Review of Blood Blockade Battlefront
Kekkai Sensen is a weird anime. Not exactly what you could call conventional, what with its unusual mode of storytelling and general lack of linear plot. However I found myself really liking (even loving) this anime once I decided to give it a chance. Art/animation 10 – Absolutely fabulous (and pretty much consistently so). The fight scenes in particular are amazing. Sound 10 – The opening and ending themes are brilliant, and the rest of the soundtracks fit in nicely too. They shift in tone depending on the mood of the story at the time, and the sad OSTs especially enhance the emotional parts. The voice actorsare fantastic, and do an awesome job of portraying a really diverse cast.
But although the animation is superb, and the opening and ending themes are two of the best I’ve ever seen, that’s only part of why I enjoyed it so much.
Plot 7 – Wacky disjointed storytelling, often not in context. Although this can be confusing at times, and isn’t to everyone’s liking when telling a story, you actually don’t really need to understand most of what’s going on to enjoy it. There’s a sensation of a vast unexplored world that piques your interest and make you want to know more about it - even though at the same time not knowing much about it gives it more of a sense of mystery (which is also interesting).
The basic story outline, while not exactly original in itself (mostly ordinary guy with hidden power joins secret society and helps them fight), is done really creatively and adds a new slant to an otherwise cliched trope.
However the rest of the story is pretty much unpredictable (well, apart from the obvious good guy vs. bad guy stuff that all shounens have eventually) and since you never know what each new episode will bring, you can look forward to and be pleasantly surprised at its contents.
Characters 7 – Some character development, bit of background but not fully explained and again, rarely in context. However, the background does do a good job of providing development for the characters, it just shows enough for the audience to understand how the character has grown as a person, without actually being a full story in itself. (The possible exception to this is Black and White’s story, but even that isn’t fully explained.)
The characters shown all have their own quirky personalities and it’s fun to watch their interactions with each other, whether it’s over board games, finding a place to eat or fighting monstrous vampires… 😊
Enjoyment 9 – at the end of the day, it’s hard to explain exactly why I loved this anime so much. It wasn’t so conventionally amazing that I scored it a 10 overall, but that was part of its charm. Flaws and all, disjointed storytelling and all, it ended up being a truly great anime, and as such I felt it deserved a very high score.
Warning: it’s not for everyone (although if you’ve read this review, you’ll already have realised that 😉). XD