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Diabolik Lovers II: More Blood (anime review)

review provided by Andrew & Katie

Title: Diabolik Lovers II: More Blood on Blu-ray

Director: Risako Yoshida

Studio: Zexcs

Author: Hiroko Kusanagi

U.S. Distributor: Sentai Filmworks, Section 23

U.S. Release Date: March 28, 2017

Format and Length: Blu-ray / 12 Episodes / 180 Minutes

Genre: Reverse Harem, School Life, Supernatural, Shoujo, Vampire

Industry Age Rating: 17 and up

Overall Personal Rating: D

Similar Series or Titles to Check Out: Diabolik Lovers

Synopsis:

As the sole human living alone with six handsome vampires, beautiful young Yui Komori is slowly becoming used to being the constant focus of all of their attentions, both amorous and otherwise. However, if she was feeling pale and weak before, her ordeal is about to become even more emotionally draining as four new vampire brothers appear with the intention of making Yui their own permanent dinner guest.
Who are the Mukami brothers, and why are they so dead set on keeping Yui for themselves? Why do they keep referring to her as “Eve” and whose master plan are they following? How will the original six Sakamaki brothers react to having Yui stolen out of their clutches? Will the Sakamaki brothers get her back or will the Mukami brothers follow through with their master plan? You will have to watch Diabolik Lovers II: More Blood and find out.

Commentary:

I feel as if I need to add a few warnings to this series before I go any further: 1. Yui is treated like a blood bag and is not just bitten on the neck. 2. There is a religious theme to this season and that might turn you off of the series if that bothers you. 3. This has to be one of the worse reverse harem series I have ever watched.*

Diabolik Lovers II: More Blood is the second season of Diabolik Lovers and honestly I cannot be more disappointed in the entire series. There are more plot holes than swiss cheese and just when you think they are actually going to explain what is going on, they end the series with the biggest cliff hanger ever! They rely heavily on the Adam and Eve story and you spend most of the series trying to figure out who is Adam and then they never say anything about it again.

Diabolik Lovers II: More Blood has little to no character development and most of the characters are poorly designed with weak personalities that make the characters unlikable. The relationships between Yui and the brothers are terrible to say the least. They treat her like furniture and never have anything nice to say to her at all. I was really hoping that Yui would grow a backbone and tell the brothers off, but of course she cannot do that as their blood bag.

The animation was dark and tried to be gothic but did not get there. Since Diabolik Lovers II: More Blood is about vampires they really do not go out during the day and attend school at night. There really is not any change in the animation between the manor and the school. The voice actors did alright, nothing really stood out but I really did not expect anything to. The opening animation fit the general theme well and was enjoyable to listen to. The ending was nothing special but one out of two is not a bad deal.

Extras:

Diabolik Lovers II: More Blood includes both clean opening and closing animations and Sentai Filmworks trailers as special features. This series was released with both English and Japanese with English subtitles as language options.

Overall Grade: D

Diabolik Lovers II: More Blood seems like it is geared more to the ecchi vampire crowd. The entire series is just about sucking tasty blood from a human. Not my thing.

Maid Sama!: The Complete Collection on Blu-ray (anime review)

Maid Sama!Title: Maid Sama!: The Complete Collection on Blu-ray

Director: Maid Sama!

Studio: J.C. Staff

Author: Hiro Fujiwara

U.S. Distributor: Sentai Filmworks, Section 23

U.S. Release Date: January 27, 2015

Format and Length: Blu-ray / 26 Episodes + 1 OVA / 665 Minutes

Genre: Comedy, Romance, School, Shoujo

Industry Age Rating: 14 and up

Overall Personal Rating: B+

Similar Series or Titles to Check Out: Special A and Ouran High School Host Club

No, he is not my boyfriend. He is just my creepy stalker.-Misaki Ayuzawa

I’ll come to save you as much as you want. I’ll make you fall for me as much as you wish.-Usui Takumi

Synopsis:

Misaki Ayuzawa has many problems in life. For starters, she is the first female student council president of the formerly all-male Seika High School and she is trying to get more girls to enroll for the next year. Then she works at a maid café in the next town, so no one from Seika High will run into her, so she can help her family out. But who does she run into but Usui Takumi, a classmate. This causes things to get very interesting, very fast! Toss in a handful of extremely annoying transfer students and the inevitable trip to the hot springs and everyone is going to end up in hot water one way or another. But Misaki is not going to let any of that stop her from maintaining order in the classroom and taking orders in the tea room. Will Usui Takumi spill the beans about Misaki Ayuzawa? Will Misaki be able to handle the stress of working and being student council president? You will have to watch Maid Sama! and find out.

Commentary:

Maid Sama!: The Complete Collection is far from the regular romance genre anime and that is exactly why I loved it so much. If you are the hopeless romantic type of person, you will love how this series defines your anime dream romance to a “T”. Every episode gives you a chance to say “Awww” while also shaking your head at the main characters. But the ending is worth it. The comedy part of this series is also spot-on. Maid Sama! will have you laughing so hard that you cry in quite a few episodes.

The character development in Maid Sama! is interesting to say the least. Usui is the male main character and he has an adorable chibi form that appears whenever he is teasing Misaki. He is aloof and great at everything he tries. Misaki is your stereotypical tsundere character but eventually she shows more kindness over her aggressiveness. Plus she is adorable in her maid outfit. Usui and Misaki have wonderful chemistry together and the series does a good job showing it. There are many background and supporting characters in Maid Sama! but my favorites have to be the Three Morons. They make things interesting to say the least.

The art work was standard and nothing really stood out. However, the scenes did look good, but not great. The Japanese voice actors did a great job of bringing the characters to life. Personally, however, I did not care for the English dubbed version. The opening and closing animations were well done and the songs were catchy and enjoyable to listen to. I found myself humming the songs after a few episodes.

The OVA episode, or the last episode on the third disk, does not add anything to the series but it is really worth watching. It is a cute, fun episode albeit short. They could have made the OVA really special by extending the final scenes of the series. But at least Maid Sama! has an ending and a happy one at that.

Extras:

Maid Sama!: The Complete Collection includes clean opening and closing animations and Sentai Filmworks trailers as special features. This release also included the OVA for the series and has a new English dub track.

Overall Grade: B+

I really enjoyed Maid Sama! and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys rom-coms. The episodes seem to fly-by and leave you wanting to watch the next one.