There were, of course, many who still liked the series, but it never quite took off. Funimation still promotes it like crazy, so it has to be popular somehow.
Finally having watched the series, I can finally put my two cents in. And it's fitting, too, because Halloween is right around the corner!...get it, because vampires, and Halloween...
Anyway...
I'll only be reviewing the first part of the anime, as the second part of the anime is, as mentioned, still going on, so I can't make a fair assessment of it. So, when I refer to "the series," I refer to the first part as a whole, complete story. Thus, the series revolves around Yuuchiro Hyakuya, a human child trapped with his orphaned family in vampire captivity. After escaping, Yuu swears to crush all vampires and bring humanity out of its misery.
Ah, and here we have our first major similarity. The series has been dubbed "Attack on Titan-lite," and I have to agree. I'll explain why as we go further into the story and characters but, basically, these are some cardboard cutouts of AOT characters, but not as compelling or interesting.
I suppose I'll get the quick stuff out of the way first, so, let's go!
The animation is perfectly fine for 2015. Nothing breathtaking, nothing incredible. I will say that the fight scenes, for the most part, don't look wonky or lessen how good the animation is. The backgrounds are pretty nice, just typical city-scape. The underground vampire city is really nothing to behold, you've seen it before in an anime.
The music is also serviceable. I mean it's Hiroyuki Sawano, whose work includes the incredible scores of Attack on Titan and Kill la Kill. Even managed to make Aldnoah.Zero fairly bearable, and it did the same here. There wasn't that epic feel to the usual music or one song that really stuck out to me. Honestly there was far too much relaxing music in this series, though to be honest there weren't too many high-octane battle sequences like previous shows worked on.
Regarding the plot, like I said earlier, you've seen it before. Inhuman creature subjugates humanity. One human swears to "kill them all" and forms an unlikely group to fight against inhumans. Hijinks ensues. Someone probably dies. Trickery. Big fight. Wrap with unconvincing romance subplot. In this case, Yuu is that one human. But, the problem is that this show technically doesn't have to exist.
Okay, here's how it all starts...somehow: Four years prior to the major battles, humanity was wiped out by a virus, then vampires sprung up and captured all remaining children, as the virus didn't affect anyone below the age of thirteen. First problem: where'd the vampires come from? Have they always been around? The implication is that this was supposed to happen on a normal day. As much as I dislike Fear the Walking Dead, it did show that the world that fell was indeed our own. It's supposed to be the case here, but, where'd the vampires come from? Have they always been underground?
We see later how powerful they are, so, why didn't they just attack us before? Why use some virus? This virus, too, is never explained in full as to where it came from. By the end of the series you can make some guess that there is a conspiracy afoot, but nothing ever stated. It's mentioned, never explained.
Alright, so now the vampires have the kids captured. Their system is set up so that at a certain part of the day, each kid goes to a lab and get their blood siphoned so the vampires can drink it. Well, here's genius idea: why not just keep their bodies like vegetables and continuously drain their blood? Humanity is constantly regarded by them as "livestock" so why not just keep them in a cold stasis and drain them of their blood? It ends any hope of the kids getting out and explaining what the vampires are really doing and how they keep getting more blood.
Thus is what happens here. Yuu getting out is way too easy. The first episode leaves hardly an impression. There's no grandeur to their situation at all. "We have to escape!" *insert dire roadblock here* "Oh no, carnage is here, better keep going!"
Much of the events of this series are brushed off like it's nothing. There are several moments where an attack happens and people breeze past it. The major event that we linger on occurs in the first episode, which I don't really want to spoil for you if I don't have to. Needless to say, it gets its impact in retrospect.
There are other story elements that hardly make any sense as well. Why don't the vampires put out a continuous attack against a human society that probably has a far smaller populace and less advanced weaponry? The vampires are both stronger and have attained many former military weapons, such as missiles, and various types of transportation. They could easily put a beat down on humanity. The power gap between Noble vampires and the soldiers is incredibly great. Even if a human were to make that jump through normal means, it'd still be unbelievable. Do the Cursed Gears really provide that much power?
Oh, and there's a stupid prophecy element mentioned once then picked back up near the end of the series that makes little sense, is dangerous for humanity, and does not need to be in the story at all as it could be explained through the rules provided by the series (little as there are).
This series has an incredible amount of conveniences packed in it that it's difficult to take it seriously. Matched with characters that mostly brush things off and you've got a rather unexciting show.
Speaking of characters, let's talk about them. For the most part, as I said, they're incredible generic.
Yuu is a hotheaded, arrogant boy only intent on revenge. Just like Eren Yeager. He has an incredible swath of power within him from some sort of experiment that is constantly implied but never shown. Just like Eren Yeager. He feigns a lack of comradery when really all he cares about is helping his friends and tries to play it off and be the cool kid. Sort of like Eren Yeager.
I found Yuu to also be an uninteresting character. His story prior to capturing the vampires is never mentioned outside of a throwaway line in the first episode, and it's actually pretty darn. The series tries to carry its theme of family on his shoulders, but he tries to be so "cool" and care so little about his new family that this is a difficult thing for it to do. Honestly, Yuu is a mix between Eren Yeager and Ichigo Kurosaki. The guy who is really "cool" (you can tell he's cool because he always has his hands in his pockets when he confronts someone) and is a loner, but has a righteous heart and is coated by plot protection and power-ups. It's really a marvel to behold.
The other characters are...bland. None of them are interesting. Shinoa, our female lead, has little to no personality outside of screwing with everyone all the time, but she never takes a situation seriously and never seems interested in what's going on. Yoichi is the closest one of the group to a personality and has a standout moment when he's trying to attain his Cursed Gear, but gets brushed under the rug to make way for new character and potential forced love interest, Mitsube.
Oh, yeah, there are two moments in the series where a character seems to fall for another, but there is so little chemistry between them and they are so bland that it's practically impossible to distinguish any flirting. Plus, I'm just not invested in these characters enough to want them to be together. There's an implication in the third episode that humans need to be mating a lot to keep the population up, that it's like a civic duty. Well, how come none of the characters hook up at some point in the show? Not that it would make any sense but neither does that little civic duty, so why mention it other than possible foreshadowing?
One character I could never get a read on is Guren, the big super man of the series. He's our fill-in "Captain Levi" as he works on a morally ambiguous code, but, not really. He has little regard for his superiors or supporting officers, never shows up to teach anyone, nearly kills an entire class of students just by showing off, and almost has Yoichi killed by Yuu directly. But then he's also a loner-type, but, has his own personal squad he willingly speaks with? His character is incredibly inconsistent. There are moments throughout the series that point to him possibly working with the vampires, and it's actually clever foreshadowing, just small moments that make you wonder what side this guy is really on. The ending of the series heightens this even more.
By the end, I'd say the final couple of episodes, things finally start to get a little interesting, but it's too little too late. The show can really be summed up in just a word: generic. If you've watched anime, you've seen all of these tropes used before. If you're new to the genre, I don't see why you can't watch this. But there are far better series out there if you want to see something like this. It lacks the horror and suspenseful elements of Attack on Titan, the grand, epic battle of Bleach, and the big lore of something similar to a "Fate" story. The vampires are hardly that, only sharing in name and the ability to suck blood, as well as the ignorant sense of nobility, and humanity is somehow superhuman at some points.
The show is by no means bad, but it's also by no means great. It's just good. Generic characters, little plot, hardly any lore, decent animation, and a pretty good score lead to what is, overall, and underwhelming series from this year.
Next week, I'll examine GANGSTA., as it's Broadcast Dub will be finished...and I have been seriously lacking in catching up to it. See you then.
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