Summary:
Kai finds Saya standing on a street in the rain, without an umbrella. Since Saya is still troubled, Kai tells her about Joel’s diary and directs her to go see him. With Kai’s umbrella, Saya rushes off to the Red Shield ship and meets with Joel. The diary starts in 1832, when Joel created the zoo for the purpose of private research – he was especially interested in the evolution of living things. He had found a mummy in Iceland named “Saya.” The diary reveals the timeline of events:

April 8th, 1833 – “Saya” arrives at the zoo. Joel had thought that this mummy would give an answer to evolution, so he and his assistant Amshel had dissected the specimen. Inside, they found two small cocoons. When Amshel was trying to open one of them, he accidentally cut himself. The two men noticed that the cocoons absorbed and reacted to the blood.
August 4th, 1833 – Two baby girls emerge from the cocoons. One of them was taken as an experimental subject and remained unnamed. The other was named Saya and raised normally. To Saya, Joel was a kind father, but to the experimental baby, he was a cruel researcher. Left mainly in the care of Amshel, that baby was given minimal food and had no education or love.
June 2nd, 1863 – For several years now, Saya and the other girl have not aged – their time had stopped. On this particular day, Saya had scraped her hand, but when Joel went to wipe it off, it had already healed. He discovered that when the two girls’ blood was mixed, it would crystallize. Joel then introduced Hagi as a groom for Saya, so that they could conceive a child specimen.

When Saya and Joel reach the burned part of the diary, Saya realizes that it was she who let Diva free and she who gave her the name:

1883 – Saya had heard a singing voice one day, and she proceeded to search for that person every day. She eventually found the other girl, and the two introduced themselves. Since the other girl didn’t have a name, Saya named her Diva because of her beautiful singing voice. Saya had wanted to be friends, and Diva had dropped down a blue rose. While Joel was involved with his 72nd birthday preparations, Saya snuck into his office and stole the key to Diva’s cell. She had set Diva free so that the girl could come sing at Joel’s party, but Saya never saw Diva because Hagi called her away.

The current Saya feels responsible for what ended up happening on that day. What’s more, she feels that she’s the same as Diva after what happened in Vietnam:

1972 – With all of the Chiropterans in Vietnam, Red Shield was positive that Diva was around. They woke Saya with an injection of Hagi’s blood. However, Saya went berserk and killed everything, including the soldiers who tried to stop her and the Chiropterans she was drawn towards by Diva’s song. Karl had attacked her and pinned her down, but Hagi saved her by tossing a dagger into Karl’s eye. Saya managed to cut off part of Karl’s right arm, forcing Karl to rip the rest of it off to prevent the crystallization from spreading to the rest of his body. Saya had chased after the fleeing Karl and tried to kill the villagers in her way. Hagi had stopped her, but she cut off his right arm in their ensuing fight. Hagi’s voice couldn’t reach Saya in this state, and she was only distracted from him by the arrival of more soldiers for her to kill.

Joel reveals that Hagi had disappeared after the incident. Red Shield confirmed him in Hong Kong, but they weren’t able to detain him. When the American military rescue unit finally arrived at the earlier scene, Saya was already asleep. The David there – the current David’s father – had entrusted her with George before he died from his wounds. Red Shield has been waiting for her all this time to wake up and now she’s here.
Saya has one final question for Joel: does he regret succeeding the name of Joel? He responds by saying that nothing can be regained by looking back on yesterday. Figuring out what to do about tomorrow, thinking about what it means to be human – he took on the Joel name so that he could finally end everything. Those final words remind Saya of one of the times right before she went to sleep. She had made a promise with Hagi right before he covered up her coffin.
The current Saya returns to Kai, who has been waiting at the same spot he found her because she had taken the only umbrella to the Red Shield ship. Riku and Hagi join them, and all four head back to the hotel. At a crosswalk, Saya tells Hagi that she’s remembered their promise. Hagi says that he will stay with her until her wish is granted. Kai hears this and watches as the other three cross the street. He realizes that he also needs to go across, but it’s too late – a sea of cars separates him from Saya, Hagi, and Riku.

