(L) Dance in the Vampire Bund

[chounokoe]

Originally Posted by Serpit

Well, the original source messed up this up already, and I'm not sure you got it right either. It's written "Bando" (バンド) in katakana, which is basically the way an English speaking person would pronounce the German term, which should actually be said "Bundo" (ブンド). A German "u" is pronounced like a Japanese "u", so it puzzles me why the English would-be pronounciation is used instead.

Well it's not like the original creators seem to have any idea how to properly use German. Even the translation of the Max Frisch excerpt is...just plain off.
Whoever translated it into Japanese had a basic grip of what it was talking about, but no idea how to properly translate it, one verse is even missing.
And later in Volume 1...the German spoken by some gang members was ridiculously wrong.

And well, after I read through volume 1 now, I think the presentation of Mina is not THAT far off during this episode, although of course it could be problematic due to later volumes, which I wouldn't know, so I'm basing this on partial knowledge.
When she is attending the press-conference in the middle of volume 1, she also comes off rather stuck up, almost ridiculing the human side...although never actually crossing that border. We later see that she has another side as well, but she doesn't show it in public.
Towards the human public she seems to keep up the facade of an allmighty, but not evil, vampire-ruler...and that's not so much different from what I felt in the first episode.

Well correct me if I'm wrong...but also in volume 1 she had no problem with her subordinates killing those who opposed her. Maybe herself killing something comes across wrong, I don't know if that actually is a problem to a later plotpoint within the manga continuity.

But well here's the difference between people who want an adaption to be exactly the same and being able to do something on its own.
That's why I like fantasy-stories, because you can actually change some plotpoints without it immediatly destroying the logic of the series...contraty to what happens if you adapt for example a mystery-detective story, where you can't change much, without ruining the mystery or coming up with something entirely on your own.
I like alternate versions if their done well...a frame to frame adaption of the manga would have been boring for me, because
a) it would (almost) surely fail later on because time would run out
or b) because it doesn't offer anything new (that's why I never got into the later parts of the Pandora Hearts anime).

[Serpit]

Originally Posted by chounokoe

And later in Volume 1...the German spoken by some gang members was ridiculously wrong.

Oh god yes. That made my head hurt.

"What are you? What are you? Ha?! It must be man! It came done to become what!"

[tsunade666]

I expect a bit less from it but the first episode prove me wrong. Its pure awesome for me and I'm sticking with this one.

[-Sho-]

Do they have enough material for 12 or 24 episodes ?

[Serpit]

Originally Posted by -Sho-

Do they have enough material for 12 or 24 episodes ?

There's 5 translated volumes (31 chapters @ 30-40 pages) so far. Wiki says there are 7 volumes already, but I' don't really know myself. Either way, there's more than enough material for 12 episodes.

[Tsuyoshi]

Originally Posted by Serpit

There's 5 translated volumes (31 chapters @ 30-40 pages) so far. Wiki says there are 7 volumes already, but I' don't really know myself. Either way, there's more than enough material for 12 episodes.

But when you consider what they did with the first episode, I'm a bit scared they'll change the ending of the anime instead of sticking to the manga.

[Dop]

Originally Posted by Ice Block

I don't know if they were poking fun at Twilight somewhere there in their dialogue,

I'd like to think so, oh how I'd like to think so - although I was also reminded of Vampire Knight a little...
Edit: Reminded, in the 'taking the mickey out of ' sense, not in the sense that it was in any way similar..

I enjoyed the first episode. If nothing else, it was different, and I like it when anime series try to do something different to the usual 'Hey look, say hi to these characters!' first episode.

[Tiamat's Disciple]

What a pile of ^&*#

I wasn't expecting a direct manga clone, but i was expecting them to atleast follow the general story and outlines of the story.

This is basically another Black God, and awesome manga butchered by an incompetent adaptation. I'll give it 2 more eps, just because it is one of my all time fave manga, but after this episode they're going to have to be freaking mind blowingly amazing to keep me watching. And it's one i'll never buy when licensed (and we all know this pile of crap is just a short wait till funi or someone else licenses it. Funi already made initial inquieries apparently)

[-Sho-]

Lol hope it won't be like Vampire Knight no no or Twilight big no Let them in their own corners .

[Deathkillz]

I knew the story was going to be twisted in a unique way by SHAFT but this was just something else. Let's just say I hope the next episode will be more normal as I really love the story. But the chances of there being anything linear is slim since we have someone smoking crack on the job.

[orion]

Originally Posted by Mentar

So how are you going to reconcile the fact that instead of having Mina try (and throughout the story, fighting hard) to work for a peaceful cohabitation between Humans and Vampires, we now have an arrogant ojou publicly executing a monster and intimidating/threatening the audience while she's at it? She's now doing exactly the opposite of what she's supposed to fight for later. Brutally put, I'd say that the director didn't understand the original story.

I'm not sure if I would have liked the episode more had I not known the original. But I can say for sure that this was not the manga I like.

But you had a TV show saying how weak vampires are in reality People believe what they see on TV. I thought that it was a good wake up call as to how "weak" they really are. You had a "little girl" kill a "monster" with just a stare.

Shinbo had Mina giving the humans a wake up call as she was trying to catch a serial killer. They are physically stronger and financially strong enough to buy an island. They are also responsible enough not to kill humans except on command and don't require human blood to exist. "We're good neighbors but you can't step on us so don't try it." was the take home message to me.

