Yeah...see why I shouldn't have mentioned wanting to do a review of this anime on my tumblr before I'd started to watch it? If I'd known about that, I'd have picked Nightwalker for review work and watched this in between doing that and Dusk Maiden Of Amnesia...assuming I'd even picked this up in the first place, because knowing that there is a relationship between ANYONE who looks underage would have been enough for me not to want to touch this with a ten foot pole!
But we're in this mess now, so let's get this over with.
For the benefit of those wanting some background on this anime, Dance In The Vampire Bund was originally a manga which was published in the magazine Comic Flapper (which is one letter short of a VERY rude joke that I could make, but will not because I'm a fully mature and responsible adult with a fondness for video games, comics, cartoons, sci-fi, anime, wargaming, acting and...wow, I'm not helping my case at all, am I?) between December 2005 and May 2013 and is currently available in a total of 14 volumes (not counting three spin off manga, Dive In The Vampire Bund, Dance In The Vampire Bund: The Memories Of Sledgehammer and Scarlett Order: Dance In The Vampire Bund 2, which were published in August 2009, March 2013 and December 2013 respectively and bring the whole manga to a total of 20 volumes). I'm not sure how much of the manga has been translated into English and officially released in the UK, but I've seen that the whole manga can be ordered on amazon and is presumably in English, so it's definitely out there if you look hard enough. Now, the anime basically covers the first five volumes of the manga, with a few changes (for example, Akira didn't have amnesia in the manga), so you could feasibly pick up the first five volumes of the manga if you didn't want to watch the anime and you'd have mostly the same story. The anime adaption of the show was broadcast in Japan between January and April 2010), was dubbed by Funimation Entertainment (who, if you ignore 4Kids, are probably the main reason so many people became fans of anime and manga outside of Japan), although I can't confirm when they did their dub work for it, and finally came to UK shores (completely unedited, I might add!) in DVD form in late October 2011, just in time for Halloween! In fact, the actual release date in the UK was apparently the 24th of October, so, by sheer coincidence, I'm technically reviewing this on the 3rd anniversary of the DVD's release in the UK!
So, let's move on to the review, shall we?
Dance In The Vampire Bund tells the story of Mina Tepes, a name which people who know enough about vampires will automatically be commenting on the unimaginative naming convention of, the ruler of all vampires and resident jailbait of the anime, and Akira Regendorf, a werewolf who starts the anime suffering from amnesia, Mina's faithful servant/bodyguard/lover and possible candidate for worst bodyguard ever seen in an anime when you realise the sheer number of times that Mina's life is in danger and he ends up doing nothing to help sort it out due to either not being there or being singularly useless compared to various other people fighting alongside them. I honestly have mixed feelings about these characters, but one thing I can't say is that they're poorly written: even at their worst written, I found them engaging enough to keep watching and they both have some complexity to them that made them actually seem like real people.
The minor characters are no slouches in terms of the memorability factor either. While my memory for names is absolutely terrible and, as such, I'd have to look their names up just to be sure I've gotten the right person, all of the characters are very memorable figures. One of the side characters, Nanami Shinonome, is particularly interesting and memorable...albeit for a reason which will have most people reaching for their buckets, as she has a relationship which is CLEARLY more than mere friends with a thirteen year old boy (named Yuzuru) and even turns him into a vampire so they can be together forever. While their relationship is EASILY the one moment in the anime which most people will not want to watch, I have to admit that the scene when Yuzuru nearly has to let Nanami leave for the bund and never see him again is really quite sad to watch, to the extent that, had the scene not had pedophiliac undertones that make me want to erase the scene from my memory, I'd have called it an emotional highlight that's truly worth watching the anime for.
As this point, I feel I should point out that what I'm calling pedophiliac undertones (from my UK perspective, which is where the law is that sexual consent cannot be given legally to anyone under the age of 16) MIGHT not apply in Japan. See, the law in Japan is somewhat odd about this kind of thing, but I'll give the basics that I've gathered from my own research. In terms of the overall law, yes, the official age where sexual relationships can be held in Japan is from the age of 13 and up, as outlined in the Japanese criminal law code. However, there are various jurisdictions in Japan where the law can go up to the age of 18 (much like how the US has various different laws that apply only on state level and not a national level), so, in some sections of Japan, Nanami and Yuzuru would flat out not be allowed to have a relationship of the sort implied (not depicted, as we never see any actual moments about their relationship between them in the actual anime) in it. On top of that, some parts of Japan have various other laws which make the laws different: in Tokyo, for example, one law which affects everything I've just said is the Youth Protection Law, which means that adults cannot have sexual intercourse with anyone under the age of 17. So, if Nanami is 17, she could have a sexual relationship with Yuzuru, but not from when she turns 18 (although I imagine that being on the vampire bund means that there's technically only the law as laid down by Mina, so that kind of screws up that discussion a bit!). So, depending on where in Japan they live (I don't think the anime ever states exactly where in Japan they live, although I do know it is a city and that, at one point, Mina has a conversation with the prime minister of Japan, so I imagine that it wouldn't be too unreasonable to assume they live in Tokyo), it would be completely legal.