Well that explained quite a bit of the back-story. Let’s see, they covered: how Saya and Diva came to be, why Amshel a key player, Hagi’s original purpose, what happened back in Vietnam, and how Karl and Hagi lost their arms. They didn’t reveal how or when Amshel became a Chevalier nor did they tell us what the promise between Hagi and Saya was. I’m leaning towards thinking that the promise the marriage one several people brought up back when it was mentioned in episode 17. However, the way Hagi words his response to her sounds sort of like he’s expecting to die or leave after she kills Diva. I know I’ve said this every episode for the past 3 weeks, but I’ve still got that feeling that something’s going to happen to him.
All of the stuff about Joel and Amshel treating Diva as an experimental specimen makes me feel a bit sympathetic towards her. It reminds me a bit of the nature vs. nurture debate and makes me wonder what would have happened with the roles had been reversed or if both girls were raised normally.
And then there’s Kai, the only “normal” one left. His relationship with Saya improved a little with the umbrella exchange, but there’s still that huge gap (exemplified by the sea of cars) between him and her. Fortunately, there are still plenty of episodes for him to bridge that gap.
The preview for next week shows a whole lot of Karl and Diva…

50 Comments

  1. So she was fighting Karl back in vietnam. hum i wonder if that has any connection with Amshel. Somehow i fell he is the real bastard behind everything . i mean , we got to see him ever since Saya recieved Hagi . and he never aged since then . Could it be that he is a..Saya Chevalier..and that he plans to kill both Saya and Diva to take control of the world ? ( because he technically is in control , he is the one who gives the order ). well..there is something really odd about him and i think that solomon suspection of amshel betrayal will reveal to be true.

    kurotsuki
  2. saye’s “mother” is so gross!!
    ah, saye’s is the coolest when fighting, I like that emotion showing in her eyes when she fights!
    and that long-hair,so much better than Diva!

    oasis
  3. Both Anshel and Joel (brothers. couysins?) looked 30yrs old in 1932 when they discovered the mummy in Iceland. Anshel stopped aging at about 50-60 yrs old, around 1850’s-1860. So Anshel must be changed around 1860 (how?). And there was no way he could hide it from Joel by 1880’s. Hagi was changed around 1890. The question is why didn’t Joel choose immortality.

    Alex
  4. @alex

    that’s why i made the hypothesis he is a Saya chevalier. and is the real main vilain of blood+ because he is hinding to much things to his own suposly brothers . i’m pretty conviced he is going to try to kill diva before the end…or even..maybe he is going to kill diva…

    kurotsuki
  5. Hagi’s hand? He must have went missing for years because he felt bad that Saya turned on him and thought that the Saya he had always known was gone. What a relief to him that Saya woke up instead with no memories? Why does Hagi still feel kind of distant like he has to leave Riku with Saya later? Is his hand getting worse?

    Did Saya kill David’s father? Or did Chiropterans kill him?

    ChuChu
  6. Joel’s diary proved what Solomon said to Saya back at the zoo is the undeniable truth.

    The old Joel was a bastard!

    Because of his stupid, scientific research Diva ended up the way she’s now and Saya has to bear a heavy cross for over a hundred and twenty years.

    However, whether Joel had placed Diva or Saya in opposite environments or viceversa wouldn’t make a difference.

    In my regard the old Joel was the antagonist all along.

    Therefore, it will be neither unexpected nor surprising that Red Shield will turn against Saya and friends in a distant episode.

    Guido
  7. Not only that guido joel probably condemned the entire human race to a horrid future cause of his own foolish curiosity like was said in some horror movies there are things man was not meant to touch and that chiropteran in iceland was one of those things. also diva doesn’t to hate humans in general since she left david and lewis alone when they were near her the only she hated was joel for being an A**hole. But now amshel is probably using diva for his own purposes what those are i don’t know.

