Forum - View topicBlood+ post-mortem
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BellosTheMighty
 Posts: 767 |
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Blood+ concluded it's run on AS last night, and I have to say my response was a resounding "meh." While I had been excited over the past few episodes anticipating a big fight, what actually happened was a bit of a disappointment. Which I suppose is appropriate for the series as a whole.
From the beginning I found that Blood+ was kind of up and down. It started off merely so-so, and slowly improved, peaking around the time they were in Paris. It stumbled some after the time skip, but got back on it's feet in time for the Battle Royale with Carl, and later James. Once they came to New York, however, things took a major downturn. The plot slowed to a crawl while they wasted time disentangling various plotlines and character arcs. Things picked up again in the last three episodes, but these episodes were also a little weak- the only real highlight was the fight between Hagi and Amshel. The long-awaited Saya vs. Deva fight spoiler[was merely some unimpressive swordplay], and Nathan spoiler[finally became interesting only to be both killed and shown to be not really dead.] Which has the disturbing tone of a poorly-executed sequel hook. One thing I especially didn't like about the series was how it tended to fumble certain characters. One of the downsides of dealing with a large cast is that you have to give everyone a reason for being there, and while Blood+ handled this better then GitS (which was awesome regardless), there were still some that fell by the wayside. Van was originally presented as the series' archvillian, and although his role diminished after Solomon was introduced, spoiler[one expected that he would still be worth something to the plot. But by the end, he's become a guy that David held hostage with a ballpoint pen and who collapsed into a gibbering idiot in the penultimate episode. ]Very disappointing. Rikku also gets screwed- they deserve credit for keeping him as the little brother instead of sliding into the annoying little brother, but he doesn't become interesting until spoiler[he becomes a chevalier, and a few episodes later he's dead]. Solomon spoiler[is killed off not only perfunctorily, but cruelly- he had just found his purpose in life when he died due to a little scratch, which is especially annoying since James was able to avoid that fate with quick action, and even Carl managed to dodge the bullet twice. It's like Solomon just gives up, despite having finally figured it out]. I could go on. The action scenes were also rather subpar- offhand, the only one I remember is Hagi vs. Amshel- I could probably remember a few others that impressed me at the time if I thought hard, but there was a general tepidness to them. For all I complain about Bleach's shonen bluster and obsession with badassery over all else, at least they know how to draw a good fight. The battles in Blood+ always seemed to be missing something. I'm being very negative here, but even with all I've said Blood+ was by no means bad- indeed, it was consistantly the second best show on AS's anime lineup, and for a time when Bleach was bogging down in flashbacks and Eureka Seven was in reruns it moved up to the best, though by this time Naruto was upstaging it on the earlier Toonami block. The characters were generally appealing, at least when they weren't being opaquely mysterious or drowning in their own self-pity. The series also had a very good handle on how to inject just enough humor into the procedings to enhance the fun without being jarring or annoying. spoiler[(Favorite bit of dialog: Kai and David on a train, ready to face down a mad chiropteran- "Give me my father's gun." "What are you going to do with it?" "Nothing, until you give it to me!") And though I carp about characters being killed off, every death except Solomon and possibly Moses meant something in the context of the larger series.] I'd say it was worth the time I invested watching it. It's just that for the entire week after one episode had ended and the next had yet to begin, I tended to forget about it entirely. In the final analysis, I'd say it's an average series, worth watching if you get the chance, but not the sort of thing you hunt down obsessively. I'd give it a B- overall. What about you? {MODERATION NOTICE: Add. Spoiler. Tags. Or. Else. -- abunai} |
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v1cious
 Posts: 6217 Location: Houston, TX |
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i've voiced my opinion far too many times on this matter, but needless to say i agree with you. some people have said the show went downhill, because most of I.G's resources were allocated to "Le Chevalier D'eon". don't know if that's true or not.
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Media Man
Posts: 3 Location: Ranson, WV |
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I didn't expect the end of the series to come so soon; I was enjoying the ride. Anyway, this series took to long to get to the station if you will.
The series dragged for the first and part of the second seasons and started to pick up around the end of the second season (when Diva was introduced). spoiler[At the end of season three and all of season four the plot revolved around nothing but killing Diva]. In the final analysis, the series was just ok- it just took too long to get where it was going; the should have introduced the Diva character at the beginning of season 2 and made the events of the third and fourth season take place in the second season. The rest of the run could have dealt with eliminating the monsters. Also whospoiler[ placed that rose on the tomb in the final seen?] |
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belvadeer
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I actually did enjoy it well enough. It did well to build up on a story, and I liked all the references to the past they made.
I suppose the ending was a tad "I saw that coming". I liked the cast though, quite a noteworthy cast. spoiler[Sad Riku had to die in the middle, he was my favorite character and I did like Kamali Minter voicing him too]. Last edited by belvadeer on Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18384 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I thought most of the second season dragged badly, and never considered it more than my 3rd highest priority view for the evening, but I did find the last episode to be moderately satisfying. The best moments for me were spoiler[seeing Haji finally speak out about his feelings instead of just deferring to Saya], the last scene before the credits, and especially the epilogue.
