Review of The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess

I have to admit, I was probably testing my luck a little with this one. But to this extent? Yeah, The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess wasn't the best showing. Story: The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess introduces us to Terakomari (Komari) Gandeblood, vampire princess who was basically given the throne to her country, evening though her mother knew her tendencies. One of those tendencies is to shut her self away - hence "Shut-In Vampire Princess" so that she can do away with any of her royal responsibilities. Her supreme commander assigns her a maid, Villhaze, to try and getKomari to cooperate, but there's so much resistance each and every time. A lot of those responsibilities come down to keeping a good reputation and showing their prowess on the battle field, and unfortunately, a lot of the story just doesn't come off as exciting. There's just not enough there.

Let's start out with what was strong first. One of the early arcs includes an old time rival, Millicent, and I actually enjoyed the story throughout this arc. The basic idea is that Komari has a bit of a history with this particular vampire because of how she was treated by her. Millicent's story arc revolves a lot around trying to get back at Komari, and she's dead serious about it too. It's believable, and she puts real obstacles in the way of Komari. It's really well done, and even does a good job at revealing Komari's true powers, otherwise known as her Core Implosion. There's some good setup there for future arcs and the final episode of that arc is what got me excited for the rest of the season.

Sadly, it doesn't follow up in any real way. The story starts us our with Komari introducing herself to her army, and they're insanely unlikable, outside of Belius, who I actually really liked. They constantly make a mockery of themselves and you can easily tell that they're going to get involved in the plot, even if you don't like it. After the conclusion of the Millicent arc, there's a lot of needless running around for the rest of the season, and even if they attempt to make you care about the characters along the way, their backstories kind of just mold into one because they're so similar. Meet new person, gain they affection with very little effort, make your maid jealous, and then go back to being useless while these new "allies" protect you.

One of the themes discussed constantly in this series is World Domination, and for such a serious topic, you'd think there'd be some serious backstories about how you're going to obtain this. There is... sort of. It all feels really rushed and doesn't really get aided by the fact that Komari's kind of useless. This series is likely suppose to be a comedy series, but it was never really funny, and even then, seems like a weird genre to include in a series that has as much (lackluster) fighting like it does. It doesn't mesh, even with the somewhat cartoony look that it gives its characters sometimes. Not only that, but since we're dealing with vampires here, they don't really die. It really cheapens the effect that "death" has.

Getting to the end unfortunately is a bit of a chore, just because of how much the plot tries to overstay its welcome. It's all about trying to give power to one country, but it ultimately feels rushed in the end. Add to the fact that they kept introducing way too many characters along the way, this series tries way too hard to impress on a macro level, when the smaller scale encounters weren't even good to begin with. (5/10)

Characters: Komari is really an unlikable character, even if she has brief moments in times when she can actually act like a decent person. Her core implosion might be her most interesting part of her, but she uses it thrice in the whole series. It's not even that it's an impressive ability, but she gets super serious when she uses it too - why was this part of her ability? The fact that she "forgets" what goes on while using it also does the story no favours. Villhaze is better... but not by much. She's very dedicated to her master, which is fine, but outside of being jealous a lot, she doesn't really stick out for any reason. She's just... there. It's obvious what she's trying to do, but doesn't very little on try and accelerate it.

Sakuna, Nelia, Karla and to a lesser extent, Delphine, all kind of mesh together as being similar characters because they don't do a ton to impress during the course of the season. They all got a bunch of screen time and did basically nothing with it. Sakuna specifically was around the series a lot and even if her arc concluded in a nicer way, where did it leave her? I'm not even sure. Now she just kind of clings to Komari for affection. I really don't understand it.

Karen Helvetius is Komari's supreme commander and even though she's pretty smart, she doesn't really do anything worth noting in terms of physical actions. I'm trying to remember if she does anything but talk, despite the fact that she got a bunch of screen time. She basically acts as Komari's guardian by telling her what to do and how to do it - as well as talking to her allies about Komari - but that feels like her only purpose here.

One of the problems, as mentioned earlier, is that this series adds way too many characters as a rate that really isn't necessary. This series was already having issues with giving our characters a role to begin with, but adding so many from the world building that this series attempts to do is just way too much. (4/10)

Art: So this is one of Project No.9's lesser projects, right? This series had minor moments where it looked fine - mostly in the three Komari fights - but aside that, it looks pretty boring. It didn't do anything to make the more "down" moments look bad, but that hardly feels like a compliment to a studio of this size. (6/10)

Sound: Nothing terribly to impress or disappoint here, which might be the highpoint. I swore off fripSide ages ago because I always felt like their music all sounded the same, but the OP, Red Liberation, was legitimately good. So there's something. Voice talent seemed fine too. (6/10)

Overall: The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess was boring and bland with not a lot going for it, outside of the Millicent arc. It clearly "can" have okay story moments if you take your time and focus on a smaller-scale story like hers, but after that, it feels like the story falls apart, especially with a character as boring as Komari. She doesn't do anything to amaze and it makes this series really difficult to recommend. (5/10)