Dance in the Vampire Bund 1 – Misfired Mockery.

OK, this was what I expected:

But this is what I got instead:

Needless to say, I was not happy with what I got. I know it’s the only the first episode and Shinbo directs it, but the apparent over-mockery didn’t escape my eyes. What the first episode served was to make a snide social commentary about Japanese talk shows with a game-like format and obviously staged events and guests pretending to give a shit or that they are actually as surprised as everyone. All these people serve as icons on TV that fit a certain stereotypes to please the audience mindlessly following everything going on without giving any thoughts or reflections. I got one thing to say:

It IS the internet age now.

Irrelevant? Maybe. But irrelevant was what I called out after the mayhem broke loose and Mina Tepes declaring her vampire venture. Perhaps the whole thing serves as a wild, childish party full of ridiculousness and absurdness, hence the entire setting to get to the point. But after watching over 17 minutes of a commentary on the mindlessness of Japanese shows that provide psudo-knowledge to its drone-like audience that laugh on expected social/cultural cues, I could not take any of the revelation seriously.

Of course people here actually called it bluff right on the set – something that the average Japanese entertainer would rather die then doing. The blunt attempt to foil the atmosphere and perhaps to turn the mockery around on itself fails poorly and makes the entire event even less interesting. What really fails here is the view from behind the camera – the distance that’s put between the actual viewer (us) and the events because of the format (anime rather than live TV), makes it a ridiculous watch. After all, you can do all the symbolisms (Shinboisms) in texts, backgrounds and interesting backdrops, but having a character actually yelling it out on stage can really backfire. To me, it wasn’t just backfiring – it was fucking it all up. It was like setting up a magic show and then having one of the assistants yelling out: “Hey audience, it’s fucking fake!” And then attempt to recover by completing the magic with some twists.

I haven’t read the manga and have no interest to know how it is in the manga because I’d rather read it later only if I become interested. I’m basing my thoughts on the TV show. Perhaps the talk/game show is serving as the backdrop of absurdity that may be present in the manga. But with the reality-style camera rolling and the live-witness reporting, the super-surrealism attempt simply fails in my eyes.

After all, it’s just an anime. 2D works that do not have the power of real life events, no matter how hard the director tries to present it.

I hope episode two will be much better. it’s better to drop the over-pretentiousness and just get with the story.

Anime3000’s thoughts

Author: Ray

I'm a hardcore Anime Fan and I'm proud of it. I know so many things and I've acquired so much knowledge you wouldn't believe. But my love is anime. I've been drifting in this world for so long that I don't even know what an anchor means. I've seen so many shows that I've lost count. The only thing I'm sure of myself is that I care for the lowly and disenfranchised. I hate the rich and powerful and I love what I do, or what I can do. I like anime and I don't mind watching different types of shows. I have experience in different types of Japanese animation. I would be called an "expert" in a bizzaro world. One day, I'd like to start a revolution. I love the US, pizza, beer, sashimi, Chinese food, and steak. But I love freshly baked bread more than a well-aged steak. In reality, if I were born Japanese I'd be a real, hardcore Otaku. I love to love and I can hate strongly. I'm passionate in nature and I don't mind shedding tears. I can be reached at rayyhum777 at animediet. My Twitter is rayyhum777 at twitter.

8 thoughts on “Dance in the Vampire Bund 1 – Misfired Mockery.

  1. I totally agree. It was crap from beginning to end. I read the manga and I love it. There is nothing in the manga like this. The manga is a masterpiece in my opinion. The anime better shape up quick or Shaft will never get any viewers for their shows. I just finished pucking blood after watching it myself. I went from over excited to bored in about 2 minutes into the show.

    1. @flashtoons – there is innovating and there is fucking it all up.

      @bish0p, @DawningBlue – let’s hope the first episode served as an interesting attempt in the vein of what KyoAni tried to do with Haruhi.

      @animemaster – the irriation factor is quite high precisely because the innovative attempt is snotty and trashy.

      @Czarin – Haven’t gotten an answer yet. Let’s see if anyone else steps up and reply. Oddly, some people in the bloggersphere thinks the cultural context was quite interesting.

      @Mentar – Contrasting with the PV, the first episode was the shocker used to generate controversy.

      @chii – Some discussed that the reason for the inaccessiblity to the western audience was the heavy cultural context. However, a good story is often surprisinly universal. The hyperrealism attempt here is epic fail.

  2. I agree with prev comment the manga is amazing all i have to say is if the next 2 episodes dont get back on track ill be avoiding it altogether…ruining good manga should be a crime…

  3. Also agree. I was hoping for action filled high school/vampire drama, but instead felt very deflated. There better be some shaping up of story, and if so, more then 12 eps, cause if they shred this good manga story, i will be slightly irritated…. Ok, very irritated.

  4. Hey, does anyone know how was the rating of the show and what are japanese otakus thinking about the show??

    Personally, I read the manga, and I am very disappointed about this.

  5. I assume that this is just a parody episode a la the first episode of Druaga, and we’ll start at the beginning of the manga next week. At least that’s what I’m hoping…

  6. 100% d’accord. I hope that this was just a one-time idiocy, and that we can get back to the original story. This is definitely NOT the kind of material which can be SHINBO’ed.

  7. i was expecting this series to be watchable at the very least… i’m definitely not seeing that so far… almost don’t wanna give it more of a chance but of course i will

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