And well, this anime got me, it is quite a series. With wonderful pacing and great vibe. This anime would have gotten a better score from me, if not for various small things that I didn't like at all.
I'm still surprised that I enjoyed vampire series.
SCORES
STORYLINE:
Here we find ourselves in a small village of Sotoba, there's only 1300 residents in the area. It's a small, separated village, barely anybody notices it.
For some reason outsiders move in to the village, they live in a castle of sorts.
From the time when they moved in, mysterious deaths occur. Young Doctor Ozaki (which is one of the main characters) tries to investigate the matter, thinking that an epidemic has began in the village.
Then he realizes that the reason for these deaths might be something more supernatural, and that's when the story begins to snowball. We get to know about the vampires and their thoughts about what they are doing.
That they are really doing anything wrong, they just eat.
But they eat people.
VIBE:
The authors build a really creepy and unsettling vibe. For the first like 10 episodes you get to investigate yourself, what is exactly going on. Nothing is really explained and yet so much is showed. That's the mystery part.
I love this anime for its depth. Not only it provides existential thought, but also shows the unfinished conflict between what's wrong and what's right. For me it was a really emotional experience that made me think about life, death and the omnipotence of our world.
Those are really in-depth thoughts and I enjoy every series that makes me think about that.
Moreover we have two characters that, although being friends, have the exact opposite way of thinking, at times it was frustrating and badly executed, but mostly its a good motive and I enjoyed it.
ART STYLE:
It is certainly an art style that fits thriller/horror genre. It is dark, it has scary faces, weird animations and such.
Although some characters look a bit weird, like Natsuno or Seishin, I like it. Especially the backgrounds were they are, so-called background porn.
I also like how they drawn the main vampires, they look scary and mysterious with their black-out eyes.
At least its original, I haven't seen an anime that drew characters such as this one.
MUSIC/VOICEACTING:
Let's start with music here. Opening and ending was pretty average, I certainly won't be listening to that outside the anime. But the soundtrack is pretty awesome. Especially the part with the girl singing "Laaalaaalaaaa". It's quite creepy and when it appeared I always got some goose bumps.
Mostly the soundtrack is quite creepy, which is good it matches the genre. And then you can find some really good sad pieces of music, with piano and bells, really nice.
About the voice acting. I'm always watching anime in Japanese, so I'm talking about the Japanese version. I only manages to recognize one voice, which is great, I love when it happens. It only means that the authors made the effort to look for other people, than use those popular ones.
It was great, especially with the main vampires, they have wonderful voices, and they act amazingly, that's how I would see vampires talking.
But overall it was amazing, people cried, people shouted, people whispered, people were scared. It was a pleasure to listen to.
Conclusion:
In the conclusion I'm just gonna say that it's a really good anime. One of the best mysteries I've seen so far. There's gore, there's creeps and great plot. It's a good combination of pacing and action, very nice job. Hopefully this series can reach more people, and more people will understand it. Even those who don't really like vampire genre, such as myself!
Video Review: https://youtu.be/McMY2FGc_bM
