Blood-C (CLAMP x Production IG)

[Slick_rick]

I enjoyed this episode. The fight scenes were great, easily the best of the series. My really upset though about the class president dying like he did. It seemed kind of unnecessary to have him die like that. I was really hoping to he would somehow avoid dying. Yuka didn't really have much of a part in this story so maybe she'll have a big role in the film. Tokizane death was great and the twins death was chilling.

I personally don't know why people are complaining about the gruesomeness of the deaths in this episode. It seemed to be pretty keeping with the series so far and it's been increasing steadily the last few episodes. I think it's probably the part of the series they did the best at. It really got across the cruelty of the "humans" in this show like when they were running people over with their Humvee and shooting them while letting the monster rampage.

Overall while I really thought the premise of the show was interesting and well-thought out, I think the execution was lacking. It could have been so much better done and the wasted potential sort of upsets me. I think setting it up for a movie actually hurt it a lot because a more condensed show would have been better. We could start the movie plot at episode 7 or 8 and cut out the superfluous stuff.

Either way I'll still tune into the movie and for the most part I enjoyed watching the show even if it was unnecessarily redundant at times. It was a very memorable show for me, unlike others which I forget right after watching, not only because of the negative things but also they still were some memorable positives. Tokizane was a great subversion of the shoujo bishie male lead and the twins subverted the innocent friendly twins roles admirably. I liked that clamp used the preconceived notions people have towards these characters, which they do a lot of them normally played straight, to hide their real personalities and that I think it worked well.

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by blue_sora

When class pres helped Saya I thought finally someone from the series going to be by Saya's side in her quest of slaying Fumito in the movie (because I already figured out the guimauve guy will escape unharmed early on) but nope, he's dead too. Damn it, my romance fangirl side is not satisfied of this, CLAMP. Oh well, at least two guys cared about Saya even though she's inhuman.

I hear that. After hearing him say how he started to like Saya because he believed that even her fake personality was in fact some real part of her, if buried deep down, I started to like him a bit more than I ever did for the rest of the show when he was a nobody cardboard cutout.

I would've also been interested in seeing how an interspecies human x bairn/vampire thing romance as such would play out in a Blood incarnation. Especially once Saya was back to her old fierce self. Could've been cute I suppose, if class rep had survived and received characterization while staying at Saya's side, but now it won't happen.

Originally Posted by Silverwyrm

It was just ridiculous and the monsters looked goofy

Speaking of which, I think we have some live footage of those creatures attacking a real person! Cut to about 0:45

They hunger...for your flesh

[PNGO]

Is this the bloodiest anime of all time? It really lives up to it's name.

[Craymel]

I just finished watching the last episode. That was a really pointless run around plot that did not need to last 12 episodes. Why give underdeveloped stalk characters a plot mcguffin to bring them back to life; when you're just going to use them to shovel exposition down our throats and underdevelope them again just to kill them for realsies?! I'll tell you why, poor writing. They might as well have just started with the movie they're releasing. The entire reason for the town experiment did not make any sense. He wanted to see if he could change her into a stupid bimbo. Looks like he won his bet... It didn't matter though since the entire "stage" and it's "actors" were practically erased in a bloody but hilarious massacre.

[Shmoof]

Loved the series until episode 11. 11 and 12 SEED Destinied it for me.

[TCman]

I thought Kyubey from Puella Magi Madoka Magica was evil. This guy, Fumito Nanahara, is even more evil. Seriously, Blood C is in my opinion one of the most upsetting anime I have ever seen after Kemonozume (which got better choreography and story, although most people will hate the art style).

To me this anime tv series Blood C feels like a huge prologue for what's gonna happen in the movie. Storytelling is not the best (some may even say the worst), the choreography of fight scenes are sometimes pretty good, although sometimes they are just so so; the side characters are pretty useless as everyone can see in the last episode. It's really feels like I was watching some "Final Destination" movie where people can't escape death.

[kk2extreme]

If only QB grant Saya's wish instead of watainu

[Guido]

The title for the last episode to Blood-C makes sense a lot to me given both Tadayoshi and Itsukis' declarations to Saya that they began warming-up to her, despite she being not her real herself during the run of that messed-up play, proved to be real feelings of bonding and love, confessed at their respective death scenes.

Several questions that were unresolved through almost the entire show got answered in this very finalé, but it felt to me that they were rushing the resolution to pave way for the upcoming film to be premiered on 2012.

