Anime Week in Review: Black Blood Brothers

Vampire's fighting and some light comedy come together in Black Blood Brothers.

All Reviews May Contain Spoilers of the Plot and Characters. Read at own Risk.

 

Black Blood Brothers tells the story of Jiro Mochizuki, a.k.a the Silver Blade, who fought and defeated the Kowloon King and his children in a war many years ago. The show takes place 10 years later as he travels to Japan with his little brother, Kotaro, in hopes of taking up residence in The Special Zone, a secret city for vampires. Once he arrives in the city, he finds out that the surviving Kowloon children are plotting to invade and take over The Special Zone. As Jiro and Kotaro venture to The Special Zone they encounter past enemies and new enemies that threaten the safety of The Special Zone.

Black Blood Brothers is a entertaining show with some comedy thrown into the mix. Though the show does copy some of the elements from lots of other anime. In the first episode, Jiro awakens from his slumber and uses his special powers to defeat the Suppression Team. Only to become weakened after having been in the ocean for many hours because Kotaro fell in. He doesn't lose all his powers completely but in his first battle after recovering he is still injury and struggles to defeat one vampire. I have nothing wrong with this mechanic I just find it's funny that so many anime tend to follow this same script (see Elfen Lied for example). The action in the show is fun to watch even thought only maybe 6 of the 12 episodes really have any great fight scenes in it. The final fight scene during episode 12 is the best one in the series. When Jiro isn't fighting other Black Bloods (vampires), he hanging out Kotaro and their compromiser, Mimiko. This is where most of the comedy can be found, from Jiro making odd remarks to Mimiko about her virginity or beating up Kotaro for not listening. These moments help create a balance between the story and action to help pace it.

The show is available on DVD and Blu-Ray. in a complete series set with all 12 episodes on 3 discs. This review is about the DVD release of Black Blood Brothers. Funimation included the usual special features they put into most of their DVD releases. You get the usual sneak peeks at other shows from Funimation and textless songs. Something neat that Funimation included was the original Japanese commentary for every episode from the Japanese release. This show like most other shows have both English and Japanese audio options with English subtitles. The English dub is create in my opinion like most Funimation dubs, so you anime purists give it a chance please. J. Michael Tatum provides the voice of Jiro and Leah Clark as the voice of Kotaro, both do a great job with their charactrs, as does everyone else in the show. The video options is just your standard picture quality, nothing too fancy, though the Blu-Ray release does support 1080p HD. The animation in the show its self is good and nicely drawn. When Jiro cuts a vampire's head off, it actually looks like he cut off a vampire's head.

Black Blood Brother is great entertaining show that any fan of vampires or sword fighting should check it out. At only 12 episodes it's a great pick up for anyone looking for something quick and fun to watch. So which side do you pick the Black Blood or the Kowloon Children?

RightStuf - DVD
RightStuf - Blu-Ray
Amazon - DVD
Amazon - Blu-Ray