3ET: Strike the Blood

This is a show about vampires.

Studio: Silver Link

Director: Yamamoto Hideyo (Shin Tennis no Ouji-sama)

Writer: Yoshino Hiroyuki (Code Geass, Guilty Crown)

Main Cast:

Hosoya Yoshimisa as Akatsuki Kojou

Taneda Risa as Himeragi Yukina

Character Design: Sano Keiichi (Toaru Majutsu no Index)

Music: ASSUMED SOUNDS

There are a lot of shows that do things we've seen before. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I don't think it matters all that much. What matters more than what kind of story a show tells is how they tell it. And in the case of Strike the Blood, its story needs to be told in a really good way, because it treads on ground that anyone who watches anime, or even follows modern fiction, has seen before. Does it pull this off? I guess it's time to find out.

The specific ground that Strike the Blood retreads is the god-like vampire with a heart of gold, in this case named Akatsuki Kojou. He is being "observed", which is code for "followed and if he does something that means he's a danger, murdered". His observer is a middle school student named Himeragi Yukina. She has been raised away from society and is therefore very awkward. There's also side characters like the overbearing loli-teacher who says cryptic stuff, the girl who's good with computers and has a crush on Kojou, the bro best friend, and the little sister. Don't worry, she's not that kind of little sister. At least not in the first three episodes. But, despite being nothing new under the sun, if it's told well, it could still work.

"Why did I read the script? It's so bad."

It doesn't work. The most obvious pitfall I can point out is that Strike the Blood rarely shows the audience anything, at least not without telling at the same time. There is a gross overuse of proper nouns that I don't care to go over that add nothing to the story. They're just a bunch of fancy words for "vampire hunter" and "magical lance" and things of that nature. Also, in the opening scene, it is implied that Kojou bites his hand to stem his urge to feed on a woman who falls near him and cuts herself. Instead of relying on the audience to understand what happens, the scene repeats later in the episode, this time with him specifically saying that he is only able to keep from feeding on people by drinking his own blood. Which I found completely unnecessary, since I'm not an idiot. There is also the little problem of the characters having no personality. I did not care at all what happened to them, so when the main character gets beheaded after the villain of the first arc tells them all the details of the plan, I felt nothing. And that's bad. 

Still, I'm left with a few lingering questions. Since the show takes place on an island where alarms about illegal magical power go off in public, why are people surprised when someone mentions vampires in a restaurant? Or why does the island government need to cover up that a huge explosion that does billions of yen in damage was caused by some magical stuff? Also, why did the organization that Yukina belongs to send a middle school student to observe the god-like vampire? Were the other ones on vacation?  Why should I keep watching this show?

Why the hell do we need to see her panties?

Oh, right. I shouldn't. I'm going to fail it. Because it's terrible. One last anecdote from my watching experience. I watched the first episode with my housemates who like anime and were curious about Strike the Blood. About five minutes into the first episode, there is a battle between Yukina and some no-name demon who summons a familiar in the form of a horse. She defeats the horse and my housemate says "BAKANA!" (IT CAN'T BE!). Three seconds later, the no-name demon says the same thing, which makes crystal clear to how predictable this show is, and why I think it's garbage.