Black Blood Brothers 02

Featuring a loli-silent-type vampire princess, a steaming hot Jirou and a bear called Bow Wow Tight. That last one is neither a joke nor a rapper.

Bottom right: Jirowned.

Black Blood Brothers is definitely more than ‘just some shounen show’, as many would probably brand it without giving it a watch. For a start, none of the characters are high-schoolers, and there is no world saving (just yet). Although there is action, it’s always short and concise, and never is there fighting just for the sake of fighting.

Instead, the main draw is in the story. The mystery that surrounds Jirou and the Kowloon Child drives the show forward, as information are fed to the viewers in small, bite-sized pieces. Each piece gives enough to hook the viewer in without leaving the viewer completely stranded and confused, and it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun waiting for all the pieces to reveal themselves so you can complete the puzzle.

Apart from that, there seems to be a lot of potential for some serious drama. The conversation between Mimiko and Jirou in the cafe has some pretty good chemistry going on, and I’m always a sucker for stories about racial differences. By taking place in the Speical Zone BBB doesn’t overplay the xenophobia aspect – that has been flogged to death in many other places – but the covert operations of the suppression teams in the first two episodes show that there is still antagonism between the two races.

The OP of the show, both the song and the sequence, is typical shounen stuff. Nothing exciting here, and, to be honest, I don’t like the singer. The ED song, on the other hand, is a haunting tune accomapnied by satisfactory vocal. The animation is almost non-existent, but what is there suits the mood perfectly.

P.S. It’s really hard to write opinions on an episode when you’ve already watched the next 5. Thus, the next BBB post will be for episode 3 to whatever episode I’m up to when I write it.