Blood-C

Peaceful schoolgirl by day, fearsome monster slayer by night, Saya Kisaragi is leading a split life. Equipped with a ceremonial sword given to her by her father for sacred tasks, she vanquishes every monster who dares threaten her quiet little village. But all too soon, Saya's reality and everything she believes to be true is tested, when she overhears the monsters speak of a broken covenant—something she knows nothing about. And then, unexpectedly, a strange dog appears; it asks her to whom she promised to protect the village, curious as to what would happen if she were to break that promise. Tormented by unexplainable visions and her world unraveling around her, we travel with Saya through her struggle to find a way to the truth in a village where nothing is as it seems.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Blood-C
Other:	Blood+, Blood: The Last Vampire
Sequel:	Blood-C: The Last Dark
Side story:	Blood-C: None-None Gekijou
Summary:	Blood-C: Special Edition

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Kisaragi, Saya

Main

Mizuki, Nana
Japanese

Nanahara, Fumito

Supporting

Nojima, Kenji
Japanese

Dog

Supporting

Fukuyama, Jun
Japanese

Motoe, Nene

Supporting

Fukuen, Misato
Japanese

Tokizane, Shinichirou

Supporting

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa
Japanese

Motoe, Nono

Supporting

Fukuen, Misato
Japanese

Kisaragi, Tadayoshi

Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji
Japanese

Amino, Yuuka

Supporting

Asano, Masumi
Japanese

Tsutsutori, Kanako

Supporting

Miyagawa, Miho
Japanese

Tomofusa, Itsuki

Supporting

Abe, Atsushi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Furukawa, Shin

Producer

Maruyama, Hiroo

Producer

Uryuu, Kyouko

Producer

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Opening Theme

"spiral" by DUSTZ

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Ending Theme

"Junketsu Paradox (純潔パラドックス)" by Nana Mizuki

Reviews

Sep 6, 2011

-redux

Recommended

Let's be honest, Blood C is probably one of the most controversial animes I have seen in all of my time of watching anime. Never have I seen so much bitterness and hatred against a show. Well, let me be the first to present the opposite of the mainstream opinions: I loved Blood C (gasp!) Before you turn away however, please let me explain.

Blood C is literally a creative liberation from the two sister series in the Blood franchise; the only connection (so far) is that they all focus on a girl named Saya who wields a sword and fights monsters. Blood + had 50 ... episodes, and thus had plenty of arcs and time to develop its very large cast- Blood C, on the other hand, at the most, has 12 episodes, and thus uses most of its time to build up atmosphere. Which it excels at, at the expense of fleshing out the secondary characters. Before you rain on my parade, there are a few things to note; Blood C is part of the Blood franchise, which includes the movie Blood; The Last Vampire, and Blood +, the sequel anime show. Please, please stick this in your head now: Blood C has absolutely nothing to do with these two installments. It is a mere sister series with the shadow of the concept. Thus treat this as an entirely new show.

That said, I will put it out forward: Blood C is either a show you are going to loathe or that you are going to love. Most people hated it, some people liked it. I loved it. It is not for people who are looking for interesting fabulous fleshed out characters (this is coming from someone who is the biggest sucker for character development). This is a show that focuses on atmosphere and building it. It is a horror series. It is not an action series, though the action scenes in this show are some of the most creative, well animated ones I have seen.

It is literally horror at its best- I assure you that if you're a sucker for the type of horror which is more psychological than just pop-outs, this show is for you. If you hate slow build ups, move on. The first half of Blood C focuses on instilling the surreal setting and life of the show into your head. I won’t deny it; the first four episodes or so are pretty dull because they are monotonous; Saya sings a song to school, chatters with her buddies, and fights a monster. What you don’t realize is that this is all- and I mean all of it, pay attention to all the details- for a very good reason, which comes later. This is the part where I admit that there are some flaws; this could have been easily condensed into three episodes max. It still does a good job of developing a very eerie aura though; you have the constant feeling that something is very wrong about this town, and yet you can’t place your finger on it. There's an eerie tension consistently kept despite the seemingly innocuous events; a tension that's about to snap and yet you don't know when or how.

