Blood Lad – 09

Berros escorts Braz to the Demon King Wolf-Daddy’s palace, where the king gives him three days to return the remnants of his agent Pantomime (Akim) to him. Braz escapes from Berros, but is chased by her superior, Chief Goyle. In Hydra, Bell and Staz meet up with Nell and Fuyumi. Fuyumi meets Bell and Nell’s mother Neyn, who tells her she was Fuyumi’s mom’s demon doppelganger. When they met, the two women were fused into one, making Fuyumi and Bell sisters.

At first Yanagi Fuyumi’s presence in the demon world seemed like a random occurrence, but considering it was Hydra family “technology” that got her there, and all the revelations we learned this week, it’s starting to look more and more like her coming was no accident at all. The concept of demons having human counterparts – be it Fuyumi’s mom and Neyn Hydra or Fuyumi’s dad and the Hydras’ butler – suddenly makes Bell and Fuyumi family, and gets Staz thinking that there’s probably more to his intrinsic interest in Fuyumi than just her human blood.

Speaking of family, Braz reveals that he isn’t just into creating super-monsters for his own enjoyment. He literally watched the current king kill his father, the previous king, and he’s never been cool with that. Everything he’s done has been to dethrone Wolf-Daddy and replace him with a new, “worthy” king. Thing is, it sounds like next week is the last episode, so we can’t see any way of Braz completing this task, on top of the Hydra family and Staz/Fuyumi and Staz/Bell situations shaking out. We’re assuming there’ll be a second season of this at some point; something we don’t have a problem with.

Rating:7 (Very Good)

Blood Lad – 08

Liz returns home, but is confronted by Officer Beros of the Acropolis Police, who arrests Braz for illegally leaving Acropolis. Fuyumi’s kidnapper slips up while feeding her, and she rings the bell Bell gave her. Bell intercepts the kidnapper, who is her brother, Nell Hydra, who says he’s only running an errand for their mom. Staz arrives, but Bell lets Nell escape to Hydra with Fuyumi and then shoots Staz, throwing him in her grid room.

Jealous of Staz’s devotion to Fuyumi, Bell challenges him to a fight to decide if she’ll take him to her. When she’s overly cocky he nearly takes her bottom half off, and she must abandon all the clothing attached to it. Before he reads her diary, she surrenders, and takes him to Hydra. Staz apologizes for causing her to be uptight, but won’t apologize, because he sees himself not as the hero, but the “bad guy.”

If that synopsis was too long, here’s the tl;dr version: Staz goes looking for Fuyumi and runs into obstacles; the biggest among them Bell. She likes him, and it pisses her off that A.), he doesn’t notice, and B.), he’s so fixated on Fuyumi, and C.), he considers Fuyumi a rare and one-of-a-kind “collector’s item,” not an equal partner Bell could be to him. Their battle proves they’re on pretty equal footing power-wise, and FWIW, we’d choose Bell over Fuyumi every time.

Their battle is also a wonderful exercise in absurdity, as Bell gets caught with her pants down (literally!) and Staz is riddled with bullets to the point of needing to be pixelated (unlike Bell’s ass). Staz freely admits he’s not sure why Bell is so erratic around him, but he also tells her she’s welcome to take it all out on him, because he can take it, unknowingly endearing him to her even more. Even as she leads him to her home where he’s sure to meet her brother and mother on the way to retrieving her rival in love, she’s determined to keep her feelings hidden.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Stray Observations:

• Blood Lad’s character designs are relatively simple, but fun and expressive, and the characters’ outfits change often (Bell’s in particular), keeping their looks fresh.
• Now we know that crazy land with the planetoids/laputas in the ED is Bell’s home, Hydra.
• Braz’s arrest by Berros shows us that, indeed, most people don’t really like him, which isn’t surprising.
• Fuyumi seems to be a cooperative hostage as usual, but when the opportunity presents itself, she wisely rings the bell Bell gave her, setting everything into motion.