Vlad Love

Hello everyone! And welcome to “Garbage of the Season [1]!” The series where I discuss the current season's trashy pile of unwatchable monstrosities so that mom can’t say I’m doing nothing with my life. But before I start, I’d suggest you smash that helpful button and click on notifications so that you won’t miss out on any of my upcoming reviews. So without further ado, roll the intro…

*Journey - Don’t Stop Believin starts playing*

…

*End of intro*

Today’s garbage is the ever popular Vlad Love by the vastly known Mamoru Oshii. Who’s done with making pretentious movies and choses to go back to the old days of ... directing comedy shows. Sadly, the style of comedy in Vlad Love expired during the same era. It’s terribly out of date and even if it was modernized, still lacks a punch because it’s not executed with any finesse. Like haha, they talk about expositional dialogue. That’s breaking the fourth wall, fun! Or haha the doctor calls our protagonist Bamba for Bambam again for the fifth time...*laugh track*.

*Ad time*

This review is sponsored by Fallout 4. Because that is a fun reference. Hope you like reference humour, the show is full of them, and they are outdated just like pretty much anything else. Do you want to know what’s not outdated? The visuals...at times. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes they’re sloppy with very little in between. It’s colorful and has style to it. But much substance to it there’s not. The two OP’s look phenomenal but the actual show pales in comparison visual-wise. Pales like a vampire. References are hilarious.

There aren’t many positives to note. Voice acting is solid, but the characters they’re playing are as rich as blank paper. Walking charactertures most of them, that are as flat as the jokes they deliver.

To summarize, I would describe the show the same way as moldy bread. Not fun to consume anymore. But that’s what I do. I consume trash, and this has been “Garbage of the Season” with me...GotS! Leave your thoughts about Vlad Love in the comments below and I’ll see you in the next review. Roll the outro…

*A video showing John Travolta doing squats starts playing*

The End...

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)

Vlad Love is all over the place. There is no clear direction, no overarching story. The anime hops from genre to genre each episode. It's impossible to know what type of theme or mood it's trying to capture when it changes every episode. Next episode might be about fighting aliens in space for all we know. The pacing in this anime is done badly for the most part. An episode can go from sitting down and sipping tea to blowing up half the city in a matter of minutes. It's impossible to become engrossed in this anime.

This anime presents one of the most forgettable ... group of characters I've ever seen. The two main characters of this anime can be entirely summarized in less than a sentence each. Banba practically has no personality. Her sole personality trait is having an abnormal fetish for donating her own blood. Mai's characterization includes being a vampire and being cute. That's about it for the main characters. Both Mai and Banba are utterly shallow characters who don't receive a single drop of development. Of the supporting characters, every character can be described in less than five words. I can't recall any of the supporting characters' names because of how forgettable they are. The supporting characters are all one-dimensional. They aren't particularly likeable, nor are they dislikable. No originality, and no character development either.

Comedy... The comedy in Vlad Love is by far the worst part of it. The problem is, every single character is superficial. When a character only has one thing going for them, jokes get old really quickly. The anime hasn't seemed to realized this, thus repeating the same dreadfully unfunny jokes over and over again. Half of the time it's verbatim which makes it all the more insufferable. The joke might've been funny when I heard it for the first time, but not the fifth. It doesn't help when majority of the jokes weren't funny in the first place.

The one saving grace for this anime is the art. Most character designs look unique and distinctive, but are still forgetful due to poor characterization. The animation is fine for the most part. Characters aren't vividly coloured, but they look in place. The backgrounds are incredibly detailed, probably my favourite thing about this anime. I find them a hell lot more interesting than anything else this anime has to offer. I sometimes find myself staring at those nice backgrounds instead of paying attention to the actual anime. If there's one other thing that stood out to me, it was the cityscapes. They look mesmerizing, though I suppose they don't qualify as "art" considering the fact that they were literally recorded in real life.

Vlad Love's sound quality is substantial, nothing notable, but good enough. The main soundtrack consists of two openings that alternate every episode, and one ending. Music wise, the openings and ending don't really suit my preferences. Though how much you like or dislike them is all up to musical preference. If I had to pick a favourite opening it would have to be the first one. It exhibits a 'vampirey' vibe throughout the whole song and the complementary visuals are weird in a good kind of way. I'm not very fond of the second opening song, but the visual quality throughout it is surprisingly impressive. The ending song is my least favourite out of the three, but the art definitely makes up for it. It mysteriously captivated me, somehow I watched the entire ending every episode. The black and blue theme was uncanny and it heavily intrigued me. The voice acting throughout the anime was satisfactory. I recognized many of the voice actors, they did adequate jobs voice acting and fit their characters fairly well. However, I can't help but feel like the voice actors' skills and talents are just wasted on this anime.

As you can probably tell, I didn't enjoy this anime very much. Vlad Love features a poorly written and practically non-exist plot, shallow and uninteresting characters, and some of the most unfunny and insufferable comedy you will ever watch. Do yourself a favour and watch something else. Spending your valuable time to watch Vlad Love is a decision you will surely regret.

Story - 2
Art - 6
Sound - 5
Character - 2
Enjoyment - 4

I usually don't write reviews, but this anime is so bad I have to. If I have to summarise it in a single word it would be as follows

"Why?!!!"

This show is an incoherent mess. The humour is enough to make someone puke osu!. The conversations are vague and unnatural even complex at times requiring specific knowledge that a native Japanese individual may not possess (even that specific audience would go " ah that just happened"). Other than the fact this anime exists, there is nothing more to it. Saying the show has sloppy writing is an understatement. Waste of time and resources. The people who ... decided to publish and broadcast this clearly need to change careers and undergo a psychological evaluation.

Yes, it is that bad....

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you gave dodgy animators a bad script, a shot of LSD and half of Wall-streets annual supply of cocaine?

Well now we know.

The animation style is a bit different, and I can't say I'm a fan. It's wildly inconsistent from character to character and scene to scene. The, well everything, is inconsistent, and bad. With the possible exception of the voice acting. It's not even the type of bad you can say "Well it's arthouse and only trying to appeal to this particular niche audience." about. It's just flat not good.

In summary ... you will enjoy this series if you are tripping balls and watching it through a pink haze while thinking you're sitting on the ceiling. If that is not your current mental state than you are unlikely to enjoy this series.

My two cents worth.