Review of Blood Blockade Battlefront

*WARNING! THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!* For the past few years, people have been joking about specific series being the 'savior of anime'. Do enough research and you will find both spectrum's of the argument that anime is either on the decline in quality or rising up more with quantity. Personally I chose not to get too involved because I reassured myself that I still had my old favorites to fall back on if newer series began to feel bland to me. That said, around the half way point of 2014 I began to lose interest inmore and more series, I would actually drop more than half of the series I started each season for a while, until Spring of 2015, when my own personal savior of anime aired and renewed my passion for watching new shows. My name in FullMetalRaven and this is my review of Kekkai Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront).

So 'BBB', as some like to call it, is one of the interesting anime series out there that takes place outside of Japan; New York City, or rather, Hellsalem's Lot, is a boiling pot for humans of any race and monsters of the underworld ranging from beastmen to even vampires just give an example. The story focuses on a boy named Leo who is trying to make a living in this extraordinary city while also being apart of Libra, an organization of supermen who work to keep the city and ultimately, THE WHOLE WORLD, out of peril. BBB's main plot can be described as episodic with an over-arching story involving Leo's run ins with different people and, well, non-people(?), and the dark plot that could potentially lead to mankinds demise. Simply put, don't expect much of a grand story from just a 12 episode anime with a manga that had been on hiatus at the time of its airing; because while on the surface the story is all over the place and hectic, beneath lies a incredibly deep and inspiring tale about how 'anyone can be a hero'.

As I said, Leo is 'ordinary' but he possesses a powerful ability called 'The All Seeing Eyes of the Gods' which can basically do anything eye sight related; see things at microscopic level, x-ray vision, hell he can see onto other plains of existence with just a bad headache being the only repercussion! But besides that Leo didn't spend his whole life training to fight monsters, thus when push comes to shove he can't compete with people like Klaus, the ultimate gentlemanly vampire hunter, or Zapp, a near master swordsman; but you know what's awesome? He doesn't back down; this teenage boy who gets beat up and dragged through the dirt almost every episode ALWAYS stands back up and faces his current predicament head on and to me, THAT is an amazing premise for a TV anime series that I can get behind. I'm a regular 'shounen/action' fan where the hero always has some way of winning through friendship, so really this kind of story is just a massive breath of fresh air!

Now I've talked a quite a bit about Leo and the reason is because, in this anime adaption, he is one of the more developed characters. As stated above Libra is full of people with supernatural abilities ranging from manipulating blood into weapons or controlling the elements like freezing the air or conducting electricity. These people are bad-asses of the highest caliber, but the sad part is nothing much about their personal backstories is revealed; no explanation of how they all got their powers, where they all came from or why Libra was formed to begin with. Then you have the 'anime original' characters, the twins White and Black; these two are central to the plot the series works towards and thus they come with their own heartbreaking backstory that mirrors Leo's relationship with his own little sister, as both pairs would do anything for the well being of the other even sacrificing their own happiness for the other.

Studio BONES adapted this series and the animation is nothing but absolutely gorgeous to look at. My one nitpick is that the last episode recycles a few scenes from the first but really to keep the animation quality at its highest I can get over a few cut corners. The music is very western inspired and reminds me a lot of the anime Baccano with plenty of jazz tracks; as well as a few classic American songs like 'What a Wonderful Life'. The theme songs are some of my favorites in general; 'Hello World!' is inspirational and does an amazing job building itself up in the minute and a half long segment and 'Sugar Song to Bitter Step' is a perfect, wacky closer for a wacky series. I have only watched the series in Japanese but I do plan to watch the dub as I do like dubbed anime that are influenced by the west like FMA; fun fact, Leo and Zapp are voiced by the same voice-actors as Shinpachi and Hijikata respectably from Ginatama and are part of the reason I decided to start watching it.

So why do I hold this series so high up among all my other favorites, even though it's still pretty new? Well at the time this aired I had been anticipating ANY news about Digimon Adventure Tri (Digimon being one of the first anime I watched and thus I went complete fanboy-mode whenever something new about this title was revealed) and when it was revealed it would be a movie series, not TV series and I had to wait another six months for the first movie, I was depressed; I literally felt like the Spring anime Season of 2015 had been reduced to nothing because I was so hyped up for the revival of one of my favorite anime of all time. But then I watched BBB; and every episode succeeded had giving me an adrenaline rush with it's action, laughing hysterically at the dysfunctional group of heroes and even sad for certain characters when subjects about their tragic pasts came up. BBB is inspirational; it inspired me to stay positive about myself AND new anime as well; that while you can't expect everything bad coming your way, whether it be an unexpected personal problem in your life or even if a new TV show or two isn't as great as you thought it would be, the best thing to do is look forward and fight on because that is how you will achieve happiness. Once again, I'm FullMetalRaven, this has been my review of BBB and I hope you will like this review if it was helpful and I also welcome any different opinions through the comments on my profile.

UNTIL NEXT TIME!