Blood Lad: First Impressions
Reconnaissance Report by: Kuroi
Progress: Episode 1
Imagine a vampire. Tall, pale, mysterious, in a big cloak, and completely unable to control itself around humans because it wants their blood, right?
Meet Staz. Staz is a modern vampire, which means he has a slightly different obsession: manga, games, and anime. These are his main concern, even though he is the boss of a territory in the demon world, and other demons keep coming to challenge his authority, take his head, and become the next boss. One day a human girl wanders into the demon world—in his own territory, no less. Naturally, he does what any vampire would do: interrogate her about the Final Fantasy series.
Staz is too busy getting excited about that fact that he has a real human girl, and a Japanese one at that, to go help his underlings out with a new intruder. At least until the girl tells him she thinks he should go help out, and she blinks up at him with huge, blue eyes. Staz runs out the door yelling about how he definitely doesn’t want to drink her blood. So not all that non-vampiric, after all.
Interloper defeated, claiming that he doesn’t want to drink her blood because he’s a vampire but because he’s Staz—individual, asserted, cool, and collected—Staz returns to his room to find…human bones and the girl’s clothes inside a giant plant monster. But the girl is totally still sitting on his bed. Completely naked. Turns out that she’s a ghost, and Staz now couldn’t care less about her, except to vow to bring her back to life. The girl, who finally introduces herself as Fuyumi, remembers how she got to the demon world in the first place, and Staz becomes completely obsessed with taking a trip to the human world.
Blood Lad is pretty fun; it’s visually interesting, with bright colors and character designs (Staz’s wardrobe in particular is a constant source of entertainment). There is a lot of fanservice—all the girls are incredibly well-endowed, but it seems like it’ll be used in a more humorous way. After all, Fuyumi was completely naked on Staz’s bed, and all he did was lean over her, look at her, and say, “Huh. I’m totally not interested in you at all anymore.” He then immediately started picking his nose and staring at a skull. It looks like it’ll involve fights with other demons and finding some way to bring Fuyumi back to life, which could definitely be interesting.
Score: 8.25/10.00