Blood Lad Series Review

Blood Lad Overview:

In Blood Lad Staz (a vampire) rules a district in the demon world but is completely obsessed with Japanese culture from the human world. Fuyumi (a Japanese girl) somehow ends up in the demon world Staz is thrilled until she’s eaten and becomes a ghost. Staz then begins searching for a way to resurrect her.

Blood Lad Review:

Blood Lad is one of those anime that you can’t take very seriously but it’s a good ride full of zany characters and visual humour (as well as some excessive violence and a more messed up family than you expect from even anime). The biggest complaint I would raise with this series is they just kind of leave you hanging in limbo mid-way along Staz’s quest to resurrect Fuyumi.

From a plot point of view there isn’t all that much more than the overview. Staz and Fuyumi travel around the demon world encountering various other demons as they look for a solution. That said, there’s plenty of sub-plots and a lot of character back story floating around the fairly short run time. This makes what is a basic fetch quest feel like a much richer story while at the same time makes the lack of resolution even worse.

The setting is also pretty ordinary (considering we’re meant to be in a demon world). While there are definitely fantasy like parts to the setting and they change scenes often, very few of the locations are all that memorable beyond their initial impression. Maybe that’s harsh but it really just felt like we were in a run down city with a few old manors and the like scattered around.

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The characters are the shining stars of the anime. Staz is incredibly powerful in his district and even compared to other district bosses, but as we learn more about Staz’s family situation and background we realise that he is not the overpowered and always undefeated protagonist that he might appear to be early in the series.

Also, his overall lack of work ethic being in direct contradiction with his vow to Fuyumi makes for some interesting character reflection (I’d hesitate to call it development at this point in the story).

Fuyumi as our fish out of water, typical Japanese girl/ghost, is probably the weakest of the characters (though she does do ordinary girl well it kind of makes her the flattest of all the characters). And despite the fact that she’s supposed to be Joe Ordinary even she ends up with a far more complex story than at first anticipated.

As to other characters, my favourites are Wolf and Bell. Bell because of her very cool magic (I’d love to be able to do that trick with the frames) and Wolf because he just brings so much energy to his scenes.

There’s some great action sequences and amusing dialogue but that’s about all I can say about the series. Given it’s short run time (10 episodes) you can knock it over in an afternoon and it is an enjoyable way to pass the time.

For those who can’t stand incomplete stories I’d recommend saving yourself some pain and skipping this one. Otherwise, it is difficult to fault except that the humour doesn’t always land (but isn’t that always the case in shows that try to play for laughs).

What were your thoughts on Blood Lad?

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Karandi James

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