So yeah...depending on which part of the world you live in, this anime is going to result in you either needing a bucket or is going to have you wondering why I'm overreacting a bit.
So yeah...depending on which part of the world you live in, this anime is going to result in you either needing a bucket or is going to have you wondering why I'm overreacting a bit.
While the characters and their weaknesses ARE built upon some very obvious stereotypes connected to the two mythologies (yes, vampires are still weak to sunlight in this mythology), I have to admit that the anime handles them very nicely, and some creative (if a bit daft when you think about them hard enough) solutions to some of the issues connected to being a vampire are presented (to continue the "weak to sunlight" problem I brought up earlier, there is actually a special gel which a vampire can rub into their skin which gives them immunity from sunlight for 15 minutes...which we first get introduced to when Mina mentions her gel is about to run out and needs Akira to rub it all over her naked body IN EPISODE 2!). There is also a surprisingly deep social criticism in the anime (yes, seriously: an anime which has a main plot about a love story between a vampire and a werewolf has a valid social criticism in it) which is mentioned in the anime in the form of Fangless (vampires who remove their fangs), who are hated by vampires for trying to deny they are vampires and by humans for being...well, still vampires. In fact, Mina even starts to build the bund for vampires (the "vampire bund", if you will...although there's only one dance ever held in the vampire bund (and even that is a private thing between Mina and Arika), so I've no idea how the anime got the name it did!) because she wants to provide a safe place for these Fangless to live in safety and free from persecution. It's not particularly important in the grand scheme of things, but it does make you realise that some actual thought has gone into telling this story, and that's honestly somewhat admirable: with an anime like this, it'd be SO easy to be like a Twilight rip off (and, when I was getting ready to start watching this, that's what I expected this to be like), but it doesn't do that at all. It goes in a far, FAR more gripping direction, and I really must give it credit for doing that!
The story, while very much what you'd imagine an anime involving a vampire lord to be like (Assassination attempts? Check. Evil suitors? Check. A belief that the vampire lord is responsible for everything wrong involving vampires, despite them making it clear that isn't the case several times? Check.) and includes a lot of the clichés that you'd expect from a love story with action involved, does at least get by through being told rather well. Some parts of the story are particularly interesting to watch, as seeing Akira's amnesia whenever it makes an appearance does manage to convey a somewhat realistic portrayal of amnesia and showcases just how difficult to be sure the last bits of your memory have returned, even after the main part of the amnesia has faded away. That said, I must give a HUGE amount of praise to the last two episodes of the show, as it manages to pull off FOUR (yep, you read that number correctly. And three of them were in the final episode, too!) very good twists that almost made me disappointed that the anime was ending before it could go further with telling them. Sure, having the twists be in that close proximity to each other (especially since two of them are connected to each other) does mean that it's hard to take them all in, but I would seriously say that the twists are all very good and easily make the last two episodes worth watching on their own, if you can find them online. The fact that the anime has only had one season despite ending on a REALLY impressive sequel hook almost feels like a huge shame, as I'd love to see where the anime goes from here. I know I'm saying this about an anime which has pedophiliac undertones, but that sequel hook is just that good that I'd happily buy the second season of this anime to watch if it was made just because I really want to see more of it!
All of this and I've not even started discussing the animation itself yet! It's probably not as good overall as Highschool Of The Dead, but I have to say that the overall animation quality is still very good. This is clearly not the work of an anime company who has done a hack job just for the case of getting this released quickly: there's been some very noticeable effort into making the anime look good. On top of that, there are quite a few cases where the anime changes the ending animation to suit what's happened in the story rather than sticking with the same ending credits to be lazy. All of them are really high quality and, though I have to question the fact that one of them seems to have a weird remembering of the colour and style of the anime itself and another seems determined to show that yes, Mina is the resident jailbait of the anime, all of them are at least passable. All told, if you're a fan of anime, this is probably going to be an example of what you would list as a very well animated anime. Not one of the best animated anime in the world, but certainly in the upper quarter of animation quality.