    Francisco
  8. In response to your comment Francisco, I quote Dr. Ian Malcolm’s character from the film Jurassic Park about scientific discovery being a blatant, penetrative act of violence that scars the natural world.

    Scientists become so obsessed about whether or not they can ‘do’ things, that they never stop to think if they SHOULD or not.

    Also about the future of humanity I don’t think so yet. Either in episode twenty-five or twenty-six Julia filled to David on her report about the fifth nucleotide found in Yokushuu’s DNA. It’s not Diva’s stance to overrun the world with Yokushuu.

    Unlike Lucy in Elfen Lied, Diva does not regards all of humanity with murderous contempt. She views humans as exquisite and precious livestock for her. If it was the opposite, then both Lewis and David would had been killed back at the zoo.

    If the world was overrun with Yokushuu in turn that situation would put them and Diva in danger. There would not be enough humans to feed from them, unless they either start resorting to feed on animal’s blood or feeding among themselves, which would be considered an act of cannibalism.
    No. I don’t think that Diva has that delusion in believing about the supremacy of a superior species. She’s awared about the symbiosis that Yokushuu have for humans in order to survive, although she views humans as precious food supply for her.

    Guido
  9. I suppose so Diva has some respect for humanity cause she needs us basically. Human blood is probably much better than lesser animal blood so in some ways she considers us great even if its as food so many of us much more food for her even if she is picky.

    But i do not think amshel shares that view he is up to something. that his fellow chevaliers and diva herself do not know. Solomon suspects this yet the other chevaliers pay no mind to him which could be fatal to them and diva in the long run.

    as for lucy she wasn’t a supremacist unlike kakuzawa and possibly the viral voice. She just wanted to make a world where she could be happy but she sadly didn’t follow the lesson you can’t build a utopia over the grave of another. and we know

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Francisco
  10. hm.. this episode gave alot of answers but also gave some newquestions such as was the mummy alive even human? if so did chevilirs exist then? why did saya and diva survive in a rotten mummy? why does haji blood make saya beserk ect ect. still alot of questions to be answered but i’m personaly happy with this episode.

    Lost-Soul
  11. So Haji was purchased for breeding experiments. When it’s put that way it just seems so…. I guess that’s a very crude way of puttng it. I suppose they were going to get married. So what is all this talk about Diva wanting Haji for herself?
    As for the promise… Doesn’t seem like a pleasant thing.

    Christy
  12. Now, I feel bad for Diva after looking at the way she was raised. Sure thing is that the actual Joel recognizes the ton of mistakes the original Joel made in raising Diva only as an experimental subject rather than as a human being. But one thing that bugs me is the fact that Diva was mostly under Amshel’s supervision… which would lead me to think that Amshel might have been up to something suspicious since the day the mummy was discovered. I’m not saying the original Joel was innocent (far from there), but Amshel’s attitude in conducting experiments (i.e. Shifu) is even more cruel than Joel’s as we know. Who says that Amshel didn’t pull the strings in order to create that monster known as Diva by raising her in a way to hate Joel to death, and then saying that Joel was the one ordering that? Amshel is a very dangerous mastermind as always.

    Also to me, Amshel is some kind of Pontius Pilate: “washing his hands” from the crimes by saying to “only execute orders” from others while the real purpose was different.

    hey, what if the promise was that he’d give saya a kid ?

    Well, I would be happy if that happens; I want to see cute little vampire babies. But for that, Saya will have to do a lot of work to make up with Hagi and bring back his human side, especially after the emotionally crushing (for Hagi) events in Vietnam.

    KiraYamatoFan
  13. To Saya, Joel was a kind father, but to the experimental baby, he was a cruel researcher.

    See! I knew it, how can you expect Diva to be nice and wise after that? The poor girl… And she doesn’t even have a sweet, gentle love interest who will show her the right way.

