Review of Blood Blockade Battlefront

(Disclaimer: I will cover both seasons of Kekkai Sensen in this review, but I won't go into spoilers at all, except for maybe in the characters section.) I had fun with Kekkai Sensen. It may have taken me weeks to finish 24 episodes and an ova (the second one pending), but I had a good time. However, I can't ignore the fact that it really polarized me overall. Sure, I enjoyed it, but there were a lot of times where I literally groaned and struggled through seemingly another pointless episode. These downs were what made me take nearly a month and a half to actually finishKekkai Sensen, even though I'll say that it was a pretty good show.

You can't talk about Kekkai Sensen without talking about how beautifully and fluidly it was animated and how banging the soundtrack was, especially season one's. For the animation, the fight scenes are undoubtedly some of the best in anime, the way that each character has their own fighting style and applications create for some impressive sequences. Even if the character models weren't drawn immaculately all the time, you could always count on the animation of each episode to impress.
Before I go down the rabbit hole that is the soundtrack, I want to make a minor note about the voice acting, especially the dub being fantastic. It was always an epic moment when characters like Steven or Klaus went in for their final moves and suddenly started spewing their the names of their finisher in another language. Anyway, just wanted to show some appreciation for great voice acting.
Now, the soundtrack. I don't how I'm going to say more than, "It's so good." To be honest, it may be one of the best soundtracks in anime, if only for the fact that it's so varied and fitting to its setting. Every insert song or instrumental piece fits into the jazzy, urban atmosphere that Hellsalem's Lot exudes. However, nothing in the first 23 episodes could prepare me for getting blindsided in the feels by the best song to come from the soundtrack. Honestly, if I was more fickle, I'd raise my score for Kekkai Sensen by 5 to 10 points for Tortoise Knight alone, but instead of talking more about it, I'll just link it here:

Favorite Character: Mary Macbeth (White)

I mean, let's be honest, the only character challenging her for this spot is Chain. The thing about White though, is that she really provided Leo with interesting interaction outside of his work with Libra, which was a nice break from the chaos of Hellsalem's Lot. The first season really needed White to help provide you with more of a personal connection with Leo, who honestly, I thought was pretty useless most of the time. But around White, you couldn't help but cheer for him to get the girl, because\ their interactions were so damn cute.

This is the part where, I take a turn from my radiantly positive attitude. I mentioned earlier that I was extremely polarized by Kekkai Sensen. Most of that polarization is from the episodic nature, I think. It's so hard to binge out Kekkai Sensen, because it feels like there's no thread tying the world together. Instead, every episode is a single story, making the good episodes feel really fulfilling, but making the bad ones excruciating. I don't think this issue was helped by the fact that I wasn't interested in Zapp very much, and he dominated many of season one's episodes, which set the tone for me to watch the series. In fact, I can't say that I loved many of the simple, one-off episodes that dominate the series. There were a few that I really enjoyed, like Gilbert and Chain's episodes in season 2, the hospital episode, and the Aligula episode in season 1. There are a couple more that I at least was pleased with, but these few were the standout one-offs to me. I think a lot of the episodes that didn't impress me simply didn't have a good focal character, which made me bored of them from the beginning. A lot of this may be just my taste, but I feel if someone doesn't like all the characters, you're going to struggle through certain episodes.

Kekkai Sensen's greatest strength is loosely tied to my complaints too. See? Polarizing. Anyway, Kekkai Sensen's greatest strength lies in its world. Enter Hellsalem's Lot, perhaps the greatest world in anime. What makes Hellsalem's Lot so special? It's simple: the city is it's own character. Kekkai Sensen simply wouldn't be the same without the craziness of the city that they never fail to show us with each episode. We think we've seen the most unbelievable thing the city can throw at us, then it turns around and throws something else at us. The thing is, the city provides us with a sort of continuity that we take for granted after living in the city with the characters for a little while. It becomes the norm for us too, which is what makes it so special. All these crazy one-off episodes are basically created at complete freedom, because of how much room to maneuver the setting provides the writers. Honestly, it's really impressive. I think the fact that each and every citizen, alien or human, is drawn really helps immerse us even more in the world. We see the weirdness, instead of get told how weird Hellsalem's Lot is.

I find it hard to actually criticize Kekkai Sensen, because I realize how well it pulled me into the setting now that I've written all of this. I think all it would take to love Kekkai Sensen is more of an overarching reason to the story. It gets touched on here and there, but mostly gets ignored. I guess Michella doesn't really matter that much, after all. I kid, but it would be nice to see some progression to the plot behind Leo's eyes and her blindness. I'm probably asking for Kekkai Sensen to become something that it isn't though, so I'll be happy to be a fan of what it is, rather than what I think it should be.