Spoiler:

The covenant resulted in the "shrovetide" which allowed a shaky and grisly truce between human and Furukimono. Human allowing sacrifices within their own brethren and offer them to the Furukimono, so that the latter would quench their instints and feel satisfied from time to time preventing the erupting of mass human genocide going out of control.
"Fumito" learns of this through searching the records kept tightly shut by the Japanese government and the local legends and makes use of the legends to his advantage in order to stage the scenario, involving Saya's capture and conditioning into her faux, implanted life at the town-stage.
Fumito made it clear one of his objectives was to secure a way to obtain the frightening power that the Furukimono possess, and Saya was an essential pawn, since her blood can control them.

Though I must admit that for the last episode it doesn't give away or hinting at that Fumito secured the power that made him to fear so much the Furukimono so as to find it in his quest. Or maybe he found it after all using Saya as a proxy; her blood.

Spoiler:

I agree it was too terribly late for exploring a bit about the character that ended being attached to Saya: Itsuki and Tadayoshi. I say this because for almost all of the show, that forced dualism kept separated between the bubbly, and happy-go-lucky schoolgirl at day and then switching as the relentless slayer, bathed in the blood of her enemies at night prevented the audience from wanting to see and explore the other characters.
However, given that they showed their true colors in the penultimate episode there were a few among them to cheer upon.

Furthermore, I did feel bad not for them but for the manner most of them got killed; it would have been preferable that all of them got slain by Saya in a frenzied, roaring rampage of revenge for screwing-up her feelings and duping her.
The teacher should not have complained with her doomed fate, because at least she got literally killed in one piece without ending up literally devoured or digested.

The episode showed us all the ugly side of Humans are Bastards with Fumito and his party. The soldiers relentless shooting at the extras to pave way for exiting the town at the midst of the carnage, and literally running over those people while driving.

Fumito is one of the most notable bastards to meet and watch on screen, and I got this feeling that he won't be receiving the short end of the stick in the movie's plot, at least not from Saya performing on him the coup of retribution for playing on her his very sick and nauseating game.

There were also no concrete explanations as to what Saya is, but we got from Tadayoshis' confession that he was glad to have met her she being the same as him.

Spoiler:

From that statement can run two interpretations from different context:
1. In a personal and emotional sense, Tadayoshi refers that like Saya he too wished to remain himself; like her, maybe or not, he didn't have anything to earn or lose. Nevertheless, even if all that life was staged and a man-made faux, their interactions and living the two of them together as father and daughter ignited within them a strong bond of true attachment and real family love.

2. Or in a sense relating that the two more or less are the same species.

Saya possibly or not is a Furukimono/human hybrid like Tadayoshi, since disclosing to her another twisted surprise Fumito also let out that before he found her she originally was imposed another contract by someone's else that prevented her from killing humans; most likely killing humans to drink their blood for sustenance and survival, and we saw Tadayoshi biting and ripping the teacher's throat to drink her blood only not eating her flesh.

And, the purpose of the whole act and play was if Saya won at remaining true to her original nature and not getting subverted by the effects of the drugs that Fumito fed her right after each of her programmed hunts, then towards the end of the play Fumito will free her from that contract for her to hunt humans again, or that's what I understood about Fumito's ploy.

Finally, Wata-Inu's realizing the wish.

Spoiler:

If I recalled correctly, someone at this thread replied to me that Wata-Inu (Watanuki) was fulfilling a wish to someone's else and not Saya's wish, although Saya's wish got fulfilled anyways.

The owner of the original wish I wonder if it was Fumito all along or the first person that obliged upon Saya the contract about not killing humans?

This series got too much beating around the bush with those happy actors acting as townspeople that literally all of them became unknowingly and unwilling happy meals unsuspectingly betrayed by a demented man that sought the power from mythological monsters through staging a farce and capturing a formidable and ruthless non-human girl and subverting her into a sort of bubbly, bimbo, b****h of his just to play a horror-survival, gore fest, blood splattering game of monsters versus humans.

Though the series left me with an incomplete taste, nonetheless, I am looking forward to the film on next year.

Ending the series in time with the conclusion of the summer's 2011 anime seaon today, as the third anime show finished.

[orion]

I have no problems with ending.

As for Fumito, I can't say if he's a villain. If you're human and you know your govt made this deal because they couldn't beat the crap out those beings, then you'd capture some and see how they tick so that you can control or kill them. Basically, that's what he did.

For the humans, it's either try to find their weakness and use it against them or become their dinner. I for one do not wish to be any beings dinner menu.

And he did give Saya a bonus, if she won he'd allow her to kill humans also.

[Asury]

I think we can all agree this series met no one's expectations.

The dead scene between Saya and her father was cool, I wish they would have expanded more into was Tadaoshi was exactly and how he came to be, when, and how did that affect his feelings towards Saya, but oh well...
I say this because it sort of reminded me of a Chevalier, but it wasn't that exactly... knowing what was it would have been nice.

