What’s cooler than a show featuring the undead and ass-kicking? Two shows featuring the undead and ass-kicking, of course. Since Impzie is covering all the pussy lovey-dovey shows (:P), I’m going to talk about vampires and undead zombies. They might want to call them Gargolyes, but we all know that Gargolyes are actually stone statutes come to live, not these wussy walking dead. This is the Black Blood Brothers episode 1 review, with D’Eon’s episode 1 review coming soon.

Black Blood Brothers
Jirou, a vampire known as the Gin Tou (Silver Blade), is a very powerful vampire. In a burning battlefield filled with the undead, Jirou rushes out to meet his adversaries, slicing through vampires like a hot knife through butter. A mysterious blonde-haired beauty appears to interrupt his rampage, but Jirou’s anger forces her to dispel her illusion to reveal a tall figure with flowing black hair. They seem to share a common past, but nothing more is learned about what happened.

Fast forward to the present, a young boy who uncannily represents the blonde-haired woman earlier wakes up in the hold of a ship. He tries to wake his brother, who sleeps in a coffin, but gets reprimanded for his inconsiderate behaviour. Hey, anyone’s bound to get grumpy when they’re woken up rudely in the middle of a nap. The young boy, who we learn is called Kotarou, goes wandering around the ship. He inadvertantly stumbles into the middle of a battle between vampires and elite human soldiers, but just when he was about to be questioned by a strange man, Jirou comes out of his coffin to kick ass and take names. The vampires, who’ve been at a disadvantage till this point, takes the chance to run away. In a chance explosion Kotarou is thrown into the ocean, and Jirou jumps in after him to try to save him.

Somewhere else in the world, Katsuragi Mimiko is also woken up in the middle of her sleep. A sudden phone call forces her out of bed, and the credit rolls.

Not exactly an awesome episode, but there’s a nice balance of humour, ass-kicking and ‘ooooh mysterious past’, enough to make you to want to watch more. Jirou seems like a pretty cool main character, with a nice sense of humour, and he is a little different from most heroes we know in how effortless and relaxed he seems when taking care of his trashy enemies. The insane, emo Jirou we see in the first half of the episode is so different to the present Jirou that I hardly recognised him. In fact, I wasn’t even sure he was Jirou until episode 2.

While Jirou is a likeable lead, none of the other characters stand out like he does. Kotarou just acts like an annoying little brat, and with the exception of Mimiko, who might as well not have gotten any screentime, none of the other characters introduced seems likely to play a large part. Chan is pretty cute though, when she’s not all creepy and blood sucky.

Several terms are thrown about in this episode that will become important later on, with the term ‘Kowloon Child’ bearing the most interest. It seems that the Kowloon Children will string together the entire series, with them providing more mystery apart from Jirou’s past.

This is mainly a set up episode that gives a glimpse of what’s to come, so by itself it doesn’t stand out too much, at least story-wise. The action is quite good though - Jiro’s sword rampage at the beginning is smooth and has a real sense of speed, with nice use of motion lines and the silver flashing arcs of slashes seen in Samurai Champloo. There were some still frames backed by motion lines to save budget, but they are detailed and don’t feel cheap (can you say Star Ocean?). I also like the cut-ins used during the boat conversation, as it lets you see a character’s reaction while someone is talking, instead of the the usual “I’ll wait till you finish talking before I say ‘che’!”

Shounen action anime only ever have 2 selling points - cool characters and excellent action. Black Blood Brother may not have a lot of either so far, but it is sufficient to make me to want to keep watching. As a bonus it seems to have a story with a nice hook to it as well. Here’s to hoping the animation, fight sequence, characters and story becomes as solid as they promise to be.

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