Blood-C (CLAMP x Production IG)

[hanashi]

And she hasn't awoken yet, so I'm really interested in the history there. I'm guessing the father trained her but how do you say to your daughter "Hi honey, I'm going to give you a sword, go fight monsters now, mmm kay?" You can tell that her father loves her, but he's also raising her as a miko and playing on her sense of duty and her giant father complex to have her go out and risk her life. She might be faster and stronger than normal humans her age, but she's not as strong as she is after her blood wakes up.

I'm interested in the side characters at this point. It looks like Yuuka, Tomofusa, and Brooding Kid (Tokizana?) might be involved, if you go by the OP. I thought that BK might have a crush on her at first, since he's in the same shot in the OP as Tomofusa (His crush is pretty obvious) and he keeps staring at her, but there's someone wearing a male school uniform at the very beginning of the OP and I suspect it's BK. Is he our Hagi?

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by hanashi

And she hasn't awoken yet, so I'm really interested in the history there. I'm guessing the father trained her but how do you say to your daughter "Hi honey, I'm going to give you a sword, go fight monsters now, mmm kay?" You can tell that her father loves her, but he's also raising her as a miko and playing on her sense of duty and her giant father complex to have her go out and risk her life. She might be faster and stronger than normal humans her age, but she's not as strong as she is after her blood wakes up.

I'm interested in the side characters at this point. It looks like Yuuka, Tomofusa, and Brooding Kid (Tokizana?) might be involved, if you go by the OP. I thought that BK might have a crush on her at first, since he's in the same shot in the OP as Tomofusa (His crush is pretty obvious) and he keeps staring at her, but there's someone wearing a male school uniform at the very beginning of the OP and I suspect it's BK. Is he our Hagi?

How do you know she hasn't awoken yet? Is that like a staple of every Blood story? I wouldn't know of course, but she certainly seems aware of the existence of demonic monsters and activates her red eyes with ease. She appears far more competent right now than Saya Otonashi was.

Again, I do agree with what many people are saying about the first ep. Actually, to me it felt more like the first half of an hour long premiere episode, except the second half never comes. It felt majorly incomplete.

But I have good hopes for it. Although for god's sake Production IG,

Give us GitSaC 3rd Gig please!!!

[bigdeath]

Why are people even expecting that we are getting a Hagi this time?

[orion]

Originally Posted by bigdeath

Why are people even expecting that we are getting a Hagi this time?

a. Dark, tall and silent one is in her class and she's actually looking in his direction.
b. It's CLAMP. There is a guy for her somewhere. Unfortunately, being CLAMP, our young couple will be separated during a trial that the female must endure with only a 50:50 chance of being with that guy at the end.
c. Hagi was great. He was devoted, talented and sexy.
d. Dad has to be bad news. We know she's not his real daughter and her life there is a lie. He's having her hunt monsters by night. She needs to regain her memories and perspective.
e. People want to see that kiss again.

[blue_sora]

Originally Posted by bigdeath

*blue_sora

Clamp just did the character designs for Code Geass. It was definitely a SunRise show.

I know, I guess what I'm saying is another anime contracted with Clamp to make it. Clamp seems got many of these offers lately.

And I'm also expecting Haji for this one too. But someone mentions this is gonna only 12 episodes? I don't think there's any room for tragic romance then, which Clamp is an expert on it.

[hanashi]

How do you know she hasn't awoken yet? Is that like a staple of every Blood story? I wouldn't know of course, but she certainly seems aware of the existence of demonic monsters and activates her red eyes with ease. She appears far more competent right now than Saya Otonashi was.

Well, she doesn't seem to know about her history yet. I mean, an evasive fluttering light that she's trying to grasp? That's pretty textbook. And frankly, I would think a writer/director would be crazy not to include a scene with that amount of dramatic potential so I'm 99% confident in that. Her eyes turned red at the very last second of the fight, so I don't think that was her activating her eyes, I think that was a reflexive action.

lol, I don't think that's quite fair about Blood+!Saya. This Saya has obviously has some training in the sword and I think she's been raised to believe she's fighting some sort of ancient evil on behalf of the Shrine. (It's a possibility that the shrine has some sort of ancient charge to kill the 'furukimono,' but then why was Saya then only one fighting?) Of course she's more confident and competent than Otonashi Saya, who was not only reeling from one emotional punch to another the entire series, but didn't have that base belief in herself and the righteousness of her actions. I think Kisaragi Saya is also in for an emotional rollercoaster so it'll be interesting to see how she handles it.

