20140622: Animation Review--Vampire Bund

Dance in the Vampire Bund

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Japanese animated episodic television series, 2010, rated TV-MA, animation, action, drama. Twelve episodes, 24 minutes each.
2. IMDB: 7.0/10.0 from 271 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: no results, at all.
4. Netflix: 3.9/5.0 from 370,639 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Akiyuki Shinbo.
6. Starring: Monica Rial as Mina Tepesh, Alpha Lagrange as Akira Kobaragi.  For much more detail, see wikipedia.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Take the TV-MA rating seriously.


2. Mina Tepesh presents herself as the queen of contemporary vampires.  She appeals on television for a Vampire Bund, that is, real estate where vampires can be free to be vampires.  As a being who has had a long life, and who understands things like compound interest and capital appreciation, Mina's personal and family wealth is enormous.  She uses this to pressure legislators to go along with her plans.


3. There are humans who are in favour of the proposed Bund, and those who are opposed to it.  Similarly, there are vampires in favour, and vampires against the proposal.  This goes back and forth throughout the series.


4. Mina has a connection with Akira, a teenaged human.  Akira is also a werewolf, and sometime earlier in his life he vowed to protect Mina as best he could.  About the time Akira took his vow, he also lost a big chunk of his memory.


5. So, the series is about the conflicts mentioned above, about Akira protecting Mina, and about Akira regaining his memory.  Toward the end of the series, the elders of three ruling vampire clans descend upon Mina, and force her to own up to a promise she made to the clans in the past.


6. As the series draws to a close, everything is revisited, and everything cast into doubt.  The clan leaders set up a fight between Akira and their own chosen assassins.  If Akira wins, Mina can continue; if not, they force her into submission about rule of the vampires.


7. So how does this pan out?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Vampires seek a homeland and acceptance in animated Japan.
2. Seven of ten.


4. Scores
1. Art/Animation: 7/10 Quite a bit of the art was fabulous; some was a bit too abstract and weird.


2. Sound: 6/10 Typical action stuff, but neither great nor poor.


3. Voice Acting: 8/10 No particular problems.  Often good, sometimes a little screechy.


4. Story: 6/10 There are a number of issues, mostly about motivation.  Just what was the reason that Akira is so devoted to Mina?  The suggestion that Mina might not be the 'real' vampire queen was not resolved.  The reference to cloning was interesting, but I would have liked to have seen more detail about that.  The strong, repeated statements that there was another queen candidate in the wings was never quite brought to fruition.  The comedy vignettes about the maids shown after the credits were usually pretty funny.