[Ansalem]

First, as to the mispronunciation of the German, I have to say that I have long given up on expectations concerning katakana foreign words. Surely other cultures are guilty of this to a certain extent, but the Japanese don't try to say foreign words. They turn them into Japanese syllables and then say that word. Perhaps it has something to do with them not sharing an alphabet with other language and having their own syllabary. In any case, the likelihood of the imported Japanese word being given the syllables a speaker of the original language (be it German, English, or any other) would have chosen is unfortunately no higher than the chance that it will be given the pronunciation according to its spelling or something even less accurate. (Words like セーター(seitaa): sweater come to mind) So I wouldn't sweat the mispronunciation that much, since it's more the rule than the exception.

For the actual episode, I will start by explaining that I have no experience with the manga. While it is also a factor, especially in initial reactions to new anime adaptions, I think in this case it is a particularly polarizing factor. That being said, I will admit to finding this Shaft-y introduction interesting and welcome. I had doubts going in to the show, since pretty much my only knowledge about Dance in the Vampire Bund was that there was a loli vampire girl who was naked a lot and wanted to make a vampire island off the shore of Japan, and naked loli girl isn't exactly what I would put as a winning feature for me. So instead of my expectations, I instead watched this episode. When a manga gets minor changes in its anime, manga readers are almost always up in arms, no matter how small the change. So when I realized that the entire introduction was anime-original, I was already expecting this kind of "this is the worst thing ever" reaction. This is not to say that I haven't been upset over changes from source material before, just that I have no reference in this case.

Not possessing any rage over major alterations to the story, I found the episode interesting and a nice introduction to the world of the setting. We as viewers get to learn through a Japanese talk show the perceptions of the world on the subject of vampires, with a nicely entwined beginning to the real plot, and several major real "facts" about vampires in this world. I knew enough to know that Mina was a vampire, but as for the rest I was ignorant but for hints as the introduction continued. By the end, I was still not entirely sure how many at the filming were vampires, which I thought improved the story rather than detracting from it. It gave me the feeling that they are many, not few, in an unsettling way. The monster-of-the-week first episode has been used in many-a-show, to varying degrees of success. However, with the unique setting and style of animation, I think it worked well in this case. The animation being drawn as though it were being shot from the studio cameras was particularly well-done, especially at the conclusion of the episode. The episode also captured the essence of Japanese television, which may perhaps be why some people disliked the episode so much. I look forward to seeing how the rest of the show will play out.

[vandakiara]

I must say I read the manga before watching this... I really like the manga but I didn't find the anime disappointing either..

The only thing I didn't like was that the Akira-Yuki scene wasn't shown and I really think that's important because it shows Akira's trauma and all...

I won't say I loved this first episode as much as the manga, but I enjoyed this different approach and won't start complaining (yet)... I'll just wait for the other episodes for now...

[Zwei]

First episode was absolutely terrible, even for an introduction (if that's what they were trying to aim). The last thing I watched closely similar to this one that completely caught me off guard was Ergo Proxy. I'm talking about ep.15 of Ergo Proxy for those knowledgeable about the anime.

The manga had a great introduction to the story, as well as introducing the main characters. And as some people may believe, most of us are not judging the episode just because it was anime-original (I agree that a lot of people tend to do this), it's just that it was absolutely terrible. My expectations were shattered. Now I'm hoping SHAFT will recover by presenting us something completely different from this episode (they can do this if they follow the manga), and hopefully the story will pick up by the next episode.

12 episodes? Umm, lets see where they can go with this.

4/10.

[Ichy]

I like vampires.

Is this worth watching or will it turn into some shitty harem animu?

[Zwei]

Originally Posted by Ichy

I like vampires.

Is this worth watching or will it turn into some shitty harem animu?

It is worth watching. I was skeptical about reading the manga at first, the "lolicon" tag didn't really appeal to me, but I still gave it a try. It's definitely worth it, so give it a try.

It's not a shitty harem anime, so I wouldn't worry about that.

[xKeen]

Did not like the TV show theme,I hated the Ergo Proxy quiz thing.
I like the ending though.

[Ehnra]

So, as a fan of SHAFT I decided to give this show a try.

I somewhat didn't like the first episode, can't put the finger on why, but the overall story seems to be appealing so I'm definitely going to keep watching for a while and see what happens, the show does got potential.

[Ichy]

Downloading

[orion]

Originally Posted by Ansalem

Not possessing any rage over major alterations to the story, I found the episode interesting and a nice introduction to the world of the setting. We as viewers get to learn through a Japanese talk show the perceptions of the world on the subject of vampires, with a nicely entwined beginning to the real plot, and several major real "facts" about vampires in this world. I knew enough to know that Mina was a vampire, but as for the rest I was ignorant but for hints as the introduction continued. By the end, I was still not entirely sure how many at the filming were vampires, which I thought improved the story rather than detracting from it. It gave me the feeling that they are many, not few, in an unsettling way. The monster-of-the-week first episode has been used in many-a-show, to varying degrees of success. However, with the unique setting and style of animation, I think it worked well in this case. The animation being drawn as though it were being shot from the studio cameras was particularly well-done, especially at the conclusion of the episode. The episode also captured the essence of Japanese television, which may perhaps be why some people disliked the episode so much. I look forward to seeing how the rest of the show will play out.

That's a good point. The producer and director of the program at least were vampires. Prob a lot of the staff too including the 2 reporters. That program got infiltrated.

Also that biogel firm prob too.