Strike the Blood Episode 8
What They Say:
The fourth progenitor is the most powerful vampire once thought to exist only in the world of legends. Yet when it appears in Japan, the government for some reason chooses an apprentice “sword shaman”, Yukina Himeragi, to observe and obliterate it. Bewildered by the disproportionate task and its specific details, Yukina arrives at the Demon District of Itogami-jima to watch Akatsuki Kojo, and a student at a private high school on Itogami-jima.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While Strike the Blood is admittedly losing me a bit as it gets further along due to the lack of really clearly structured stories in how it adapts from the novels, I’m still finding myself charmed by parts of it. The concepts continue to be a big plus to me and I like the characters, especially with Akatsuki not being quite the usual milquetoast lead that we often get, but the supporting cast is growing nicely as well. But mostly it’s just that as we get into this second story arc here more and more, the less focused it seems to be. Add in the way that the physics and logic of the world with powers and abilities feels very loose and you’ve got something that almost feels like it’s operating by the seat of its pants.
Having Akatsuki and Sayaka working together at this point to free the others is a fair bit of fun, especially since Akatsuki is pushing Sayaka’s buttons when it comes to her fear of men by touching her. Not intentionally at times, though there are some awkward sexual moments that come to light that brings out the clarity of his understanding of her situation. Similarly, we get to see other areas settling here after the action of the first episode as Yukina faces off against the foe with some dialogue and those that couldn’t make it to the ship get their time watching what’s going on and waiting for their moment to get involved. There’s a sense of something larger really about to happen, especially when Akatsuki calls forth his very large familiar, and that gets everyone else on track to start being active rather than reacting to what’s been happening.
The show brings out a good bit of action as it goes on as they deal with the Black Death Emperor group and al with what Vatler had set in motion, but the more that it went on, the less interesting the actual story is. In some ways, it’s hard to say what the story really is here with what it wants to tell because it’s just kind of all over the place. I’m hesitant to call it convoluted, but it’s just not smoothly executed over the course of the arc. It may be something that does work better when marathoned, which I’ll admit can be significant for shows based off of light novels that do arcs. Unfortunately, it’s not holding me well when it comes to weekly installments and that’s a problem.
In Summary:
Clocking in at three episodes, this arc comes to a close and I’m hard pressed to say what the real value of it was here. There’s some little nugget towards the end of it that helps to lay some of it out, but considering all that happened it hardly seems like it was worth it in terms of the time spent. The character side of the show is what worked the most, especially in getting to know Sayaka more here as that was definitely a plus, but as a whole the arc was lackluster and has left me feeling less and less interested in the show. I’ll still keep at it though as these kinds of series can produce a less than stellar arc and turn it around completely in the next, but it’s made me a bit wary after the fun first arc that we had.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.