STORY (3/10):
The story, in the beginning, actually has the tiniest bit of promise...if this were a horror anime. Wait, this is a shoujo? And a harem?
In a harem, you're supposed to want to pick a character you want the male/female protagonist to get with, right? Not want to repeatedly stab every single one of them? (We are given some sort of backstory which is supposed to make us feel sorry for the vampires and excuse their repulsive behavior. It didn't work on me.)
I don't even think this really qualifies as a harem. There is no love triangle. There is "which guy is going to rape...sorry, bite our main girl now?".
And yes, it is made painfully obvious that the 'biting' scenes are supposed to be erotic, like the animators wanted to do hentai but at the last minute were told they had to do a semi-TV-friendly series. But even if this were a hentai, some of the biting/sex-substitute scenes would be hilariously awkward and unsexy.
For example, there's one scene where the main girl gets bitten on the neck by one boy and bitten on the leg by another, a clear substitute for a threesome. The boy biting her neck says "Dammit, I'm not into this." and walks away. The other boy shrugs and continues sucking. They were going for sexy with this scene, but it was absolutely hilarious.
But what's this? As the show gets to its last few episodes, we get some sort of plot development! And it's...absolutely pointless. And boring. At least the show could keep my attention in utter shock/disgust when it was rape scene after rape scene. This was just a snoozefest. I felt like those 30-45 minutes dragged on forever.
ART (6/10):
Yes, Diabolik Lovers is pretty. Congratulations to Production I.G. for having a show that looks so good. Sorry about all the other stuff.
SOUND (4/10):
The OP/ED are both lame and skippable. The main girl's frequent moans are unpleasant to listen to and will certainly give the wrong idea to someone who can only hear the audio coming from your speakers.
I actually watched the first episode subbed, then was shocked to find out there was a dub. But this English dub is quite mediocre, and I'm saying this as a dub fan who usually even cuts Sentai a little slack. Somehow hearing the one with the hat repeatedly call the girl 'little bitch' in English is more disgusting then hearing him call her 'Bitch-chan' in Japanese. Watch this subbed (if you must watch it).
CHARACTER (2/10):
There was no character I felt attached to or felt sympathy for. The main girl is absolutely useless, never really fights back despite clearly not wanting this, and makes the stupidest decisions...very minor spoiler here, she at one point has the clear opportunity to leave the house where she is being constantly abused and drained of her blood. She chooses not to. WHAT?
Every single guy she encounters is pretty much the spawn of Satan. "Oh, maybe this one will have sympathy on her - oh wait, what did he put in her drink? This one might - oh, no, he's threatening to kill her and PUT HER IN HIS MUSEUM OF DEAD GIRLS HE ALREADY TURNED INTO DOLLS for his amusement."
We encounter characters later who are supposed to be the real villains, but they honestly don't seem all that evil by comparison.
ENJOYMENT (2/10):
I had to take my first ever finals before Christmas break. Those were honestly a lot more fun then watching Diabolik Lovers.
OVERALL (3/10):
I cannot not believe this has a fanbase of preteen girls. I cannot believe while on Google I found this show indexed on a site called "Cartoons for Kids". I cannot believe I can use Walmart.com and get this show for store pickup on Blu-Ray.
More importantly, I cannot believe I watched all 12 episodes of this. What is wrong with me? Whatever, at least I can say I did it and survived.
tl;dr: Do not watch Diabolik Lovers.
