If anyone who reads this has ever seen most people's public feelings about the Trueblood TV series and/or the Twilight movies, then they may already know why I dislike this series with a burning passion. But to those who don't, allow me to elaborate:
Here's what I liked:
The concept of the series was somewhat interesting to me at first, before I ever actually watched it: A high schooler (because when you're in an average Dengeki Bunko anime, that's just what you do for main characters) named Akatsuki Kojou lives on a completely man made island known as Itogami Island. But (surprise surprise) he has a secret he has to hide from even his closest friends: He's a vampire. Not just any regular vampire, either, he is what's known as the Fourth Progenitor, which apparently makes him one of the most, if not THE most powerful vampire(s) of all time.
As a result, a secret, shady, religious organization known as The Lion King Organization assigns a young girl named Yukina Himeragi to be Kojou's Observer, which in a nutshell, means she has to make sure he doesn't do anything out of line, and if he does do anything out of line, her mission is to kill him.
Kojou also starts out with no control over almost all of his vampire abilities, especially in the case of his Familiars. In order to master his control over his dormant abilities, he has to suck people's blood after getting aroused. This idea would be pretty cool if it weren't for the whole arousal part of the deal. I guess there were only three things I admittedly liked in the entire show.
The first thing I liked was the story arc known as The Empire Of The Dawn. In this story arc, we got a character who went back in time to prevent some sort of evil force from destroying her future. The catch? Turns out this girl just so happens to be from a future in which Kojou and Himeragi finally dropped the act and had a kid... and this girl was that same kid, as it turns out at the dead end of the story arc. I thought it was a nice touch.
The second thing I liked was Kojou and Himeragi's double-act-catchphrase at the near end of literally every single story arc. While it was too overused for my tastes, I will admit, it was a pretty hardcore line delivery:
Akatsuki Kojou: "From now on, this is my fight!"
Yukina Himeragi: "No, senpai. This is OUR fight!"
The third and final thing I liked was the first opening theme song, oh-so-creatively titled: Strike The Blood! While the song's title might sound like nothing original, at the very least, it temporarily distracted me from the parts I disliked throughout the rest of this show.
Here's what I didn't like:
The plot itself is...... well... It sucks, there's no better way for me to put it. Not only does it suck because it is a vampire show (HUHUHU... PUN!), but also because it feels only mildly different from other vampire media that don't involve Dracula. To sum it up, the story becomes your standard vampire story (of course with anime tropes and elements mixed in) after the 1st episode, in that the secondary main character, Yukina Himeragi, winds up falling in love with the main character as the series progresses, Akatsuki Kojou. More importantly, as the story progresses, more characters get introduced just about every story arc, which normally I wouldn't mind. However, nearly every new character introduced who is "important" to the main plot of each story arc is a female, and as previously mentioned, since Kojou needs to be aroused to awaken his abilities, he winds up getting a bunch of other women to fall in love with him (unintentionally) as the show progresses. Because of that, the show becomes more of a vampire harem anime (that being where the main character has romantic affairs with multiple characters) than an action/drama anime.
Something else I didn't like was how the endings of nearly every single story arc felt almost exactly the same to me. They even went as far as to make Kojou and Himeragi do their double-act catchphrase I quoted earlier at the near end of every single fight scene at the end of literally every story arc. And these fight scenes almost always involved Kojou fighting some big monster or something while Himeragi fought a primary villain usually controlling said monster in some form or another.
Another thing I didn't like was just how far they were willing to show Kojou and the other female's "sexy vampire" scenes... They went on for a bit longer than I feel they should have. I honestly felt really uncomfortable watching them.
Strike The Blood was a series that was so sexually explicit (especially after it started getting released direct-to-video) it made me want to take an axe, break into the residences of everyone and anyone who still possesses a copy of this series, smash a hole through the middle of the disc, and say, "HERE'S IAN!!!" to the owners. All just to spare them from this abomination of a series known as Strike The Blood.
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