Forum - View topicVladlove (TV).
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15576 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Vladlove (TV) Themes: vampires, yuri Plot Summary: Mitsugu Bamba is a high school girl who finds meaning in donating blood. She frequently visits a blood bank to donate blood, despite being harshly treated by the nurse. One day, she encounters a beautiful girl who looks like she's from overseas at the blood bank. The pale girl looks like she's about to faint any minute, but then, she starts destroying the blood bank. The girl loses consciousness and Mitsugu takes her home. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15576 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episode 1
I made a guess at the yuri tag, mostly just conjecture that the man character would appear to be a teenage girl who has a clear sexual interest in the female vampire. I might have to remind myself to update any other signifiers about the show, because I am actually a little clueless after the first episode in what type of show it will be. The beginning kind of gives feels of horror, but other parts seem to be so silly that it makes things a bit difficult to take seriously. Overall it kind of gives a feeling of Studio SHAFT, specifically something like Tsukuyomi Moon Phase helps with that, and I would put it a bit like older SHAFT. It does have some weird abstract elements to its art, with I think stronger character animations in parts supplemented by still frames, I think it even has live action footage in places, but the still frames do feel artistic and at least at this point I kind of like them. But back to my guess of putting a yuri tag in. Maybe it won't be yuri as generally recognised, but it strongly pushes the impression that Bamba is a lesbian, and I would say that at least so far it did not go too far to sensationalize. It does throw in some fanservice, oddly covered in very obnoxious censor bars that I wonder if is intended rather than would be removed. There is an interesting connection to make in regards to lesbians in fiction and vampires, I seem to remember a super old trope of lesbians in cinema through a seductive vampiress and innocent maiden. Perhaps troubling as some of the oldest depictions of it with troubling implications, but open to recontextualization, such as be in the case of this first episode where Bamba seems like the much more of a deviant. Anyway, I am intrigues for more. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24175 |
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I enjoyed the first episode. Drag we have to wait 6 weeks for more. I liked the visual flair and general set up. You can't go wrong with the "sexy, twisted school nurse" trope. It's funny that most female vampires in anime have that double point hair style that looks like upside down fangs.
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15576 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episodes 2 to 6
And they dropped all these episodes at once on Crunchyroll. If I expected it to make more sense as it went along, I was sorely mistaken, the show is really weird. The show often feels pretty nonsense, where it will suddenly go into a spiel about military equipment or random other characters that might accomplish almost nothing and will have the show comment on that fact. It does feel very much like a passion project, but I could would have a hard time talking about what. Like it one character explaining what vampires lore must be in this world, and yet later went into depth on things like vampire myths and fiction. There is mentioning Bram Stroker's Dracula, and then there is going into much of the lesser known details and even the myths that inspired those stories and saying that these don't make sense with the more modern ideas that Mai fits. And going into episode 6, which is incredibly blatant with its inspirations of somehow turning Castlevania into a play. Like it is barely hiding the facts despite how it even acknowledged things like copyright, the show has been incredibly liberal with what it thinks that it can get away with, especially compared to other series. The show in general has continued to have this weird, maybe retro feel to it, something that feels of the past. Kind of like how I would find some sort of old property, an anime or such, and I judge it off of its cover or maybe its trailer, the whole thing is kind of trippy, but it makes me curious by something like a promise. And then I actually watch that thing, and I realise that the thing I built off my initial perception was just a feeling that it may have been trying to sell me, or has me thinking that I misinterpreted it. The whole show kind of feels like that, where I am constantly consuming the promise of an experience, a feeling, but like vertigo what I am watching is... different. Mai's character in particular is weird, like through Bamba we are meant to have a solid idea of her character, but she is actually surprisingly little actually interacting with others, and goes through uncharacteristic moods wing due to blood. We are kind of get this bond Bamba has with Mai, but Mai practically feels like a plot vehicle that gives into her instincts, changes from the environment, or I would describe selfishly complain about her step-mother. Considering how so much of the other time is other characters talking about her, it feels mostly like other characters projecting onto her, just as Mai adopts personality off of what blood she drinks. Maybe there is something actually bad there, or this is meant to be on purpose. Other parts of the general style also change in ways that I would describe as confusing in being overdone, maybe relics of the past, perhaps just plain cheap, or maybe actually well done and charming. My thoughts go to Kill la Kill, where at first I thought that its style was cheap and too chaotic, but I later gained a huge appreciation for it. Although, I think the way it does its male characters are really not that enjoyable, especially that guy that makes me think of Koala Kong. Maybe it was also a lot to watch all at once, and watching weekly will mitigate certain things. It also has two very different OPs, which I have little understanding what the point of them are, even if they look good. |
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Nom De Plume De Fanboy
Exempt from Grammar Rules
Posts: 635 Location: inland US west, pretty rural |
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Gotta plug something I like: the rest of the eps are up on CrunchyRoll as of now. Enjoy.
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15576 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Episodes 7 to 12 (finale)
I kind of thought that the point of this series would become apparent, but I can't really see it in the end. It has a bunch of jumbled story elements, and it did kind of end on a revelation of Mai's character of traumatised by her past, but nothing really feels big. The show is so jumbled that I think episode 8 randomly brought in a character to do something, which the show itself admitted would not actually get introduced until episode 10. The weird Frankenstein's monster character. An entire episode feels incredibly abstract like it is actually some obscure visual novel that takes advantage of limited animation for some maybe deep story about ghosts or something. Totally takes one out of what might have been a main story. Although in general the show itself is this continued uneven experience that would actually be stranger if two episodes actually felt in line with itself. It still has its weird tangents of suddenly going off onto random other topics, especially random movies in this second half, that even had Bamba get confused why were suddenly talking about these random facts. I can only imagine this show in general as some sort of strange passion project that really means something to the one who created it, and maybe requires talking to them to decode everything. It also tends to have jokes that go around in circles and not really have good payoffs, leaving me wondering if I actually missed the joke. I also in general have a problem with the character designs, a good deal of them are pretty ugly, generally the male characters, and generally not too interesting things are done with characters. As I said earlier, Mai really just feels like a prop within this show, the island episode especially left me wondering at times where even was she, and in the end I would say there really is not a whole lot of chemistry between her and Bamba, with just Bamba holding herself up as a kind of interesting character at times. An entire episode of this show was with the characters deciding to make a movie, with the excuse that it would be to get blood, but really was just to make a bunch of homages to random other old movies. The episode itself mostly followed the film club character as she acted as director, with it mostly clear that she did not really have much of an idea of what she was doing, with her own words being to just answer questions even if she had no idea. This whole plot point almost feels like some sort of frantic message of a director of the series itself putting that this was what they were doing, making a bunch of confusing old references, ordered in a confusing manner, with the director running away at the end rather than take questions for what they made. This look kind of nice at times, but I can't help but wonder if general story could have been woven into something much more coherent by dropping the bunch of artsy old time references and instead focus on stories that have some consistency and maybe appeal to more general audience sensibilities. An example could have been with the Castlevania episode, where it could be more appealing with aesthetics other than gonk character designs, maybe fitting a theme of gothic stuff that people might like with vampires. Although, perhaps I am all saying this without understanding what the deal with the aesthetic is supposed to be, because this director is meant to be a genius or something. Regardless, with my personal experience of these 12 episodes, taking it as a whole, my rating is So-so (5/10). I love vampires and the idea of a character like Bamba, but in the end it really made me keep losing interest with how loose it pulls itself together, and does its weird tangents. I would be curious for other opinions though. |
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