I just finished watching a ONA which had 5-minute episodes, and I really liked the duration. So I searched for new series which had short episodes and ran into Vampire Holmes.
First of all, most of the reviews in this page are useless. You MUST watch ALL of the episodes to know the story of this... thing. Watching 4 or 5 episodes or even 10 is not enough. I do not consider that a good thing though.
There are a lot of joke reviews for this, but I'm deadly serious.
STORY: 5/10
I'll start by saying that this anime doesn't even follow the synopsis it has. Holmes NEVER searches for vampires, he is not a vampire either, he doesn't work with the Metropolitan Police of London or nothing like that. I really can't understand why did the studio give that synopsis if it's completely made up.
So the story is about Holmes, a lazy bum who yells at Hudson while sitting all day in a couch. Or the floor. Or whatever. He never does nothing, even though Hudson constantly brings him cases, he just gives up after 30 seconds. He even likes to tell REALLY bad jokes at any time imaginable. Also a weird talking cat called Kira appears all of a sudden in some random episode without a reason.
--SPOILERS--
But in reality, Holmes is an incredibly well disguised dark-mage, super intelligent man who can solve 4 cases at the same time. WTF. I seriously believed it all the way through the series. At least this is well done.
This is when I talk about when I say you must watch all the episodes. The watcher doesn't have even a hint of this until the 11th episode. Why? It's another mystery.
ART: 1/10
Wow, this is bad. I think it killed my eyes. Even I can do a better job. I understand that this is a supposedly an adaptation of a smartphone game, but that isn't even a poor excuse. It's so poorly drawn... I think it has the same 4 frames for each character. God, it's so bad I can't find words to describe it.
SOUND: 5/10
OP and ED are the same and is surprisingly good! I'ts playing in my head all the time, I don't know what happened. Apart from that, there is no music or anything, just the same weird sound effects for every episode.
And talking about the opening, I wonder why starting from the 7th episode the opening has some random sound effects in the back? What do they mean?
CHARACTER: 4/10
If you ask me who Hudson is, well... I don't have the slightest idea. Vampire Holmes just centers in Holmes even though (I consider) Hudson is the MC. I don't know exactly what Kira is either, but I don't think I want to know. Besides this, Holmes is has a decent story.
ENJOYMENT: 8/10
Something above from 5! This is advancing. I don't know why, but this is SO bad that I just had to watch it. Every time an episode came out I just felt the necessity to watch this. I don't know, I think I wanted to know if this was going to follow a story. But I really enjoyed it for some reason.
I think I've gone crazy. Please don't judge me.
OVERALL: 4/10
-You have to watch all of the episodes to know the story.
-The synopsis is a lie.
-The animation is SO BAD it hurts.
-I want to punch Hudson in the face.
-The OP is good and catchy.
-It has a pretty decent voice acting.
-It's so bad, it's funny.
Don't take this series too seriously. Millawls' review said in the enjoyment section "I'm just enjoying the glorious train wreck." and it's the same for me. If you have time to kill, watch it, it's 24 minutes long and decent, but just for the ending. I just hope new short-episode ONAs start the next season.
