In my last post, I said that I was feeling wary about discussing the Summer season titles. A lot of people believe that the Summer 2011 lineup is pretty bad. I don’t fully agree with that statement. I have totally been looking forward to some titles, and some of them have lived up to my expectations so far. So, wariness? Pffft. Who am I kidding? I’m stoked to talk about the four shows that I picked up. Compared to my Spice and Wolf post though, this may be a little rough, since I haven’t tried making a commentary about a series that is new, or hasn’t already finished yet. So I did my best in scouring the info that I need, to provide my insights on the shows.

With that said, how about I start with the first title that I watched out of my picks? This is, Blood-C.
(note: I actually made a rookie mistake and published an earlier version of this just a few hours before episode 3, so I rehashed it a little and just strikethrough’d some things I said for reference.)

The long awaited show collaboration of the Blood franchise and CLAMP. It was pre-aired via stream about a week earlier than its TV premier, so it’s no wonder that this was the first title that I got to watch. If you are familiar with the Blood franchise (Blood:The Last Vampire and Blood+) like me, you would have had high hopes for a series bearing the “Blood” name. Let’s also not forget CLAMP’s rap sheet of successful anime (Code Geass and xxxHolic) With these two teaming up, it would seem as if nothing could go wrong, right?

Let’s just say, my hopes resemble our main character here: falling face first. As we are on the subject, the main character’s name is Kisaragi Saya. She is your average, cheerful, goody two shoes, clumsy high school student. She is the daughter of Kisaragi Tadayoshi, a shrine keeper/priest, thus she is, by default, a shrine maiden as well. Now, I did say clumsy, but I think that’s taking it more lightly. The girl trips like three times about halfway through the episode. I know this is supposed to be their running gag (like Saya’s growling stomach in Blood+) but it does get tiresome at times.

However, Saya does make up for it when battling vampires, or as they are called in the Blood-C universe, the “aged ones”. To fight against these aged ones, she uses the Goshintou, a decorated katana passed down to Saya by her mother. It appears that the Goshintou is the only weapon capable of killing the aged ones (for now?) but for the most part, Saya fights these creatures alone. Something to note is that when Saya prepares to kill an aged one, her eyes glow a deep red, which hasn’t been explained since the first two episodes, so we have yet to know the significance of this.

Aside from Saya and her father, we are introduced to some other side characters, some I believe are for comic relief, and some I think are going to be essential to the plot.

Here we have Saya’s friends. Honestly, I find the Motoe twins more amusing than Saya herself. At least these two are something new (well, for me it is) We also have the elderly sister figure, Yuuka. I can see them as being Saya’s normal acquaintances. That is, not being related to the vampire fights (I could not be entirely sure, since the show could still go either way) So yeah, that’s pretty much all there is to them.

Moving on to these guys. The one on the right is the chairman of Saya’s class, Tomofusa Itsuki. I don’t know how they’ll use this guy, but I have a gut feeling that he’s going to be a plot character (we still don’t know for sure, since the series could pull off a fast one) The one on the left is Tokizane Shinichirou. Now, judging from the two episodes that I have seen, it is obvious that this dude is hiding something. Whether or not it is about the aged ones is beyond me. He is always shown looking at Saya for some reason. For those who have seen Blood+, I’m definitely getting a Haji vibe here.

Almost forgot about this guy. Nanahara Fumito is the owner of the only cafe’ in Saya’s village. Apparently, he is also the one that cooks for Saya and her father’s meals. This is so, because neither of the two know how to cook. Out of all the cast, this guy was the most interesting. It was also made more apparent in episode three, that this guy is also hiding something.

Well, interesting in the sense that I can’t read his character at all. What I am implying is that, the characters feel either too generic, or too “dim” to be able to be taken seriously. I guess I’ll have to take that comment back, since some characters are beginning to get involved.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t feel this way after watching episode 1. I just thought “Hey, it’s only the first episode, this could still be awesome.” What ticked me off was episode 2. It was like experiencing a de’ja vu, and not the good kind. Here I am thinking maybe they will clear something up, anything. But nah, it’s still the same thing. We’ve got Saya having breakfast at Cafe Guimave, Nana Mizuki’s (Saya’s seiyuu) singing, Takizane being mysterious, the Chairman trying to win over Saya, and to top it off, a vampire fight. If you let someone who hasn’t watched the first episode watch the second, he/she won’t know the difference.

I know that it’s still very early to be dropping bombs on this series, and I really do hope that they pull this one off. You’ve got to admit though, their start wasn’t exactly promising. I’m not ranting or anything. It’s more of my disappointment. Maybe I was expecting too much from it? I don’t know. What I do know is that this can still pull off something unexpected. Remember, not all successful titles have had wonderful starts (DRRR!! and Higashi no Eden to name a few) Don’t let the things that I said deter you from watching this if you haven’t already, if you are genuinely interested in it. Like I said, there are still ten nine episodes left, and that’s ample enough to make something awesome.

So my verdict on Blood-C? Sure, it’s disappointing, but I’ll continue to watch it. If you feel like not watching it anymore, then it’s justifiable. To those who decided to hang on and see where they are going with this, that’s cool too. As for me, I just want to see if they will prove me wrong and turn this around.