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by hanashi

Well, she doesn't seem to know about her history yet. I mean, an evasive fluttering light that she's trying to grasp? That's pretty textbook. And frankly, I would think a writer/director would be crazy not to include a scene with that amount of dramatic potential so I'm 99% confident in that. Her eyes turned red at the very last second of the fight, so I don't think that was her activating her eyes, I think that was a reflexive action.

lol, I don't think that's quite fair about Blood+!Saya. This Saya has obviously has some training in the sword and I think she's been raised to believe she's fighting some sort of ancient evil on behalf of the Shrine. (It's a possibility that the shrine has some sort of ancient charge to kill the 'furukimono,' but then why was Saya then only one fighting?) Of course she's more confident and competent than Otonashi Saya, who was not only reeling from one emotional punch to another the entire series, but didn't have that base belief in herself and the righteousness of her actions. I think Kisaragi Saya is also in for an emotional rollercoaster so it'll be interesting to see how she handles it.

Hey hey, I also liked Saya Otonashi very much. It's just that when you stretch a story out over 50 episodes that could be told in less, it gives her more chances to angst in just about every single episode, and it gets more tiring than it would if there had been, say, 30 eps. Even when she got more badass after the timeskip, ironically she also got more angsty.

But aside from that, maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Do you mean that Kisaragi hasn't awoken to the fact that she's a chiropteran? Cause she certainly knows there are demons out there and that she has to kill them, so her father must have given her some explanation of that when he first introduced her to sword fighting and monster slaying, right?

[hanashi]

Originally Posted by Xagzan

Hey hey, I also liked Saya Otonashi very much. It's just that when you stretch a story out over 50 episodes that could be told in less, it gives her more chances to angst in just about every single episode, and it gets more tiring than it would if there had been, say, 30 eps. Even when she got more badass after the timeskip, ironically she also got more angsty.

But aside from that, maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Do you mean that Kisaragi hasn't awoken to the fact that she's a chiropteran? Cause she certainly knows there are demons out there and that she has to kill them, so her father must have given her some explanation of that when he first introduced her to sword fighting and monster slaying, right?

Lol, fair enough! I had a lot more free time back then, but I don't think I could focus enough to follow a 52 episode series now that I'm working. I notice Blood-C is only 12 episodes so I hope they know what they're doing. Sorry, I get a little defensive about Otonashi Saya. Back then, I always got really irritated at those people who'd say "Why's she being so emo? Go kick some ass!" She was going through a lot of traumatic things. Poor Riku .

Yeah, I meant she doesn't know who she is but I'm not explaining very well. When I think of an awakened Saya, I think of her fighting and kicking ass with her red eyes. This Saya has a solid basis of sword training--she might not need as much help from her instincts. But they made a big deal of establishing this wide-eyed, innocent Saya who sings about her daily life and helps little old ladies cross the road, so I think the goal was to establish a contrast for the Saya we see fighting in the OP.

I'm not sure if her father gave her an actual explanation. In all fairness, he might not actually know what they are. That scene where he presented her with her sword had a very high sense of ritual. There was one line "The old ones will appear." I couldn't understand all of it, but it sounded like he was reciting a line from an old religious text, you know? And she was familiar with the line. It felt like all her training and fights had been couched in ritual, rather than the truth. But who knows? Maybe this is an alternate reality where Saya has always been the charge of Shinto priests. I should save myself some headaches and stop trying to guess what CLAMP's going to do.

[Jenesay]

A couple of thoughts...

- Character design? Are they all 2.50 meter tall giants? Way to disproportionate for my taste. This is even worse than Onii-chan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janaindakara ne, Wtf were they thinking?

- Really nice backgrounds overall

- Great fight at the end, one of the best I've seen in quite some time, even if they did give us zero explanation as to why a klutz's schoolgirl fights a living statue.

- Beautiful peoples club? ZZZ.... Do something original, and while you're at it, lose the shojoish, flowerish art style please, (and yes, I l know it's clamp, it still doesn't make it any better).

I'll give this a few more episodes and see if they try to actually make this into something worthwhile.

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by hanashi

Lol, fair enough! I had a lot more free time back then, but I don't think I could focus enough to follow a 52 episode series now that I'm working. I notice Blood-C is only 12 episodes so I hope they know what they're doing. Sorry, I get a little defensive about Otonashi Saya. Back then, I always got really irritated at those people who'd say "Why's she being so emo? Go kick some ass!" She was going through a lot of traumatic things. Poor Riku .