    Life is so unfair, even for Vampires/Chiropterans.

    eurys
  14. I noticed they mentioned Lamarck somewhere in the earlier part of the episode when talking about the zoo. Lamarck is a significant scientist who proposed a theory of heredity called “inheritance of acquired traits” (e.g. a giraffe has such a long neck now because previously, the proto-giraffes stretched their necks very much to get the leaves on the trees, and the stretching passed down the generation so that new giraffes had longer necks.) This theory has of course been discredited ages ago in favour of Darwin.

    Okay, I heard a little closer – Joel basically said that the original Joel was influenced by Lamarck’s theories and became interested in the evolution of living things. (Lamarck no doubutsu tetsugaku ni eikyou sarete, seibutsu no shinka to iu mono ni kyoumi wo mottanda)

    It’s possible to shoehorn the Blood movie into the timeline of things if you consider that the David back then was this David’s father, and Saya’s period of craziness extended beyond that short segment in the camp.

    wao
  15. Oh yeah, and additionally, this episode was brought to you by the animation studio of Gun X Sword – AIC ASTA.

    I wish they used more footage from the beginning of ep 1 though, that was probably the coolest single segment in the whole show so far (besides the godlike 3rd OP).

    wao
  16. omg! so it was saya who cut off his hand! T_T
    i agree with wot eurys said. it was really cruel of joel to just treat diva as a experimental subject. no wonder why she hates joel and saya so much. tsk tsk.. and now i know wot hagi was talking bout back when he just arrived at the zoo (when he was still a kid). he said something about “u guys just bought me anyway.” poor hagi. i still cant get over the fact that hagi may be leaving. i dont want that to happen. not now, not ever. T_T
    this idea suddenly popped up in my head. maybe something happens to kai later on. maybe he turnes into one of saya’s chevalier as well. hehe… u guys think that’ll happen?

    shia
  17. Joel then introduced Hagi as a groom for Saya, so that they could conceive a child specimen.

    ^ dont you think their promise is to live happily ever after (ie have a sea of offspring), i feel that this wont happen. but damn they much have a dramatic ‘last scene’ if they did kill Hagi

    adreannae
  18. I’d rather suck on lemons than have Kai as a Chevalier. He’s Red Shield now, no turning back to normalcy.

    Saya in berserker mode is scary. She was woken up before her time to wake, so I understand why she was cranky. XD She cut off Haji’s arm but Haji’s arm changed to Chiro just before she cut it. Reaction to her bloodthirsty intent?

    koyuki-san
  19. Hagi’s hand changed and it didn’t seem to shock Hagi himself. From the expression on his face, he was more concerned about Saya’s change–maybe if Saya gets too enraged, Saya would have transformed too. So Hagi could have been able to transform all by himself like Karl. But I doubt Hagi’s the same as Karl, Diva’s Chevalier, because Hagi has never feed on human blood and doesn’t required anything to survive—he’s not even like Riku.

    When berserk Saya saw Hagi’s hand transform, she just cut it off. She probabily would have killed Hagi if the Red Shield guys didn’t distract her. Another thing is that Saya’s blood didn’t crystalize Hagi like it did Karl. Poor Hagi.

    ChuChu
  20. Well, yeah, Saya was Hagi’s ‘sire’ so to speak. Her blood wouldn’t cause him much harm, if any. Karl is Diva’s chevalier, with her blood in his veins — Saya’s attacks would undoubtably give him plenty of grief.

    But who’s to say Hagi doesn’t need blood? For all we know he’s been snacking on Julia’s transfusion supplies on the sly.

    CountessMorgana
  21. i guess that egyptian used to see chiropteran as god . but some day they got fed up and decided to capture the queen. they Must have left her in the sarcaphagus for a freakin long time witouth blood. because if we are atlaking about mummy , that mean it has at least 1000-1500 years of existance . and we all know how saya is when she doesnt eat for 3 days . so…having slpet for 1000 witouth the chance of waking up , and witouth being substain on blood…that probably killed her .
    Or , they can always come up witht the theory that this mommy was “nefertity” that she was eternaly beautiful because she had eternal life. But since she was immortal , the one who was supposed to be king after that ordered to kill her ..so they captured her…and my theory of 1500 witouth blood 😛

    kurotsuki
  22. Kurotsuki: the chiropteran mummy was found in Iceland. “Mummies” are not just Egyptian; a body can be mummified by natural means and have been found all over the world. Whatever killed Saya and Diva’s mother were probably not the Eqyptians. Think of a different theory 😉

