OP: 「scarlet」 by BRACE;d
A pretty good, fast paced song. The OP sequence catches my eye because it has so much fanservice in terms of naked Karin. Fortunately, the show itself isn’t like this (so far at least). And I assume they’re keeping one character in the OP blacked out until the point when he appears in the series.

Short Summary:
Returning to the incident at school, Karin asks Kenta to keep her condition a secret before she faints from blood loss. Kenta cleans up the stairwell, and Karin eventually wakes up while being carried home on his back. She thanks him, but then hurries away, afraid to be near him. She then starts to skip school to avoid him and wants to quit school all together, but her parents are forcefully against that idea. In any case, she does go to work, but finds Kenta there as the new hire. And so she ends up screwing up the entire afternoon, especially when Kenta gets close to her. On the way home, Kenta confronts Karin about what he saw that time in the park – he thinks she’s compensation dating. Stuck between refuting that and telling Kenta the truth, Karin stammers about until her brother Ren arrives on the scene to save her. Fortunately for Karin (kind of), Kenta runs off after seeing Ren making out with his girlfriend. Karin later learns from Ren that vampires have different tastes for people’s blood. Ren prefers the blood of stressed people, like the girl he was with. He surmises that perhaps Kenta has something in his blood that attracts Karin. The two go on the prowl and almost immediately find a woman that initiates a reaction in Karin. They learn that she was fired after her being sexually assaulted was broadcast over the store’s intercom system. Ren suggests that they go somewhere else, and leads her to the park along with Karin. As it turns out, this woman is also Kenta’s mother, and Kenta has gone looking for her after he didn’t find her at home. He arrives at the park just in time to see Karin biting his mother’s neck. After the deed is done and Karin faints, Ren wipes Kenta’s mother’s memories. The manager who tried to assault Kenta’s mother before appears again, quite angry about what happened. Kenta’s mother seems to have changed all of the sudden, and she won’t take his abuse anymore, so she uppercuts him. Kenta approaches his now amazingly refreshed mother and tries asking about Karin, but his mother doesn’t remember anything. In the bushes nearby, Ren realizes that the woman was Kenta’s mother, and that Karin must be attracted to people’s unhappiness.

This episode covers the parts of chapters two and three that we didn’t get to last week, and most of chapters four and five. They do introduce Ren this episode, and with him they also introduce the concept that every vampire has an acquired taste of blood. Ren likes stress and it just so happens that Karin is attracted to people’s unhappiness. It’s interesting that these vampires have reverse effects on the people they suck – Ren and Karin’s targets all seem refreshed. And while Ren is theoretically sucking out their stress, Karin is injecting her own blood as a rejuvenator.
I find it funny that Suwabe Junichi voices both Ren on this show and Friagne on Shakugan no Shana because the two characters remind me so much of each other in that evil-twinkle-in-his-eye sort of way. I guess that just means he’s perfect for that character type.

Closing Thought: It’s good to see unique interstitials – it’s a sign that this series has a high production budget.

15 Comments

  1. I really hope the anime isn’t as fanservicey as the OP. >.> I loved how they had small fanservice in the manga but didn’t go overboard like the OP is hinting. No naked girls, and rare panty shots. >.>

    Shinji103
  2. Karin the manga is still going I think, since there is a preview of volume 8 coming out in 2006 in the volume 7 raw. Anyone else think that guy with the pimp hat that’s blacked out is the boy that Karin first bit?

    Kira Takuto
  3. Actually, I think the guy that was blacked out in the opening was from the novels. (There are currently 7 volumes of manga out, and there are some novels based on the manga, and I believe this series is planned for 24 episodes).

    flou

Leave a Reply to Nana Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *