Karin – 05

Summary:
Karin’s brother is about to erase Kenta’s memories, but Anju stops him. The family goes home, where Anju tells everyone that she’s been observing Kenta day and night, which is why she’s so tired. But she believes that he’s good on his word about keeping the secret, and that he can be an asset during the day if Karin has a blood increase. In addition, Anju tells Karin something that she hadn’t already realized – Kenta’s home is just down the hill from their house. Karin rushes there to check, and sure enough, she finds Kenta and his mother, who Karin recognizes as the lady she bit before. Kenta’s mother tries to leave the two alone, but it just leads to some awkward moments. Meanwhile, Karin’s parents decide that they want to check Kenta out for themselves, so Henry kidnaps him after work one night. Karin, who had been asked by Kenta to meet after work, waits and waits, but he never comes. He is instead being scared by her family. Kenta explains that he first noticed the marks on his mother’s neck, and that in the end, he wants to return his mother how she was before. Henry explains that Karin doesn’t suck blood, but instead gives blood. Anju continues on by saying that the people she gives blood to are invigorated, much like Kenta’s mother. Karera then threatens to completely erase his memories if their secret gets out. Karin arrives home after waiting for so long, only to find Kenta leaving her house. Upstairs, Anju asks her parents to be allowed into their conversations about Karin, because once Anju becomes an adult, Karin will be alone in the world of daylight. At work the next day, Kenta tells Karin what happened with her parents. To compensate, Karin promises to bring him a boxed lunch every day, which Kenta gladly accepts.

This episode follows the manga a lot more faithfully than previous episode have, despite the fact that it doesn’t even cover two whole chapters. The bald headed guy and Harumi-chan are still absent, and there’s the weird change of Kenta’s mom not having found a job (the manga gives her a job at a love hotel). But pretty much everything else is exactly how it’s laid out in the manga.
But for the most part, this episode echoes how I feel about the series in general so far: a tad uninspired. The plot seems to be plodding along – we’re already done with five episodes, and what’s happened so far? Karin’s had a nosebleed, has bitten a few people, and Kenta just found out she’s a vampire. I guess the main problem for me is that with such a strong current Thursday lineup, including SHUFFLE! and Mai-Otome, I lack motivation to watch Karin.
All of that having been said, I’m not quite ready to drop this series yet. We’ll see how interesting next episode turns out to be.