So whereas the first half spends its time just fleshing the atmosphere and setting of the world Saya lives in, and the latter half spends the next half tearing that world down. Allow me to present you the latter half of Blood C, which absolutely shines like no other. Halfway throughout this show, you are literally smacked in the face. Repeatedly. In each episode. This is the real deal- you are given cruel reality of the situation; and goddamn, it is cruel. It is merciless. I am not just talking about the gore, which mind you, is on par of that of Narutaru, which has some of the most disturbing scenes I have seen yet. The gore is of course, censored (not the show’s fault, the network’s fault, something which will be fixed when the DVDs come out and dear lord then you can let your stomach churn), but that’s not what makes it horrifying; it’s the way the gore happens, the way no one is spared in this show, the sounds which are so gruesomely realistic. This is not a show for the faint of heart. But the gore is only the sprinkles on the actual cake. The cake is the series of red herrings and plot twists that wrench your heart. You will witness in horror, how everything in front of you, how every trope known to anime kind, is smashed and ripped apart. If anything, Blood C excels at building atmosphere and horror. The fight scenes are as fabulous as they are gruesome. But yes. Blood C's purpose and key to the show is how it builds up the plot layer by layer, paranoia by paranoia. The villains are completely ruthless, and there is no battle fought without someone dying.

The characters are where things get messy. There’ s two very good reasons why none of the cast except Saya is fleshed out. Nevertheless, they are pretty stereotypical, and are very CLAMPish. But once again; you don’t really end up bothering about them for good reasons. Saya herself is very likeable; you come to empathize with her situation if anything and while you might get irritated with her….inepititude, at times, you have to understand what she’s going through. In the end, this show is about her for reasons you have yet to find out, so don’t be quick to judge!

Which brings me to the last, and most important aspect of an anime; how it ends. I have two huge problems with anime, as someone who has seen more than enough for a lifetime.

1.) The ending is rushed. You have no idea how frustrating this is. This is not a tv drama in which a season’s ending can be bad and can pick itself off the ground later on. This is a conclusion and nothing is more irritating and annoying than loving a show only to see the worst plot holes and resolution possible.

2.) Animes that build up to a movie, or huge series, tend to be terrible. Let’s look at two prime examples; .hack//ROOTS was the buildup to the game series, .hack//G.U Trilogy, and it just failed as an individual series because it only left us with very little to deal with and just a fancy commercial to buy the games. Higashi no Eden had wonderful, wonderful potential but got axed by the fact that it was nothing but a mere leg for the two movies to follow. As individual series, these tend to absolutely collapse.

Blood C completely surpasses these two typical faults and succeeds. It paces itself extremely, extremely well; the finale was fantastic and does not leave any open ties that cannot be answered by a movie sequel. The buildup to the finale itself is wonderful, for the most part; while the first part lags a little, it’s not a huge problem and hell, once you’re in, you are stuck in for the biggest ride. Not only does it separate itself as an individual show, and actually solve most of the problems raised in the show and leave a resolution (or many) for it to be complete on its own, but it manages to still raise questions and leave some unanswered so that it can tie itself over with the movie. You are left with a feeling of excitement and resolution; you want to go back and rewatch the series again, but at the same time you’re excited that some big questions are going to be answered in the movie installment.

What's even greater is the subtlety- you can go back through this series and catch on the really tiny moments and dialogue that what were once usually tasteless random things, are now essential ‘oh!’ moments where you realize there’s two (or more) things being said. I’m a huge fan of subtlety and I guess that’s why I’m such a passionate fan of this show, and I’m really glad they’re doing stuff like this.

Basically, Blood C was fabulous for me. It had the layered buildup of Shiki, the horror of Ghost Hound and themes of Jigoku Shoujo, and gore of Shadow Star. If you like horror, and well paced ones, then totally go for this. It’s not for everyone though, and it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. It takes huge, huge risks, risks that most series would not go for, but it manages to complete the leap and land with a very solid and steady landing. I personally, I believe Blood C is a remarkable show that pushes the boundaries of the Blood franchise and creates horror by clashing it with the mundane, ordinary life- only making it more frightening than ever.

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Jul 8, 2011

Ghostalker

Mixed Feelings

Note: This is not really a review, but as what the title suggest, it is an "episode impressions". Will edit this into a "full review" once the series has ended.

Story: Not much to say here other than what most people probably already knew, that this series has the same concept only in different variation to that already found in the other Blood franchises which started from "Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)" and followed by "Blood+ (2005)." As an introductory episode, it left me some very good impressions that this anime is something I’ll definitely be looking forward watching week-after-week.

For the actual episode itself, it begins ... with some interesting discussion about the definition of a person then progress to the introduction of the main character and the people around her. All in all the events was pretty standard for first episodes. The highlight of the episode is in the later part concerning Saya's duty which immediately shifted the mood from lighthearted to serious and the fight in the end which have some good slasher moments.

Animation: The color tones used are a bit dull but it fits the overall theme of the series which is more on the darker side. Character designs is very CLAMP; the facial features in distant camera shots appears to be detailed so it is something noteworthy for me. The environmental detail is a bit lacking and doesn’t appear HD quality to me but it was offset by the grainy details that are observable in the animation. I like how the battle is animated in the final minutes, very well choreograph although the enemy lacks detail, it just look like a big piece of moving muddy rock, it could be better.

Sound: OP and ED themes are good but not something I’ll be listening every time I watch an episode of Blood-C. The soundtracks are however great specially in the fight scene; It composed mostly of tracks that sounds strangely familiar which I may have already heard from somewhere else, but the overall impact are great. The voice behind Saya did a very good job giving life to her character and charm (I like the scene of Saya singing, and I felt…Oh! It’s a wonderful voice), I could also recognize some very familiar voices which I’m excited to hear more as the series progresses.

Character: I’ll talk about Saya, so far I like how she transforms from a carefree individual into someone so BADASS (with that fiery-looking eyes); I’m a person with a natural inclination for female characters with strong personalities, granted she didn’t look like someone fitting that description from the outside, but after witnessing how calm she was battling her opponent, I’m convince that she has it inside her. As for the other characters, not much details are revealed so I it is something I will be looking forward next episodes.

Enjoyment: The episode did well and I felt that it did what any first episode should do —- give a good impression to its viewers that will make them look forward watching the series, obviously I have a very good enjoyment on it. Initially, I felt the character design is out of place but after quickly remembering that it is done by CLAMP, my impression quickly rebounded positively. I have watched this episode 3x already before this writing.

Updates:

ep.6: Massive while-lines across the screen, it somehow kills the enjoyment, had to watch the BD versions once it's out.

ep.7: Story is getting more interesting in exchange, the animation quality is dropping considerably compared to the first few episodes

ep.11: Am I suppose to laugh at these episode? It’s amusing and unbelievably funny, I was laughing from disbelief on all the revelations this episode, the way it’s executed, and the character reactions.

ep.12: I say the ending redeems the series for me as it reminded me again that feelings I have from watching episode 1 and other Blood franchises, the very feelings why I watched Blood-C in the first place.

I’m still gathering my thoughts on how to rate this series as it is shown to me, I like to write a proper final impression for Blood-C, it’s a wild ride, but it’s a worthy wild ride.

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Aug 18, 2011

artist-retired

Not Recommended

Soooooo, how do you like your revival of a popular franchise? Ruined or half assed, story wise?

STORY: Years ago there was an unfortunate case of assault, the victim? Blood the last vampire, a popular movie that spawned an even more popular over-hyped anime series: Blood+, the perpetrator had no motives, it was a cruel and brutal assault in form of a live action, and ever since, Blood has been hospitalized in a vegetative state and was never heard from again... Until...
In the year 2011 however, a famous group of manga creators, CLAMP, visited Blood in the hospital in order to try to revive it from ...

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Poll: Blood-C Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Yumekichi11 - Aug 18, 2011	190 replies	by Karva1 »» Feb 16, 6:49 PM
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Nanahara, Fumito

Dog

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Synopsis

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