Vlad Love – 04 – All Concerned Parties

In a particularly chaotic episode, Mitsugu is captured by the president of the Torture Club for allegedly getting to close to Nami, the Dance Club president, whom he is stalking. Due to their mutual interest in Mai, Karate Club president Kasuno teams up with Nami to free Mitsugu, who packs a bag for Mai, who is apparently no longer safe in her home.

The pair head to Dr. Chihiro’s “house”—more of a mad scientist’s lab—only for Chihiro to have a predatory ulterior motive for harboring Mai. After Mitsugu sedates Chihiro, every other member of the cast shows up in sequence, demanding answers about who Mai is.

Kasuno and Nami end their brief alliance and their respective clubs “fight” each other, all while Maki films it and Kaoru runs around cosplaying as a Chun Li-like character. The Disciplinary President Jinko then shows up, demanding everyone stop breaking the rules.

The sudden surge of characters interacting means Vlad Love relies far too heavily on sliding inset portraits of characters talking and reacting, such that the episode at times looks more like a PowerPoint presentation than animation. There’s so much of this it borders on ludicrous—nay, it is ludicrous!

Then Mai drinks some very suspect blood from Chihiro’s vast collection and transforms into Salamander, and world-ending dragon, and starts destroying the city with her fire breath while Chihiro has a lengthy, meandering, and seriously unfunny monologue about how she came upon the blood.

From there Mitsugu and her classmates fade away and the focus shifts to a kaiju movie-style sequence in which military command center instructing fighter pilots to attack Dragon!Mai. This sequence is very sluggish, full of throwaway characters worrying about being sued for copyright infringement—an old, played-out joke that just won’t die.

Speaking of dying, once the fighters are authorized to open fire, the resulting battle over the city is cool-looking, though it also results in the death of Mitsugu and all the other characters in a massive explosion. Once again, the story ends up in the papers, and we can look forward to everything resetting back to a measure of normalcy next week.

Once again, the surfacy spectacle is occasionally diverting, but it’s hard to care about anything or anyone when everyone is doing little more than yelling at or slapping each other, and nothing that happens ever matters. Mai becomes an unthinking force of nature, while Mitsugu becomes just one more victim of the destruction. Once again I’m forced to ask: where is the vlad love in Vlad Love?

Amnesia – 08

The heroine is now in a world where Toma is her boyfriend, as well as her childhood friend. He is very attentive and caring, but in the course of the next few days, her mailbox is filled with garbage, someone misses her head by a hair with a dropped flower pot, and she is accosted by Ukyou, who warns her she’s about to die. She stays at Toma’s place, but while shopping she goes off alone, and the Ikki Fan Club corners her.

The show is called “Amnesia”, but this week it could might as well be called “Paranoia” – full as it is of shadows and secrets, threats and intrigue. The heroine starts this next chapter out of it to begin with, but like no other episode before, she’s a marked woman, and there’s the sense she’s on borrowed time. She may not be dating Ikki, but she’s still meeting him periodically in “The Back Alley”, so his fangirls are as ferocious as ever with their acts of psychological warfare and outright assault. And then there’s a particularly sinister Ukyou, who’s acutely aware that she’s jumping from place to place and dating a different guy each time.

He rather flippantly informs her of her impending death (jerk). Orion’s nowhere to be found, and Toma is doing all he can to protect her, but he can’t be awake and by her side at all times, and every time he isn’t, she gets into hot water. We’re curious what the fangirls think they can get away with in a busy mall, but one thing is certain: the heroine has gone with the flow thus far. If she doesn’t want to end up dead, she may need to take a more active role in preserving her life. Though every other time she’s “died” she’s simply woken up somewhere else.

Rating: 7 (Very Good)