  23. Joel is reading the same book (1863) as Yuri the scientist (father of Sonya) back in episode 17. Clearly, Joel and Anshel’s research was based on ideas from Zoological Philosophy (Philosophie Zoologique) by Lamarck. Lamarck died in Paris in 1827. Here is an online version translated in English. It’s quite weird that even the early entries of Joel’s diary was written in English. Perhaps, Joel didn’t want his servent to read his diary.

    http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/LAMARCK/tofc.htm

    Just follow the recipe and make your own Saya and Diva.

    Alex
  24. just a few thoughts

    the mummy could be from a very long time ago as in first humans time and is just like the apendix (evolution leftover) only this time it evolved further into saya & diva and as fore then whole how the mummy died thing mabye it died because it was giving birth to children?

    silverfish
  25. So silverfish your saying that thing could have been born from ancient humans? That is a pretty heavy mutation.

    As for what killed her i doubt child birth chopped off her face

    Vampire warrior francisco
  26. I suppose Saya cut Hagi’s hand off, but it’s ok since he’s handsome. But having the chiropteran hand is pretty handy too in a fight as it can hand outdevastating damage, and Hagi used it many times to lend Saya a hand when she’s in trouble. But when it’s not necessary, i guess Hagi never uses it, as offhand i can’t think he’ll do anything so underhanded. Man, you’ve really got to hand it to him.

    bAbYkUrAi
  27. Gosh friggin’ damn this episode was good! The animation was beautiful (even if it was bloody), I’m loving this show more and more with every new episode! The story is so captivating, can’t wait to see what’s next!

    Brandin
  28. How could the mother die while her children live inside her womb? also that both siblings are dangerous to each other, why so? I thought Hagi was Diva’s groom, now he’s supposed to be Saya’s mate?

    What if the promise was that Saya would free Hagi by killing him?

    Hagi why???????

    So many questions and I can’t answer them >.

  29. It looks like originally was meant to be Saya’s groom, but the other chevaliers want Hagi to be used as Diva’s groom. However, I know since Hagi has Saya’s blood in him, he will surely die if they force Hagi to become Diva’s groom. Besides, Hagi is too dedicated to Saya to betray her in that way.

  30. i think the reason why they want hagi to be diva’s groom is to mix the blood lines so that there kind basically becomes the same and not harmful to the other. the same goes for saya and the other chavilers if they mix blood by having kids then their kids would have “both blood” types or perhaps they can not have children unless its their own “species” donno just a thought

    angel
  31. I think when Saya cut Hagi’s arm/hand, he was unable to change it back to being a “human hand”. I think before he was cut, he can change it to a monster-like hand to a human hand and vice-versa like Solomon’s ability.

    Yohko
  32. You all say too much about VIetnam , but what you know about ? I agree Blood+ is good anime , but it LIE
    1/Vietnam in Blood+ look like a China town !!! When you go to Vietnam you will know what’s the difference … (omg)
    2/Ao dai (the cloth Saya wear in Lycee) in Blood+ look like a mixture of jacket and chinese dress !!! When you go to Vietnam you will know what’s the difference … (omg)
    3/ALL Vietnamese know it if there’s no Vietnam War , so there’s no Vietnam today ( how funny to hear a girl say “I was born after it” )… omg
    4/Blood+’s makers have a great imagination , because it’s nearly NO ONE play baseball in Vietnam .
    5/And one thing more , pho ( the food reporter eat when talking to the man in the food stall in Vietnam ) is very delicious , try it and you will believe me ^_^
    IN WAR TIMES , PEOPLE DIE MANY TIMES , BUT LIVE ONLY ONCE , SO LIVE WORTHY

    A Vietnamese

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