Dance in the Vampire Bund
The world has just discovered the secret existence of vampires and they must learn to accept and adapt to these changes, or risk a tip in the balance of the status quo. Led by Mina Tepes, the immortal vampire queen whose body resembles that of a child's, the vampire bund proves it is a political force to be reckoned with. Mina only wishes for peace between humans and vampires. As a result, she becomes a target of vampire separatists. Protected by her personal werewolf bodyguard, Akira Kaburagi Regendorf and his fellow Beowolfs, Mina must fight to create a peaceful co-existence between vampires and humans.
The beginning of this anime sets a clear indicator for how the rest of the series plays out; disjointed and confusing. I don’t feel there was ever a point in the entirety of the series that I ever felt that I was fully aware of everything that was going on. I’m sure if I had paid closer attention to certain events that had played out, I don’t think I would have been as confused, but I argue that the viewer shouldn’t be made to work that hard. It was a turn off for sure.
The plot wasn’t all that great. It kept jumping around and never seemed to stay consistent. The episodes could all be tied together, I’m sure, but the plot wasn’t interesting enough to hold my attention. The character development was decent, but it was definitely overshadowed by the boring plot.
This anime definitely starts to get a bit disturbing when Mina Tepes, who, if you remember, has the body of a prepubescent child, starts to act like a sexually frustrated adult woman. Her advances towards Akira are, at times, downright raunchy. What may draw the line for some viewers is the depicted relationship between a grown woman and her prepubescent boyfriend (an entirely separate relationship from that of Mina and Akira). The loli and shota lovers ought to have a ball with this anime.
The music was pretty terrible. It had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The artwork, on the other hand, had vibrancy to it though it still managed to construe the overall dark aura that the show projected overall. Visually, this anime was pleasing to look at.
The action scenes were cool, but there weren’t nearly enough of them. On that note, the action itself was confusing, in the sense that Akira didn’t seem to know where his true allegiances lied. One moment he’d be fighting one enemy, the next moment he’s fighting the people who had previously employed him, and suddenly he’d switch again. You never really know who to root for. In fact, I’d say that Akira was a team of one who’d hire himself out for mercenary work when he felt the need.
All in all, Dance of the Vampires Bund was not a very good anime. It’s two major turn offs were its lack of an interesting plot and its depiction of explicit loli and shota relationships. I’m giving this anime a 4 out of 10. I recommend this anime to the vampire lovers out there.
