First Date: Rosario to Vampire
- Title: Rosario to Vampire
- Studio: Gonzo
- Genre: Romantic Comedy/Harem
Ratings (out of 5):
- Story: ♥♥♥
- Animation: ♥♥½
- Characters: ♥♥♥
- OP/ED Themes: ♥♥½ (ED only)
- Overall: ♥♥♥ (Kind of like wanting to be taken to a fancy restaurant and going bowling instead– fun, but not as good as I hoped.)
Thoughts:
Hokay, so, Tsukune Aono completely failed to get into any of the high schools he wanted to and, as a result, was left behind by all of his classmates…until his dad managed to pick up some kind of freshman orientation packet dropped by a spooky priest which permitted Aono to attend the Youkai Academy. Tsukune hops on the bus to attend his new (apparently boarding) school, and on the way is smacked in the head by a girl riding a bicycle. (Why do girls on bikes always hit guys in anime? Is this some kind of Japanese equivalent to shooting spitwads at the girl you have a crush on in kindergarten? Or is it more like, “Smacking you upside the head with a bicycle: it’s like saying hello in Japan.)
The pink-haired girl introduces herself as a vampire named Moka and proceeds to drink a bit of Tsukune’s blood. In spite of this introduction, Tsukune is still shocked when, during his first class, he’s told that Youkai Academy is, in fact, a school for youkai– demons. Eventually, after a bit of emo whining and bawling by Moka and Tsukune, he informs her that he is in fact a human (and therefore supposed to be dead the moment he set foot on campus), and they learn that he can’t leave the campus for at least another month, when the next bus comes.
The good news for Tsukune is that the academy, which prepares youkai to live in a world of humans, requires all students to stay in their human forms and to not reveal their own identities to each other, so Tsukune may yet get away from this thing alive.
The plot is cute, but the art and animation aren’t as sharp as I was expecting. Also, the color scheme is a little funny sometimes, like in the picture above. The pacing felt a little off; it took about two minutes for Tsukune to explain why he’s headed to the Youkai Academy and felt rushed. Then the whole Moka/Tsukune relationship was established more or less instantaneously, and their later interactions were, shall we say, HIGHLY emotional. It felt a little overboard to me; I was hoping for a bit more comedy and a bit less emo.
There is also shit-tons of fanservice, from the first panty shot– a random nameless high school girl within the first 20 seconds, and for the rest of the episode there’s hardly a shot of Moka where her panties aren’t showing –but that’s to be expected. I guess you can think of it as kind of like InuYasha, if it were a harem romantic comedy set in modern times. And probably a LOT less long. But plenty of anthropomorphs around, if that’s your bag. And even if it’s not, it’s still a cute-looking series with nice character designs (albeit archetypal characters so far) and a plot that has some promise.
So for now? We continue.
Tags: first-dates, Rosario-Vampire, winter-2007-8
January 5th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Perusing the manga, it looks like it’ll be a monster-of-the-week. Could get sorta dull, but I can’t wait to see it.
January 5th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Ah, just watched it. It was pretty much what I was expecting of it: good/fun, not great. I actually liked the coloring, even though it wasn’t as dark as I expected. When you mentioned the fanservice, I though that it would be pretty well inline with the manga (which has tons), but as as you said above, this has shit-tons. You see Moka’s pantsu more than her face in this ep.
Things I didn’t like: 1) the pink hair. Is it not good enough that she’s gonna be hotter than every other girl in the series, so they had to define her more? Too sickly sweet, for me. 2) that lame ED. Maybe I’ll warm up to it, but it’s just so average. 3) that transformation scene was teh lame. TEH lame. The part where she’s covered with bats was almost cool, though.
So far: I’ll keep watching!
January 5th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Hooray! More of Gia’s first dates!
January 6th, 2008 at 11:58 am
A step to far with the fanservice. I meen i love ecchi as much as the next person but the fact that someone got on a bike in the first 20 seconds and it showed up her skirt is a wee bit much. :<
January 10th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Fun series… for it’s faults. The little love bites were super cute. And the bat was amazing too! The fan service isn’t such a big deal… it’s just underwear. The action was a little scrappy and seemed thrown together. Otherwise cute fun show =D
January 10th, 2008 at 10:37 am
@Roryo: Sorry, you’re not going to be able to convince me that the fanservice isn’t excessive. Sure, it’s just underwear– but they do it so often that it’s no longer cute, funny, or sexy. It’s kinda like…”dang, still those granny panties?”
It’s an okay show. I could see it becoming a lot better, but I could also see it devolving into something painful to wtach. We’ll see!
January 10th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
@Gia Excessive to the point where it blended into the background! Here’s hoping that it was just to attract an audience for the first ep, so you can have your standard intermittent panty shots in the future.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:26 am
The second ep is out and had less pantyshots and moar boob rubbing
January 15th, 2008 at 8:06 am
@Scrr: Yes, I saw. ;)