I'm not going to say the heroine was stupid, because it's beating a dead horse. Anime adaptions of Otomes have a propensity for having blank-slate heroines that seem slow or stupid because 1) a moderate amount of a heroine's personality (intellect included) is based on what path is taken in the game, and they just can't pick one or model her personality after a specific one because 2) they don't want to lean too much on one path and upset the many viewers who favored one of the other 5 (or 4; I didn't even think Kanato was an option.) So with that in mind, I don't really think anything of heroines in these types of anime because I know why they're like that. Now with that aside.
You don't really learn anything about the individual characters except if you count vague flashbacks. They only had 15 minutes a run, but I feel like they could have done something like add an extra episode around the time Yui was living the memories, but seeing as they didn't even really try, this led back to me thinking this was just a promotional thing. Like "if you wanted to know more, you should go play that guy's path", y'know?
None of them show any sign of actually thinking of the heroine as anything more than food, which was a bit hard to watch at times. I wasn't even looking to see romance after episode 5, just for one of them to be slightly nicer or friendlier or at least not treat the heroine like a rag. I know, BDSM and all that, but I can only deal when there's ONE sadist, but there were six of them, and the girl came off more like a victim than an M. Being vampire-themed there were a LOT of sexual undertones, and the guys ganging up on her at times and treating her poorly in the end could only come of as abuse (mental and sexual) to me.
I'll admit: Subaru had me swooning for all of 2 minutes. (SPOILERS- SKIP TO "SPOILERS END" TO AVOID) He told her when to leave and gave her the knife when she didn't. But then he said what the knife was for, and I was a bit disappointed, and then I realized he wasn't really treating her like a person; it was more like setting a caged bird free. Still, I blushed at him saying "I'll make you really feel my fangs." (SPOILERS END)
The art wasn't as great as the Visual Novel, or on par for that matter. The music was kinda contemporaneously generic, thought the opening kinda stuck to me. Don't expect the characters to be nice to Yui, our heroine, (as a matter of fact, trigger warning: if you have been sexually abused, don't watch) and don't get too worked up about her stupidity (refer to paragraph 1). This anime seems to be up the ally of a lot masochistic and sadistic people so some will like it many won't it wasn't really for me. The plot was also pretty spotty, so if you're one of those who (allegedly) watched for plot and not for hot guys (either way I'm not judging), you'll find yourself disappointed, as I was.
All that being said, the entire series is 180 minutes, and that's if you watch the recap episode. Might just be something to watch when you've expended all your other options. Yep. That about wraps that up.
4/10