I was also expecting Saya to give the Chairman her blood, because I was still, at this point begging for a Hagi (but that's just me).

The bunnies were just a joke, from every perspective.

And I don't understand why we have to wait, what 9 months to see the movie, will we still care at that point?

[LordEmbok]

Except we can't agree on that at all. I expected it to be great and I got a great series.

The only problem is that people went in expecting a Blood series instead of a Clamp series.

[Asury]

yeah I can't imagine why we were expecting a Blood series, oh wait-

[LordEmbok]

All the information about the show before airing indicated it would be strong Clamp, so yeah I can't imagine why either.

[Asury]

we knew it was clamp + production i.g.
clamp was in charge of character design + story, that's it
as far as i know no one knew anything...

I assumed (as I think many people did) that if clamp was given a universe, they would try to stay inside it.
They didn't, and this is the result.

They did try to keep the same "nature vs nurture theme" which was present in blood+, they just did it horribly...

[Chase]

Saya wasn't f'ing around. It was a pretty damn good fight scene too(between her and her fake father). But damn the town folks got f'd hard on some evil ****Wow. Ed Boon would be proud of those fatalities. The ending set up the movie and i have to say i look forward to it now. This anime started out slow with a lot of hate but the last 4 episodes i think made it worth the watch.

Overall: 8 out of 10.

[hyperborealis]

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

By stripping characterisation to the minimum, you end up with a caricature of the human spectrum. By doing marginally better with the "monster", you have an artificial reversal. So the basis is a mirror trick. Then you deconstruct the facade and say, that's not her. And then you turn around and say (in the form of the token torch bearer) that it's part of her. So you can wonder whether she changed, or whether she's always had that side to her (the latter given more substance by doggy san). This leaves us exactly where we started with the experiment. And because humans fail to set any sort of standard, the question doesn't matter in the first place. The philosophy in the show doesn't go much further than "memories are important, but you are what you are," with a modicum of doubt added - and that's pretty much an anime cliché.

So, if you're seeing something beyond that I am probably missing it.

Saya owes her human qualities--the desire to protect others, the love for her father--due to Fumito's manipulations. We know these are not part of her previous self, given that her goal in the wager with Fumito is to gain the capacity to kill humans. So I don't think the episode leaves us where we began at the start of the experiment, as you think. The anime makes the strong case that we become what we pretend to be. As class president puts it, "It was all an act. But as I acted, I think I started to really like you."

Fumito's purpose in playing this game is to make the Nietzschean argument that moral impulses are nothing more than a deceit the strong impose upon the weak. He wants to make Saya herself the evidence that morality is just another sign of superior force.

Fumito's argument is the stronger precisely because Saya's own experience of humanity hardly rises above the level of cliche. If the moral values she believes in are cliches, then her human nature is just a mishmash of Fumito's hackwork, styled as it manifestly is upon that bastion of anime cliche, the Japanese high school. To give the characters strong individuation, as you want, would be to provide an independent and intrinsic justification for Saya's moral impulses, which is at cross-purposes with the show's purposes.

But I think Saya's newly-acquired moral impulses are real, even though they are part and parcel with Fumito's manipulations, even though they are a tissue of cliches, even if they are the end result of so much acting and pretending. The sentiments she feels at her "father" and class president's deaths are real, and are dramatized positively, without irony. More, the anger she feels toward Fumito expresses a demand for justice, to bring him to his just desserts. The anime has moved to a point of moral clarity, where we understand in full the scope of Fumito's depravity, and the moral necessity which now propels Saya.

Does this access to clarity amount to a strong characterization of Saya or of Fumito? No. When we consider to the story of Achilles and the tortoise, questions of characterization are entirely beside the point. What matters is the roles they play in the philosophical argument. Likewise here.

[Key Board]

@Guido

Saya was special according to Fumito. She was an entity that even the Furukimono feared.

and if this story is any indication, he already has gained the power to control Furukimono through Saya's blood

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Actually, Fumito clearly says that someone in power wanted to know more about the Furukimonos. Somebody else is calling the shot - he is just a researcher if anything.

[Nina.Wolken]

And so the movie title was decided : Blood C, the Tax Vampire.

It seems like the government, via the Agency of cultural affairs will be supporting the production of the Blood C movie, along with The Life of Guskou Budori movie.

Reactions online are... priceless .

[EroKing]

There's a preview after the final episode. Movie release date is on the 2nd of June 2012. The new stage will be Tokyo and looks like Saya's left eye regenerated.