Shelf Life

Chocolate Bund Cake

The first episode is kind of neat, and may be worth checking out even if you're not on board for the nude prepubescent vampire escapades later on. Vampires suddenly reveal themselves to all of humanity on a cheesy Japanese talk/game show. There is no protagonist in episode one, just straight on television parody footage.

Mina Tepes, the vampire princess, buys an island in Tokyo Bay to establish a vampire-only “bund” (like in Shanghai, she says). She has also secretly established a nearby high school with polarized glass that vampires can attend.

Things go downhill starting with episode two. I hate amnesiac protagonists and sexualized minors, and I'm getting sick of high school shows. I'm neutral towards vampires and werewolves.

Lest my entire review turn into a checklist of offenses, I'll try to get my complaints out in one paragraph. When our amnesiac protagonists smears sun-proof gel all over our child-like vampire princess's nearly-naked body, the scene didn't blindside me, though I'd heard about the censorship controversy, but I was still skeeved out. Unfortunately, my version was uncensored. Funimation's dub sticks close to the subtitle script for most of the series, but the dialog has been changed a lot for that scene where Akira (the amnesiac) expresses that he, too, is creeped out (in the dub, anyway). Throughout the show, Mina disturbingly gets naked at the drop of a hat, usually while preparing for battle (like Kekko Kamen, perhaps?). Mina does a bizarre scantily clad dance in the opening, and the ending credits are set against a zoom out on Mina wearing only lingerie (I gagged every time). It turns out Bund is also an equal opportunity offender, as there is also a high school girl in love with a little boy later in the show.

I think it's best to judge Bund on an episode-by-episode basis. Some of the episodes present some interesting ideas and/or cool fight scenes, while others are basically garbage. The conflict between vampires and humans at the school makes for good drama, and granted, Bund is more interesting and action-packed than either Vampire Knight or Black Blood Brothers, insomuch as it's much more interesting to see the conflicts surrounding establishing a new country (and school) than to start with vampire institutions already in place.

That said, I am totally against Mina attending Akira's school. She's already plenty educated, and just wants to go to the school because, as we've learned from watching anime, that's the most romantic thing you can do with your crush, whether you're an alien or a robot or a vampire princess. The cooking episode was just unbearable. We've seen the “girl who can't cook” jokes a thousand times in other series.

Mina is established as a two-faced character. Although she's kind to Akira and the “Fangless” vampires, she just may have murdered a student who got too close to her secrets. Akira struggles with whether or not he should serve a princess who is clearly an evil monster. That's a good internal struggle.

Bund has a remarkably strange editing style. Numerous fast cuts to still frames occasionally give way to solid color cards (usually red or yellow). The extreme close-ups on characters' eyes can be a little dizzying at times. In episodes 1-5, the fast-cuts look like money savers, but in the second half, the editing starts to feel like a sleek and interesting choice rather than a budget necessity.

Episode seven feels very final, but somehow the show continues, and the remaining five episodes have an oddly “second season” feel.

I particularly enjoyed Cherami Leigh as Mei Ren in the dub, who does a sexy job as a candy-spitting Chinese fighter and romantic rival. The extras include some motion-manga scenes containing vaguely important plot material.

Dance in the Vampire Bund looks great on Blu-ray. Regardless of anything else, Mina's red eyes have creepy other-wordly depth that comes across strikingly well in HD. Too bad I can't say the same for K-ON! Volume 2 on Blu-ray.[TOP]