retarded. They are controlled by demons and you must make a contract with a demon using some arbitrary and nonsensical show of "willpower", Which will lead to yet again some more predictable scenes. The fights are strangely favorable to MC and his party even though the power level between humans and Vampires is revealed to be huge. The upper level Vampires never go all out for whatever reason and constantly miss chances to kill, in contrast to episode one where the kids are cut apart in seconds. The thing I realized about this series is there is nothing unique about it. There is nothing that make it stand out and be recognized as "that anime". This isn't simply in comparison to AOT, but many good or at least decent anime. This goes back to the blandness of the dialogue, and the blandness of the characters.
Characters 2/10:
Not much to say here. The character are all dull as I said. The MC is a typical angry little kid who wish to exterminate the vampires. He spouts the expected edgy lines all throughout the first few episode thinking he doesn't need friends to kill, he wants to hurry up and kill, etc. He meets a typical shy kid who seems completely useless but can actually be somewhat helpful, and a typical rival character who is an ass but is actually nice on the inside. Shinoa was actually decent and entertaining as well. Maybe that's why I remember her name along with just a few others. Her smug playfulness drew an interesting contrast with her serious attitude on the field. But that's about it.
Strangely enough with all the emphasis on teamwork you'd think there'd be more tactics in fights but I guess not. The vampires didn't appear enough to do anything other than say the usual antagonistic lines and how things seemed interesting. MCs friend survives and turns into a Vamp, no surprise here. The show does a terrible job drawing sympathy for the viewer for either side, though it clearly aims to do so with MC's friend being turned while MC fights the vampires and a few other reasons.
Art 6/10:
The character designs are good but the animation can be inconsistent with one hilarious episode standing out in terms of poor quality. The water color-esque background are unique and works well for indoor scenes, but outdoors draws an huge contrast with the 2D character figures which can be annoying. Fight scenes were done decently at best, as seems WIT is saving the shekels for AOT.
Music 6/10:
Many people take the opportunity to shamelessly cream themselves when Hiroyuki Sawano is revealed to be handling the music composition for an anime. This is certainly not on the level of AOT or Kill la Kill and it's not anything special. It's has some good moments but nothing else.
Entertainment 5/10
Even with all I mentioned the series managed to remain entertaining enough for me to at least complete it. I may or may not be watching season 2, but I don't feel like I've completely wasted my time somehow. Maybe I still retain hope for the show to get better and haven't been completely let down (considering my expectations were pretty low in the first place)
Overall 3/10:
If you like something generic yet can kill time without causing you to die of boredom, this may be the show for you.
