Precocious "Vegan" Vampire Princess (!) , of undefined IQ/Age is building a comedy harem of girls in Japan. I do like the "Artistically Necessary" false nudity gag, which i'm guessing is the Female Gaze of the MC stripping away barriers (sic). Or something equally post-modern pastiche / parody. A vampire that doesn't bite people, sure. Living in a cardboard box in the subway... in Tokyo Japan ?
I've seen Ex-Arm, so it can always be worse, but it's got a fraction of potential. Just a bit that slides it from a 4/10 to a 5 or 6. Maybe it's the unusual story, or the potential to improve. IDK.
To make it worse, the Animation and production is ... a grab bag of styles and effort. It's more compelling than the characters. As if... they were begging cosplayers or teen girls to draw their attention through the mire/muck of seasonal anime.
It's also the first time i've seen wrinkles / sleep deprivation lines so prominent in a teenager's face, then the "Busty School Nurse" looking ... younger (?) than the teenage girl. I'll keep going, only to see if it improves or it's just trend-chasing "cute" with no deeper story, just a lot of animators having fun doing their own styles of animation to fill the budget and spec/time for the scene. Production I.G. may have been having fun on the art efforts, since there's such a melange of art styles (hunting for a specialist kind of audience ?, or throwing Art as "chaff" at contrarian reviewers because the pilot and character setup is trash) . I would expect CG or VFX to appear soon enough to mimic other unique "snowflake" styles like Bezerk or Revolutionary Girl Utena, sic. It's not parody... or is it ? IDK. Maybe there's a reason why there's a shotgun of styles mixed in together.
Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell is kind of the selling point, but it's not beyond the bounds of being ... okay. The most damning thing is that it's not pushing the boundaries of having a Harem... but definitely having a harem show in as much as it's heading in that direction. 200 to 2000 year old Vampire Loli Girl is a "thing" in Japan, so IDK where they can take the memes that isn't streamlining obvious jokes or tropes of Magical Girls, Princesses, Vampires, and Hunters, etcetera.
Approaching the premise of a "vegan" vampire living in Tokyo, the MC and surrounding people just taking these events in stride is another day in Anime. There's elements of zany action, i.e. Space Patrol Luluco / Space Dandy-esque hijinks and tropes, some of the artwork is reminiscent of Manga, Comic "inset" closeups of people talking to emphasize speech. But, there's also the very cheap use of stock footage Japan at Night shots, with a bit of a filter applied instead of converting to a cell-shaded / rendered City.
This isn't Ex-Arm, you don't need to use stock clips and live-action footage mixed in with production level animation. Don't do that.
Review by TolimanVIP 10BlockedParent2021-02-14T15:39:07Z
It's sort of disappointing.
Precocious "Vegan" Vampire Princess (!) , of undefined IQ/Age is building a comedy harem of girls in Japan. I do like the "Artistically Necessary" false nudity gag, which i'm guessing is the Female Gaze of the MC stripping away barriers (sic). Or something equally post-modern pastiche / parody. A vampire that doesn't bite people, sure. Living in a cardboard box in the subway... in Tokyo Japan ?
I've seen Ex-Arm, so it can always be worse, but it's got a fraction of potential. Just a bit that slides it from a 4/10 to a 5 or 6. Maybe it's the unusual story, or the potential to improve. IDK.
To make it worse, the Animation and production is ... a grab bag of styles and effort. It's more compelling than the characters. As if... they were begging cosplayers or teen girls to draw their attention through the mire/muck of seasonal anime.
It's also the first time i've seen wrinkles / sleep deprivation lines so prominent in a teenager's face, then the "Busty School Nurse" looking ... younger (?) than the teenage girl. I'll keep going, only to see if it improves or it's just trend-chasing "cute" with no deeper story, just a lot of animators having fun doing their own styles of animation to fill the budget and spec/time for the scene. Production I.G. may have been having fun on the art efforts, since there's such a melange of art styles (hunting for a specialist kind of audience ?, or throwing Art as "chaff" at contrarian reviewers because the pilot and character setup is trash) . I would expect CG or VFX to appear soon enough to mimic other unique "snowflake" styles like Bezerk or Revolutionary Girl Utena, sic. It's not parody... or is it ? IDK. Maybe there's a reason why there's a shotgun of styles mixed in together.
Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell is kind of the selling point, but it's not beyond the bounds of being ... okay. The most damning thing is that it's not pushing the boundaries of having a Harem... but definitely having a harem show in as much as it's heading in that direction. 200 to 2000 year old Vampire Loli Girl is a "thing" in Japan, so IDK where they can take the memes that isn't streamlining obvious jokes or tropes of Magical Girls, Princesses, Vampires, and Hunters, etcetera.
Approaching the premise of a "vegan" vampire living in Tokyo, the MC and surrounding people just taking these events in stride is another day in Anime. There's elements of zany action, i.e. Space Patrol Luluco / Space Dandy-esque hijinks and tropes, some of the artwork is reminiscent of Manga, Comic "inset" closeups of people talking to emphasize speech. But, there's also the very cheap use of stock footage Japan at Night shots, with a bit of a filter applied instead of converting to a cell-shaded / rendered City.
This isn't Ex-Arm, you don't need to use stock clips and live-action footage mixed in with production level animation. Don't do that.