The overall voice acting in the sub (I'll admit, I've been lazy and not bothered to watch the dub: sorry, Christopher Sabat, I didn't get to hear you voicing Wolfgang Regendorf!) is very good and surprisingly manages to avoid having female characters who have voices which seem determined to cause people to explode from cuteness overload. Nobody had a voice that I felt was particularly off from what I'd expect from the character and the overall quality of it is enough to make me wonder what the heck we're doing wrong in the English voice acting industry, as I could recognise the emotions of EVERY character despite not understand a word they were saying!
The music, sadly, is where you'll spot major criticism from me. Remember when I reviewed Highschool Of The Dead and gave props to that anime for having some amazing music?
...Wow, I didn't expect that much defending silence! Fine, here's the link if you want to see that review: http://nemoatkins.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/anime-review-highschool-of-dead.html
Anyway, I can't give that same comment to this one. That's not to say the music is necessarily BAD in this anime, but none of the music hit me on the same level as the theme for Highschool Of The Dead did. It was all just rather pleasantly there and didn't really aspire to be more than that. That's a huge let down for me, personally, and I really wish that some more effort had gone into making the music stronger for this anime.
The extras are pretty bare, if I'm totally honest. They're only available on the second disc (which contains episodes 8-12...although I guess that they put them in a sensible place, unlike Highschool Of The Dead, so credit where it's due for that!) and they make up a promotional video for the anime (I only saw it in Japanese), 12 intermissions (although I don't see where they fit in compared to the episodes), the opening and closing songs of the show available in versions without text and the original Japanese commercials for the anime. I know it's mostly just there for completeness sake, but I still feel like those options are kind of disappointing for bonus features. I'd have much preferred to have seen an interview with the cast (of either version of the show), as they'd have probably provided some insightful comments related to the anime which I would have liked to have heard. I don't know, maybe I'm nitpicking unfairly, but, if you're going to have extras for something, you might as well put some effort into them, even if they're just behind the scenes stuff!
If I can stop being a reviewer for just a second to discuss the elephant in the room about this anime, I think the big issue with this anime, and the ONLY reason why I would really hesitate to say that this is an anime that should be seen by anyone who is an anime fan, is that the pedophiliac undertones (to most people in the world) to the story are just so connected to the story that most people would be put off by this anime. You literally couldn't tell the story of this anime by cutting out the undertones: they're that engrained into the story that there's no way you can ignore them. And I'm not going to lie: if I was going to rate this in terms of how many people are likely to want to watch this anime, I'd be rating it far lower than all of my words before now would indicate I would be going to rate it. This is simply not an anime that most people are going to want to watch because the undertones to it are completely unable to be ignored. Even reading my own review back, the big question in my mind is "Would I have picked up this anime, knowing what I do now about it?", and I do not doubt that my answer would have been a very firm "no". In fact, I doubt I'd have read past the first paragraph of this review if I'd found it simply because I'd have been that repulsed by the story of the anime. Yet, having seen it, I do not doubt that, had the story aged up all of the underage characters to look in their late teens, it would have become just like what most people would have expected it to be: a story involving vampires being sex gods and filled to the brim with enough sex scenes to make most watchers blush. So maybe a case could be made that the story actually needed to have Mina (and maybe Yuzuru) to be the age they are to prevent the story from becoming just like a typical vampire anime: by having one of the main characters look young enough that imagining them in a situation which involves them having sexual intercourse would cause most people to need a bucket, it put the pressure on making the story better and stopped other people from making the story go down a route which most people would have loathed it for going down. I'll admit that I'm purely speculating on that front, but I cannot say that such logic would have no basis in reality.
So, overall, what do I think of this anime? Well, in all honesty, if it weren't for the pedophiliac undertones that would have most people not wanting to go near it, this anime could almost be used as a case for how to tell a good story involving vampires and werewolves: it gets the mythology of both races right, tinkers around with a few minor things to make the story able to be told (although I'm fairly sure werewolves and vampires didn't used to be arch enemies in some of the early stories where they appeared together in any case) and then throws in a story that, while hardly going to win points for originality, is still fairly well told, with some well written characters and a final two episodes that would hype most people up to see the second (and, sadly, not made thus far) season of the show. If you can ignore the pedophiliac undertones and have any fondness for vampires and werewolves, then you should check this out, as it's really worth the watch for that and, while hardly flawless, is strong enough that you will probably find yourself really enjoying it. If you can't ignore those undertones, though, then avoid this like the plague.
My final rating does not represent my viewpoint on the anime when I factor in my disgust at the pedophiliac undertones, only on how the anime stands up overall when I look at it from as unemotional a viewpoint as I can manage (so, from a strictly critical perspective).
Final Rating: 8 Out Of 10
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