While many people are quick to judge on calling this anime one of the worst creations and adaptations simply because of its source material (somewhat racial undertone, no?) and relatively unknown producer, I found the anime enjoyable at times.
Let's be frank, Bloodivores is a full-fledged, whole season anime production that is a Chinese-Japanese collaboration of many more projects, hopefully, to come. Outside of Art, Sound and Animation, the anime doesn't live up to any expectations and falls far short, of I think, even the suits at Haoliners. It really has a terrible story, with little to no character development that has led me to give this a 4 on the enjoyment scale and a 6 overall.
After the first episode, I did a bit of research on the source material to see how well it compares to the anime and based on several chapters, the manhua's story is at fault for the terrible story in the animation. There is no cohesion nor character build-up or back-story and anime actually tried to provide that with original content and pace. The story itself in both versions, while pretty much the same, is not original or bring something new that hasn't been seen before.
The one aspect of the manhua and the anime which has remained consistent is the Art. Surprisingly, it is equal if not better to the current art styles of the anime and manga industry. One would think because it is a manhua, the artist would put a Chinese spin similar to well-known manhua like Bowling King, but the artist took a different direction.
Due to the art style which caters favourably to both the Chinese and Japanese market, I believe Haoliners took on the project while Tencent (one of the largest Chinese investment companies that has a foot in everything from video games like League of Legends to social media and IM) marketed it to both the Chinese and Japanese anime industries.
Given the current state of the Japanese anime industry where studios are literally scrambling to find the next big thing, running out of original ideas and trying to avoid producing sequels and adapting bad manga (because some manga artists refuse to sell-out), we will be seeing more Chinese and Japanese collaborative works in the same vein as Bloodivores that will hopefully have better stories and characters. Bloodivores, I think is test-bed to better works from the Chinese anime industry and I really hope to see more.
P.S. I know they can produce quality anime as we've seen in their films, but we desperately need seasonal anime that can live up to those standards.
