Review of Blood Blockade Battlefront

It's rare to watch an anime that takes place in the United States. I however have seen only two: Baccano and Tiger and Bunny. Both series took place in New York City which I find very interested cuz I was born there. Since they were both good and enjoyable imo I now kinda have a soft spot for anime that takes place in the Big Apple, and Blood Blockade Battlefront is now another one. This is a series that as soon as I heard of it I wanted to watch and funny thing is that I first heard about this only a few months agowhile watching a Glass Reflection video and I've already completed the first season. The series is based off its manga that was written by Yasuhiro Nightow, the same man who created Trigun. Going into this series I knew right away I was going to like it but not just for it's setting but from looking at its style what Studio it was coming from; Bones. Bones is heavily known for doing several great anime like FMA and My Hero Academia so I was excited for this. Now is it any good ??***contains MINOR spoilers***

Story:6/10
A very confusing plot with rough pacing that contained fun episodes. This is the one area of the series that will and has turned many viewers off. For one after watching the first few episodes I had a hard time figuring out where this anime was going. For example the first episode made it seem like it was gonna give us a story to tell but was then followed by a bunch of stand alone episodes that would make you ask yourself, "what's going on ??" It turns out that the series is giving us an anime only plot that wasn't revealed until episode 9 and mind you this is only an 12 episode season. And when we get there the show then rushes off to the finish line. It wanted to focus on the sibling relationship between White and Black which don't get me wrong was interesting but needed more room to make it more compelling. The one thing the series did excellent at however was being fun, rarely if not ever was there a dull moment. The first half focused more on character interactions and how our main character Leonardo Watch dealt with the city of Hellsalem's Lot. This lead to many funny and cool fight scenes that were mad enjoying and even tho I was left confused on the show's direction I was at least enjoying myself for majority of the time. I did however wish the city received more exploration like where did the supernatural beings come from, and how did the humans(Libra in particular)get their special abilities. I know there's a second season and I desperately hope they talk about this.

Art:10/10
This series is just another example on how much effort Bones gives to the work their given. They give the show great visuals, awesome action, cool character designs, and gorgeous backgrounds. To start off the anime excels at portraying the city by adding so much detail to the backgrounds, great use of color, and staying true to NYC by showing off its iconic skyscrapers and subways. It really gives you that nice New York vibe something I'm familiar with and it's general feel relates so much to Baccano. The show bases its use of color by giving us the tone it's aiming for, for example it would use a wide range of color when it's portraying the quirky crazy moments and emphasize on a single color when the tone shifts to darkness. The action omg it was handled so well and they were voilent, bloody and emphasized well with falling debris and destruction. And then you have the character designs, as we already know not all the characters are human so we get a variety of appearances here. The supernatural characters look great and they weren't made too alien like which makes it more impressive cuz they were detailed. My personal favorite design was Ted, he looked mad cool and was drawn great.

Sound:10/10
Taisei Iwasaki I applaud you, cuz the music in this anime was so awesome. The OST uses a great combo of classical music, electronic, and jazz sung mostly by English speakers that heavily suits the style and New York atmosphere. Examples of classical music are the use of Beethoven and Mozart two HUGE music names. My favorite part of the OST has to be both the opening and ending themes that were done in Japanese. The OP "Hello, World" was a catchy and up-tempo song that matched the more serious side of the series that also had stunning views of the city. "Sugar Song to Bitter Step" which is now one of my favorite EDs was this fun upbeat alt rock song that had the characters dance at a broadway stage that matches the quirkiness and craziness the show has to offer. As for voice acting it was great, I do however recommend this to be watched in English. While it was good in Japanese the English Dub fits the setting more and it was surprisingly better at portraying the character's emotions. Just to prove to how great the dub was check out the performance of Aaron Dismuke as main character Leo. That's right Aaron f***ng Dismuke is here and he was incredible. To name more Ian Sinclair, Phil Parsons, and Stephanie Young were also great, yea y'all should definitely check the English dub out.

Character:8/10
Incredibly fun and entertaining but needs more room for development. Despite so this is one of those shows that wouldn't really work if it weren't for its characters. By far the biggest strength here is watching how enjoyable they all are with their own unique personalities and interactions. Leo was given nice development as he was at first a cowardly kid that ended up like a hero. Given his backstory on how he received the God Eyes that involved his sister was touching and gave us a reason to care for the kid. Black(William) and White(Mary) played major roles in this season and had even more touching backstories of their own. Due to being the primary focus they get a lot of screen time and plenty of interactions with the main lead Leo. Zapp and Klaus man these guys were awesome. Zapp is the juvenile womanizer who plays big with the show's humor and Klaus is the polite calm leader of Libra who's capable in combat. But my main issue here is that some of the side characters didn't get enough attention. For example, we got the sexy and sadistic female Chain who like all the other characters was a joy to watch but was left underdeveloped. More characters like Steven, K.K., and Lucky Abrams were just given intros and side appearances at most, which is sad cuz they were just as if not more interesting than the major characters.

Final Verdict: 8.5/10

Pros

+A fun and entertaining cast that are so cool and never get boring
+Great music and style that perfectly matches its world
+Bunch of enjoyable episodes that contains tons of exciting action and funny moments

Cons

-Plotlines were confusing and took a while to get going
-Its world suffers from exposition, needs more exploring
-Side characters need development and screen time for more relevance

Blood Blockade Battlefront is an anime that I had so much fun with. It reminds me so much of Baccano in terms of setting, vibe, and enjoyable cast of characters. Several people like to compare this series to Darker than Black and it's an anime I haven't seen which is why I personally didn't make any comparisons. Now the show isn't flawless but really it's biggest problem was the plots, the ending left many confused and I can see why but I was personally fine with it. I just hope that in the next season we get to know more about the side characters as they were mad interesting and deserve to be in the limelight. I recommend this series to people who are fans of Baccano, Cowboy Bebop, and fans of Nightow cuz although it had its plot problems the style, music, and characters were SOOOO worth it and trust me you will not be disappointed.