Whaaat? 12 episodes? Geez, Blood+ was too long now this will be too short.

But yes, I hear you. I can get the same way about Diva, poor thing. Although it's obviously much harder to defend sympathy for her than for Saya.

So, only 12 episodes, kind of short. Wonder if the show has a wiki page yet.

*reads*

...

OH MY JESUS NAOKI SATO IS SCORING!? YESSSS

Oh yeah, now I'm DEFINITELY sticking with this, no matter if I end up enjoying it or not, just for Sato's music. Fell in love with Eureka 7's score, hope he does just as wonderful a job here!

[Slick_rick]

Basically the main problem I found with the first episode was the lack of an introduction to the overarching conflict within the show. After watching it I have no more of an idea than before watching it of what's going on.

Personally I would have started of the show with the fight sequence which was easily the best part of the show and then go back to school or wherever to introduce the major conflict that way we can have tension for later episodes. So far all she did was kill a monster of the week. The slice of life part could have be shortened or saved for later.

So far I can see that there will be a lot to like in this show for Clamp fans but for non-clamp fans I think it'll be a tougher sell.

[DangerMouse]

Originally Posted by Jenesay

- Beautiful peoples club?

Originally Posted by Gohan78

The scene when Saya was singing on her way to school was especially cringe-worthy.

I'm certainly not writing it off without seeing this first ep and a few eps since hopefully the bloody action, drama and vampire mythos will come, and it sounds like the action scene was quite good, but *sigh*.

[Cabrini6000]

Spoiler for First Episode:

I’ll edit this tomorrow, because I have to get off soon, but I wrote down a few key points.

- I WANT to hear more about her classmates. Especially the twins.
- The sword had an interesting design. I’m a little excited to see if any hardcore fans are going to produce a real life version.
- Saya, was, eh, how can I put this nicely? Bland. Mary Sue. Dull. Sterotypical. And although I love CLAMPs designs, I don’t perfer her design very much.
- Some of the dialouge was hard to watch. I thought I was waiting for a punch line or something throughout the whole episode.
- I might be a pervert, but did anybody else notice any SayaXFather fluff? For some reason I did, and it really irked me.
- When she started to sing, I bursted out laughing. Was there a point to her singing? Or was it just to show off her voice/use up space? Maybe I’m just cynical, but the lyrics were very laughable.
- The fight scene was also hilarious. Especially when Saya gets caught in the monster’s (chiropteran’s?) hand and got shook around. PLEASE. I’M BEGGING SOMEBODY. PLEASE GIF THAT.
- Even for being of the BLOOD franchise, I still felt the blood was a tad excessive.
- The story line was little boring and dull, then again this is only the first episode, so I’m going to keep up for a least 3 more episodes, and then decide wether to lose it or keep it.

[Master_Yoma]

Saya as a moe this time

[Kismet-chan]

As someone said earlier, not a strong start, but more solid than quite a few other pilot episodes I can think of. The OP is forgettable, and the ED is likeable but nothing special (I think it might grow on me, though). The fight scene pleased me. Some of the BGM is pretty nice, too.

Maybe I'm biased since the first anime that "got me into loving anime" was a show by CLAMP (no one here knows me well enough to know which one, but you can guess if you like, lol), but I like the character designs a lot, Saya's being my fav. I would SO cosplay that. I REALLY wish the guys looked more interesting, though. :/

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by bigdeath

Clamp just did the character designs for Code Geass. It was definitely a SunRise show.

Come to think of it, they did do the character designs. Yet Code Geass' animated version of the character designs turned out to be so awesome.
This? .................*looks out the window*

[Nightengale]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

Come to think of it, they did do the character designs. Yet Code Geass' animated version of the character designs turned out to be so awesome.
This? .................*looks out the window*

Geass's animated character design is so associated with CLAMP that most people forget KimuTaka's been literally doing his noodle style since... a long long time. CLAMP may had been the aesthetic influence as far as the funky designs in Geass was concerned but as far as the animated character impression? I'd say KimuTaka's influence is far more reaching than CLAMP's ever was.

[bigdeath]

As I said, Clamp just did the initial Character Designs. Everything else is SunRise.

[winkel]

Originally Posted by orion

d. Dad has to be bad news. We know she's not his real daughter and her life there is a lie. He's having her hunt monsters by night.

What? Where did you get this? I didn't catch any of it in the first episode.

[bigdeath]

Originally Posted by winkel

What? Where did you get this? I didn't catch any of it in the first episode.

Its just speculation at this point.