Vlad Love

This is an Oshii Mamoru joint, man. He's the idiot who directed the 1995 film version of Ghost in the Shell. Just the talentless dumbass who directed the film Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer and Patlabor 2: The Movie. It's not like he'd create a satire of anime and otaku culture smart enough to fly over the heads of the same people he's parodying or anything. That's not it, that's not it at all. He's just a has-been making movies about a genre and fandom he doesn't really understand, ripping off more successful works like urusei yatsura for no real reason, not ever to make ... a point about or a joke at the expense of a format that he's been a part of for longer than the average millennial, let alone zoomer or younger has been alive. This is a show that has nothing to say about anything, contains no allegory at all, nor affectionate disrespect for its own genre. It is a boring, uninspired look at the relationship between a high school girl and a vampire, with literally nothing else to offer an audience at all, and it is not worth your time, or anyone's time. I regret every second I spent with the show, and hated all of the moments of attempted satire of both the industry and otaku culture in general that it gracelessly shoved in my face. If I have any recommendation at all, it is to ignore the works of people who know what they are doing with a genre that predates most of the people who are on the internet. After all, what do they know? They've only been doing it longer than most of the people who watch anime have been alive, their contributions are stupid, at best, and definitely not funny either as satire or anything else. This is garbage, plain and simple, and no self respecting anime fan should ever watch it.

*no spoilers ahead*

This will probably call for a slightly different format, as its quite a different show... So here we go.

What IS blood love? ... Comedy mostly, but beyond that, i'd say i have NO clue, which is a problem since there's a LOT there. Now, what's the good? Art quality and animations (minus ep 9 and 10). Music. Overall production quality seems pretty high, surprisingly high even... So then, why the relatively low score? For the first half of the show i'd say i don't know, because this kind of random, stupid, explosive comedy is right up my alley. But the second half makes ... it kind of worse and more clear...

Its somewhat niche, on TOP of this kind of humor not being for everyone. For example, you'll be quite indifferent and uninterested in quite a few sections unless you're a hardcore cinema nut, i for one definitely was, despite somewhat loving cinema and learning in cinema school a few years, still, didn't get quite a lot of the references and the point even include most of them to begin with.

Then there's the 'zetsubou barrier', which is what i call some jokes, references and concepts being completely ungraspable and unexplainable to someone outside Japan and to those that don't write it, speak it, and don't know the local culture, politics, pop culture and recent events, etc. Which is most of the world's audience really. Named obviously after the same anime that's so jam packed of this stuff that some subs have whole screens of text and explanation, which is still not near enough to get a lot of it!

So yeah, there's that. So already you have 2 niches and a Japan residency barrier pretty much whiteout which you're not gonna enjoy like a third of the show. Next is the fact there's next to no story, character development... Which doesn't has to be a bad thing in comedy... If said comedy doesn't take itself seriously and doesn't try tell a story. The problem with Vlad love is that despite not taking itself TOO seriously, it still does a little, and it DOES try to tell a story here and there.

Finally, there's the humor which despite usually being good is a little too rare, it also often doesn't take things FAR ENOUGH, which is the whole point of the random explosive comedy as far as i see it... Some of it is also hit and miss but it usually depends on the episode type which later on start taking a completely different approach each said given episode. Oh and since i'm on that, there's also the individual problem with episode 9 and 10 which are just pretty much two episodes that are mostly made of still pictures, and very few of them as well, trying to tell some crappy little story, which makes it more like a visual novel than an anime really, and rather boring too.

So overall, what's the verdict? I'd say 6.2-6.3/10... And despite that, i DO somewhat recommend it, mostly the first half, ESPECIALLY if you like "random explosive comedy" (as i call it), similar to the likes of paniponi dash, asobi asobase and zetsubou sensei, even more so if you're into cinema and know Japanese.

What to say about this. It felt like a genuine waste of time.
It felt like there wasn't any passion put into this anime.
Like, for example, the last episode didn't have any connection at all to the rest of the episodes, making it separate and making the other episodes seem pointless.

Characters - it's just a bunch of one-dimensional characters making the same joke over and over again. They tried to create depth in the last episode but it's too late tbh.

Animation - Coming from Production IG, I expected too much from it. It is passionlessly made by the studio. It tried to create a unique ... style of animation, but nah, it just looks lazy.

Enjoyment - I got bored halfway through. It had potential but it didn't take itself seriously. It's a shame cause I had great hope for this.

Music is decent. It's the only saving grace of this anime. The opening is good, but everything else is decent.

Overall, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
(3.4/10)