So how did the first season go?
So for people who follow my blogs a little they'll know I love Demons (Vampires, Werewolves the whole shebang) and I love comedies. Blood Lad had both and in great quantity.
Lets start with the character...
What I loved about all the characters in Blood Lad was that they all felt important, even the ones that were left behind or not important to the main story WERE important characters. No one was really "above" anyone else. You had the stronger characters and you had weaker character but their stories and adventures were important.
That was nice, too often you'd get people like Staz's lackeys being forgotten about after Staz leaves his territory but they weren't in this anime. Especially nearer the beginning of the season when we got to see what they were up to away from Staz. By the end they weren't in many episode but they were still important as you saw when they fought for their territory for Staz in his absence.
I liked that.
When you get to the main character though, Staz, Fuyumi, Hydra Bell, Braz, Liz and Wolf-Boy there was nothing annoying about any of them. In the end you could see each and everyone of them struggling with their own emotions or else there was a "bigger picture" to their actions.
For example, Hydra had some kind of "connection" to Fuyumi that she wasn't too sure about until she found out that she is her... Doppelganger sister? She also had to fight her feelings back when it came to Staz who was oblivious to how she felt. Personally Hydra annoyed me quite a lot but she had a real story that was played out perfectly in the show.
Another example being Braz, at first you just thought he was a nasty big brother, there were hints that he was actually up to no good and then you find out actually there is a grand scheme and it wasn't that bad in that grand scheme. He wanted to help Staz because he was too powerful and help him he did, he was also working towards bringing their father back from the dead to defeat Wolf-Daddy. It took to the very last scenes to understand it in great detail but original impressions of Braz changed with every new plot twist.
In all the series worked because you care about the characters. You care about their feelings and their goals and you feel bad for any of the characters that have problems they have to overcome. The characters all were very well written and its strength lay in that you wanted to know how the characters would overcome situations.
Onto the stories...
I liked nearly every episode, I struggle to think of one that really disappointed me. OK they weren't always stand out episodes of the week, in the ranking of this season it would be top 5 but bordering average most of the time.
That doesn't mean it wasn't great because it was. Being average is no bad thing, especially when some of these anime's have been awesome and then fallen below average to WTF?! land. Blood Lad was steady and sometimes it needed to build up a moment and once or twice the build up wasn't worth it but you never felt short changed.
I loved the style of the anime, I loved the theme of it.
In fact one of the things I loved most was that all these territories were split up and lead like gangs, it isn't something I've seen before and I enjoyed it. It just had a unique feel to it, it wasn't just bog standard Vampire and Werewolves which can get rather boring pretty fast.
The whole plot revolved around Staz resurrecting Fuyumi, something he didn't manage to do by the end of the series which kind of.... Annoyed me. Not in a bad way though, I read online that they are pretty much up to date with the manga so any second series will either be far away or nothing to do with the manga. I don't really want every plot point to be sorted out in the OVA we are apparently getting and I don't want to wait until this series has faded from memory completely to get resolution. In fact they built up a second series so well that I hope they do make the second series before the manga ends. I can't wait!
So what did they do if they didn't solve the main point of the show?
They introduced every character in a very complete way, you now know every character in such an intimate way that when it comes back you can really get behind those characters and their part in this war that seems to be coming.
It also felt like Part One of some epic saga, Staz needs to go and fight many more foes to bring Fuyumi back, Wolf-Boy needs to get stronger to beat Staz for Fuyumi and Braz and his father have a score to settle with Wolf-Daddy.
It ended when the shit was just about to hit the proverbial fan.
I loved everything really about the episodes themselves and if they were just "average" episodes they still made for great viewing! You don't have to have stand out episodes every week just good episodes that keep the viewers happy and progress whatever part of the story or whichever character you want to do that episode and Blood Lad did that every week.
So ultimately my view?
If you like a bit of a laugh, quite an interesting story and characters full of well... Character then Blood Lad is 100% for you!
It is surprising how griping the story is and it isn't until you don't get the ending you really wanted that you realize that the story was there all the time and it actually made the series.
That might sound stupid but at times you kind of forget the whole "bigger picture" and just focus on the small piece that is happening right then. It isn't till you look back you see the ribbons of the story tied very neatly through the whole series and you sit there basically going "ahhh NOW I get it!"
Blood Lad is worth the watch, it was one of my favorite series of the Summer Season right from episode one.
Opening sequence was great too!
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