Blood-C – 06

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BloodC 06[360p].mp4_snapshot_02.26_[2011.08.18_16.47.40] BloodC 06[360p].mp4_snapshot_03.50_[2011.08.18_16.49.04] BloodC 06[360p].mp4_snapshot_08.31_[2011.08.18_16.53.45]

I knew I was right not to like those twins…

Blood-C certainly did everything to earn its title this week.  The series certainly can’t be faulted for shorting the audience with its namesake bodily fluid, though I feel it sometimes relies solely on sheer volume of gore to provide shock value rather than earning it the hard way.  Nevertheless, this ep was a bloodbath of the highest order and there’s no question it had an impact.

Certain suspected things and pretty much revealed as truths by this point.  There’s a massive conspiracy to use Saya for selfish – we don’t know yet if ultimately worthy – purposes.  Her “father” (Fujiawara-san, how could you?) and creepy Guimauve guy Fumito are certainly in on it – Daddy seems to be able to knock Saya unconscious at will, and Fumito is using the coffee to tranquilize, and perhaps control her.  Class-rep guy is probably involved too, and clearly see’s Tokizane as a threat.  The real question is whether, in fact, everyone is involved – is the entire village and everyone in it a masquerade for Saya’s benefit?  Or is it simply a matter of conspiracy among a few select associates?   Nono’s nature may be a key to this question – if she’s an Elder Bairn, it would seem the conspiracy runs very deep.  Or was she simply a normal girl whose anger was manipulated by such a creature for its own benefit?

If Saya has any friends, it would appear that only Tokizane – seemingly targeted for the Haji role (or perhaps the Homura one) – and the weird fox/dog/cat are it.  I won’t swear to it yet, but they at least seem to be showing signs of wanting to bring her closer to the truth, whatever that may be.  Now that the carnage has extended into Saya’s inner circle it seems as if it would be increasingly difficult to keep her in the dark, and to keep a nature a secret from the rest of the village if they aren’t in on the conspiracy.  In every version of this story Saya has always been a tool manipulated by others for their own ends, so there’s no reason to suspect anything different here.  It looks as if this version took a longer and somewhat less interesting path to revealing that than the last one did.

At the least, I’m glad that Blood-C seems to have rewarded those with enough patience by giving them something actually worth caring about.  I still find the staging clumsy and I think the show definitely relies too much on gore to make an impact – it has the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the head in that department.  I’m also not crazy about the look of the series – it appears washed out and the fight scenes still just look like imperfectly integrated CGI.  But now that the weird and stilted pretense of the first few episodes has been cast aside it’s at least interesting and has a certain amount of suspense.  This episode was certainly the best so far, and its predecessor the second-best, so the trend is positive.  There have been far too many missteps for the series to ever stake a claim as brilliant, but we’ve graduated to watchable, and hopefully we can build from there.

BloodC 06[360p].mp4_snapshot_17.09_[2011.08.18_17.02.23] BloodC 06[360p].mp4_snapshot_22.00_[2011.08.18_17.07.14] BloodC 06[360p].mp4_snapshot_24.13_[2011.08.18_17.09.31]
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13 comments

  1. T
    Tsuki
    August 19, 2011 at 1:01 am
    Reply

    "it has the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the head in that department."
    I see what you did there….

    Anyways, looks like this slow-moving series is finally starting to pull itself together. I agree on where you said that it relies far too much on it's gore for impact. It's excessive, but it certainly leaves a stronger impression.

    Nevertheless, at least it's more interesting than the initial episodes that were the stumbling blocks to this series.

  2. K
    Karmafan
    August 19, 2011 at 2:55 am
    Reply

    I'm wondering if Saya is actually asleep somewhere and this is all a kind of dream state to manipulate her to work for the humans? Killing the 1st twin pissed me off (I like the twins) but when the second formed a monster out of her shadow it made me think either the monster took Nono's form or Saya is on a table somewhere and these 6 episodes are all taking place in her mind as she is being steered towards helping humans against the monsters.

    As far as there being too much gore this is a series about a girl who fights monsters with a long sword and kills them. I don't think the gore is that over the top. This isn't Usagi Drop or Ikouro Meiro.

  3. admin
    August 19, 2011 at 7:10 am
    Reply

    I don't think the gore is over the top in the sense that it bothers me – I just feel like they're using it as an easy way to jar the audience without actually doing the heavy lifting. Character-based emotional impact is much harder to do than buckets of blood!

    As for Say being asleep and this all being her dream, that's an interesting idea. Almost a take on Ender's Game, in a way.

  4. a
    abandonedfactory
    August 19, 2011 at 7:56 am
    Reply

    Something crazy is going on in this town; that's for sure. I can see the class president being in on it, and the teacher, and Saya's father, and Fumito, but I don't quite understand what "it" really is. Is the town trying to break out of the covenant? Is Saya really Tadayoshi's daughter? I agree that Saya is being used, and that we don't know the real purpose.

  5. t
    totoum
    August 19, 2011 at 2:27 pm
    Reply

    Pretty much ageeing with you on everything here.

    As we go on parts of the OP (like the twins dancing) seem just as trollish as the Madoka OP

  6. S
    Seishun Otoko
    August 19, 2011 at 2:42 pm
    Reply

    What a great episode and hell yeah, not just one but both twins were killed off. Now if only Saya stops singing ;D
    I take back what I said about Blood-C being a kiddy show. In hindsight, I guess the overly Clamped slice of life aspects of the first five episodes did provide a good contrast to the gore we're seeing this week. But did Clamp really have to make us wait for that long? Probably not but at the very least, I'm motivated enough to stick till the end end right now

  7. c
    cyber_steel
    August 19, 2011 at 3:21 pm
    Reply

    Inception. Someone planted something in her mind and thus is the result.

  8. admin
    August 19, 2011 at 5:19 pm
    Reply

    Like I said – flawed it may be, but at least I.G./Clamp gave us something as a payoff – lots of interesting theories out there. At this point I'm pretty confident that "Daddy" isn't the real father, Class Rep-kun is in on the dirty and the teacher is some sort of wildcard. Apart from that, still guesswork.

    Both twins slaughtered? Hell yeah!

  9. L
    Luxorcism
    August 20, 2011 at 4:08 am
    Reply

    I don't watch this series anymore, but from reading your post, I immediately thought of Jim Carrey's "The Truman Show." We see both main characters in faux environments meant to control them.

  10. admin
    August 20, 2011 at 7:34 am
    Reply

    That does seem possible, though "Paprika" is what's popping into mind for me for some reason…

  11. b
    bigFrank
    August 20, 2011 at 8:21 am
    Reply

    well it definitely seems that the shit has indeed gotten real. but that second twin has got me stumped, esp in the scene where the shadow thing starts enveloping saya. im thinking to myself here how can she not notice it? either she was screwed from the start or this is bad on the writers' part – suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

  12. admin
    August 20, 2011 at 8:39 am
    Reply

    Welcome, Frank, and thanks for posting. I'm witholding judgement on the "bad writing" part, at least as it relates to your post. There's no doubt that some bad writing went into the first four eps, though things have improved…

  13. b
    bigFrank
    August 20, 2011 at 9:03 am
    Reply

    yeah ur right. too early to call it.

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