Now, we're down to the last 2-cour fall anime I watched "Strike the Blood". This anime is produced by Silver Link who produced the comedy "Baka & test" which I enjoyed a lot. This anime is directed by Hideyo Yamamoto.
STORY (5):
The story follows Akatsuki Kojou, who became the 4th primogenitor, 3 months ago, after the original spirit of the 4th primogenitor come into Kojou's body. The 4th primogenitor is said to be the strongest vampire in the world and is accompanied by 12 familiars. When the government and Lion King organization received news on the 4th primogenitor, they ordered a Sword Shaman known as Yukina Himeragi, to find the 4th primogenitor and take the 4th primogenitor down.
That's basically the intro of the story, and what you're going to expect from there on are a bunch of misunderstandings, action scenes and wacky situations in soon.
The story covers 7 chapters of the light novel. In fact, I researched that the light novel has 10 chapters.
The story starts off as interesting but as each chapter goes by, it keeps going more downhill. It is due to the fact that too many characters are introduced. I will get to the characters section later.
ART (6):
The character designs are good and the animation is good. In fact, the action scenes are cool.
SOUND (6):
I liked the 1st and 2nd opening. The 1st opening is the name of the title itself. It was sang by Kishida Kyodan. The 2nd opening is "Fight 4 Real" by Altima. the 2nd opening is very energetic and lively. I also liked the 1st ending "Strike my soul" by Yuka Iguchi especially the 2nd ending "Signal" by Kanon Wakeshima. The 2nd ending "Signal" has a more relaxing and smooth tone than compared to the other songs.
CHARACTER (4):
The biggest downfall with the show is the characters. The characters are real but they did not have enough depth to them. The problem with the anime is that every chapter, they introduce many characters. Because of that, the value of the character diminishes. It is just like in a workplace, if there are too many people in the workplace, the work and productivity gets less and less.
Most girls like to bang on Akatsuki Kojou like Yuuma, la Folia and even Sayaka.
Asagi Aiba & La Folia are the most interesting characters but sadly, they didn't have enough material for them to work on.
Dimitri Vatler was an interesting character but sadly he didn't have much time for his development.
When Nina possesses Asagi, Asagi manages to become a better character.
Yukina Himeragi is jealous when Akatsuki Kojou is around with different girls. Yukina Himeragi says "Senpai" just like Mirai Kuriyama from Beyond the Boundary. The difference is that Yukina Himeragi's tone of voice is more serious. Both characters are voiced by Risa Taneda.
Sayaka Kirasaka is your typical tsundere. Normally when Akatsuki Kojou does something nasty, she gets angry and hits him.
Are you serious? Why do I see this in most harem anime? When a guy does something wrong, a girl beats him up.
Sayaka is the most annoying girl out of the bunch. Normally, tsunderes are my least favorite girls in anime. In fact, tsunderes are the most overused characters in anime.
This is why I said that the problem with this anime is that it introduces a lot of girls and that these girls have not enough material to work with.
CONCLUSION (5):
Silver Link made a great comedy Baka & Test. But after making "Strike the blood", I am starting to worry about Silver Link because they run out of interesting ideas from there.
Strike the Blood unfortunately suffers from the same problem as Sword Art Online in the sense that Sword Art Online introduces too many characters that the value of characters diminish.
If you want me to care about the characters, you need to work on their relationships rather than introduce too many characters.
This anime had interesting opening and ending theme. It had great animation. However, the animation and the opening and ending theme didn't save the show.
The story was cliched especially the characters.
Unfortunately, I didn't come in with a 4 in mind. So, I give this anime a 5 out of 10.
