Dance in the Vampire Bund

Alternate Titles: ダンスインザヴァンパイアバンド

Original Japanese Release Date: January 7th, 2010

Episode Length/Run-time: 12

Summary:

After centuries of battling in the underground, the vampire queen Mina Tepes seeks to create a haven off the coast of Japan where vampries and humans can coexist.  The is much revolt from certain human and vampire groups about her vision and as a result her bodyguard Akira must protect her from those that would seek to do her harm.

Review:

The first thing you may think about when you hear the words Dance in the Vampire Bund is “oh yea, the lolicon anime”.  Well you wouldn’t be wrong.  This anime gets lumped in with Strike Witches as a show with controversial content in its depiction of minors.  Of course you could argue that Mina Tepes may look twelve years old, but shes actually centuries of years old.  Still it’s probably true.  Mina is sexualized heavily in this series, even in the opening sequence.

Oddly though, the sexualization might be the best thing about this show because at least it added controversy.  In my opinion,  this anime’s plotline is painfully boring and even more so convoluted.    The political aspect of this show isn’t fleshed out nearly enough for us to get a handle on what exactly is happening.  It’s clear that there is some disagreement about Mina’s goals amongst the populace which eventually leads for certain groups to seek her assassination but this show just really isn’t done well at all.

Really, the bottom line is that the series has a couple novel ideas but in the end the execution is so poor that it’s not really something I would recommend to many people.  I might suggest it if you are a die hard fan of vampire anime but other than that, pass on this one.

[starrater]