[ Story 1/10 ]
The bare bones version of the story is the same as it was in the previous iterations of the Blood franchise. Powerful high school girl Saya slays dastardly demons with her almighty sword. Very simple. But the difference with Blood C is that it forces its boring slice of life side on us for the first 5 or so episodes. This wouldn't have been so bad if the characters had actually been interesting people who actually did things or discussed something interesting. At the end of the episode, we see Saya slaying demons, giving us a tiny glimpse of the Blood series that we know and love. Fortunately, the fight scenes are very well done and interesting.
We get no backstory on Saya until episode 11. Her boring friends get NONE. The story is almost nonexistant, mostly consisting of Saya doing boring stuff with her boring friends during the day, and slaying demons by night. Many people die. Some people die twice. And its never pretty. Also, there's the surprise twist in Ep 11. The one no one saw coming. The one I don't want to spoil for you. The infuriating twist that makes you feel like you sat through this godforsaken anime for nothing.
The violence in Blood C is over the top, grotesque, and stomach churning. Now I know what you're going to say. "Well duh! It's called BLOOD C!"
Fair enough. But Blood C takes it violence to the extreme. It makes Blood+ and Blood the Last Vampire look like children's cartoons. It makes other notoriously violent anime such as Elfen Lied and Mirai Nikki seem like My Little Pony. Hell, it even puts some live action movies to shame. Blood C is extremely violent for no reason. The violence is disgusting, overdone, and put in there purely for the shock value. People get devoured in this anime. They get cut to bits. They literally get crushed and ripped apart. They get ground into pieces. Their limbs get cut off. And they bleed a lot. And to make things worse, its always coupled with some equally nasty sound effects. Here's a fun little fact. The human body contains about 5.6 liters of blood. Clearly the creators of Blood C were like "No! Fuck logic! Lets give everyone in this anime 5 whole gallons of blood and make them into human geysers! And quadruple that for any monster!"
The last episode is probably one of the most disgusting things you'll ever see in an anime. By that point, the anime had just gotten so far up its own ass that it had turned into unintentional comedy. Or at least it was until monsters starting killing and eating hordes of people. Arguably one the worst scenes in the anime is when a monster stuffs a bunch of humans together in what looked like a huge bag, changes its hand into a sort of blender, and grinds up the horde of humans with blood flying everywhere. Now is all that necessary? No it is not.
Now there is nothing wrong with some violence in fictional entertainment. But there is a limit to what a human can take before it stops being entertaining and starts getting sickening. Blood C took a huge honking dump on that limit.
In short, here's a summary of the story: moe, moe, moe, LET'S KILL A BUNCH OF PEOPLE, moe, moe, moe.
[ Characters 1/10 ]
Characters are all unlikeable. Our main heroine Saya is generically cheerful, cute, and klutzy. She's always tripping over herself, yet she's skilled in sports and with the sword, which makes no sense. To reiterate, the only backstory she gets in a stupid twist near the end of the anime. She goes on and on about protecting everyone, yet in multiple scenes where monsters are mercilessly slaughtering people, she just stands there and does nothing until after everyone is dead and cut up. Ironically, whenever Saya vows to protect everyone, people die. She's an annoying and poor heroine.
Supporting characters are all one dimensional archetypes with no personalities to speak of. They get no backstory, no development, and you won't even care what their names are. Though to be fair, you may like some of the supporting characters at first. Until that infernal surprise twist.
[ Art and Sound 8/10 ]
The art and animation are the best parts of the anime. The anime sports some fluid animation and some pretty sweet fight scenes between Saya and the monsters. Well that is, when they're actually trying to animate a great fight scene and not just trying to make you throw up. CLAMP handled the gorgeous character designs so no complaints there either. Equal care was put in to the beautiful, sunny, lush town that the anime takes place in.
Opening and Ending themes were ok. The insert songs are forgettable.
[ Enjoyment 2/10 ]
I enjoyed looking at the great art and some of the fight scenes. Like I said, by episode 11, the anime had gotten so bad that it became unintentional comedy. The only reason I didn't rate it a 1/10 is because I was able to get a laugh out of this anime. And it's not even a comedy! Amazing! But I would not watch this anime again, nor would I recommend it to anyone, unless I really hated them.
[ Overall 2/10]
Blood C is a train wreck of an anime that crashes and burns pretty badly. What could have been a decent action anime becomes a comedic gore fest galore. I got to wonder what kind of drugs were passed around when this anime was conceived. I wonder how such talented people could churn out such a disappointing and disgusting anime. Fans of the Blood franchise and maybe even fans of action anime in general should steer clear, there really is nothing to see here but an anime that insults your intelligence and turns your stomach.
+ Superb art and animation
+ Great fight scenes
+ Great character designs
- Abysmal story
- Unlikeable, uninteresting characters
- Stupid plot twist
- Terrible cliffhanger ending
- Unnecessary, grotesque, and nauseating depictions of characters frequently being mercilessly butchered or devoured
