I remember a time in high school when I would have been open to watching ANY anime. There was of course NIGHTWALKER: THE MIDNIGHT DETECTIVE, which had a yaoi angle to it before I knew what that meant, MAGIC KNIGHT RAYEARTH, which despite the excellent animation I wasn’t ready to accept Clamp into my heart yet, and RECORD OF LODOSS WAR, which had an amazing OP and Deedlit in it, but wasn’t... good.
And right around the same Suncoast Video shelves would have been BLOOD LAD. Blood Lad is like an anime that should have been made back in the 90's, for good and for ill.
Blood Lad follows our intrepid (read: kind of a jerk) protagionist Staz Charlie Blood as he fights to become the main yakuza in the Demon World. Oddly, Demon World resembles Tokyo, except with more disaffected youth who happen to have fangs. His one charming conceit is that Staz is inordinately obsessed with human culture, namely anime and human women, whom he’s only seen in the former. That is until one day when Fuyumi Yanagi, a young girl suffering from a back-crippling cup size, dies (again) while in his care and he vows to return her life to her. Staz and Fuyumi’s journey to restore her soul to her body fill the run-time of this briskly-paced 10 episode (and 1 OVA) length series. Along the way they run into werewolves, man eating plants, and various foes that would crowd their path.
The reason why I feel this is SO 90‘s, is due to a few factors. The concept itself seems straight of 1997 from a Media Blasters trailer. Jokes fly pretty fast and the animators have a lot of fun utilizing manga-style sound effects to round out some of the sparse animation at times. I’m a sucker for this conceit, as I feel it helps jokes land way more often, and honestly, feels more artistic. I also think the voice-over team does an excellent job translating the tone of the original joke, rather than chucking it for their own gags in the dub. It feels like a throw-back to a simpler time when gags in anime weren’t just for the converted.
Of course the reason why it’s 90's bad is some of the humor seems outdated... or maybe I was just hoping we’d progressed? There’s an overly-gay stereotype that sells them clothing and immediately gets his ass kicked by the OBVIOUSLY MORE MANLY Staz. There’s also a lot of women-as-tropies-to-be-won, but that isn’t nearly as bad as it usually plays out even in modern anime. And their overly globular chests remind me more of LOONEY TUNES characters than moe-style pin ups.
Finally I have to commend the overall packaging of this complete set. It’s an attractive yellow and black case and inside it comes with a little art book containing some back-stories and interviews. The value proposition factors in for this review as well. If you’re looking for a fun, light-hearted anime by way of SLAYERS and SOUL EATER then Blood Lad won’t suck... hard.
Pick up Blood Lad at fine retailers like this one.
from Anime Vice Site Mashup http://ift.tt/1tU4Pfm
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