This was, I think, the only "right" ending for the series. A complete "happily ever after" ending would have sold the series cheap. |
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BellosTheMighty
Posts: 767 |
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The implication is spoiler[Hagi. Remember, barring blood contact, it's hard to kill a Chevalier. It's also possible it was Nathan.] Oh, and abunai- chill out, man. The thread title says "post-mortem", and the series has ceased it's run on AS, there's every reason to expect spoilers in the thread. There are statutes of limitations on these thing. |
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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This may come as a massive shock to you -- but there are actually people in this world who do not watch Adult Swim, and who get their anime from off-TV sources (whether by buying/renting DVDs or by downloading fansubs). In other words, there are people who have not seen a single episode of this series. So when I say "Use. Spoiler. Tags. Or. Else."... you would do well to remember it. - abunai |
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belvadeer
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I would think the title would be enough to tell people not to look. I'm sure everyone knows what post mortem means.
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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I'm sure everybody doesn't, but even if they did.... if you'll check my post in the "Spoiler Sensitivity" thread, I give ample reason why spoiler tags should still be used. And since what I am saying here represents not just my own personal opinion as a fan, but also the consensus of the moderators and the admins, you would be wise to heed it. - abunai |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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spoiler[I would rate it around a C+ or so.
The action was fairly lame, with only a few scenes worth watching, mainly involving the Shiff and their ]flash-step spoiler[abilities. ] spoiler[The plot had its interesting moments, but really it was 52 episodes containing 26 episodes worth of plot. They should have cut most of England out of the picture entirely, and just tightened up the rest. Also, Saya was such a ]pathetic lead, sleepwalking and/or emoing spoiler[her way through conflicts and never truly becoming as badass as Diva always was. She made Eureka look hardcore by compairison. ] spoiler[ The character designs were fairly solid, especially Saya's, but that's about all the series had going for it. The dubbing was pretty pathetic] throughout, spoiler[with plenty of akward dialog and painful performances (with few exceptions) ] Just reminds me why I stopped downloading the fansubs around episode spoiler[13 ]or so. {MODERATION NOTICE: Very funny. I'm sure you're very proud of your little joke and happy with it as an act of defiance. I am equally happy that I restrained myself from simply deleting it -- so that I could, instead, give you this little warning notice: Do this again, and your post will simply be deleted. Wash, rinse, repeat, until you get a clue or we get annoyed enough to tempban you. How does that work for you? -- abunai} |
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Prodigiosus
 Posts: 44 |
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Two questions regarding the series. First, I've heard that it's dub-titled. Does that mean that they take the English script (and whatever rewrites go with it) and translate that back into Japanese? And also, does anyone know when the second box set will be coming out? I watched it on adult swim and I enjoyed it. Strangely enough it was the series that got me BACK into watching anime. (Took an anime break and got into live action Japanese/Korean movies) Caught it randomly in AS one night. Now I watch anime all the time again.
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r-18
 Posts: 62 Location: northren oregon |
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i found it completely enjoyable, slow at times but so is life. we can't run full tilt all the time. the end was not as good as perhaps it could have been , but i can't think of an anime ending that left me satisfied: if it was a good show with a good ending like flcl or scrapped princes then I'm bummed it's over if on the other hand they hand you a inuyasha end it's like wtf this might as well be episode #1, so all together a solid b maybe b+. it was worth the time spent and i really like some of the characters, spoiler[i wonder why no one was mad at the original Joel as his mistreatment of Deva was the root of the whole problem, that and her chevaliers where a poor choice for her. ( spelling?) ]
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Zoe
 Posts: 898 Location: Austin |
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I haven't seen it in Japanese, but "dub-titled" typically means that the subs use the dub script rather than one that matches the Japanese. If true, how disappointing. I thought that was a thing of the 90's. |
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BellosTheMighty
Posts: 767 |
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Err... that would be rather pointless, wouldn't it? I mean, why would anyone want a script via Babelfish? Well, anyway, "dubtitled" means that the subtitles are essentially the script for the dub. For some reason old-school fans who were watching serious anime while I was still content with Grimm's Fairy Tales on Nickelodeon find this deeply offensive. Personally, the sentiment never made sense to me at all- if the dub script is bad, I can see why there would be objections, but that would appear to be an issue with the translation, rather then the technique. Given that the same person is watching both versions, I fail to see how a script that works for one format is inappropriate for a different format of the same original work. Well, nevermind that. I can personally vouch for the quality of the dub script and acting, and if you want a dissenting opinion there are enough people around here who have been watching the series on AS. |
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Zoe
Posts: 898 Location: Austin |
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It really depends on how it's done. Dub scripts are more likely to be "localized" while sub scripts are more literal, so there are times where they can be quite different. Granted, you would probably only be bothered by it if you can understand the Japanese.
I don't watch enough domestic releases to comment further, but this was pretty annoying in the Disgaea PSP game. |
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