Post by Catman on Jun 7, 2022 20:46:02 GMT
Set in Tokyo 1923, the series follows a special unit of soldiers charged with protecting the public from rogue vampires. The twist: with the exception of the human commander, the four members are themselves vampires.
Character design brings to mind the movies Fusé: Memoirs of a Huntress, Millennium Actress, and Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, as well as the series Witch Hunter Robin. The latter also seems to be a template for the basis of the series since Robin and her colleagues hunted witches while themselves possessing varying degrees of witch powers. Mars Red also follows the same pattern of betrayal.
The plot is wandering and confusing, and while the writers tried to keep flashbacks clearly delineated from the present, it often just confuses the action. The characters are rather bland, and in the English dub, a few suffer from severe cases of wandering accents. Just who is the main character remains unclear though to the end.
Now for the more disturbing part: A good part of the series in set in the aftermath of the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 (they take great pains to show the train station clock with 11:58 in several epsidoes). After the earthquake came the Kantō Massacre, in which the military, police, and vigilantes murdered some 6,000 Korean residents and Japanese socialists, accusing them of starting the fires and causing general disorder throughout the devastation of Tokyo.
The series fictionalizes the massacre as a breakout of 'vampire' disease which is caused in part by the military passing out a vaccine which, while claimed to protect residents from the vampire virus, actually turned those taking it into vampires. The vampire unit (which as it turns out actually has a far larger number than known to the original squad) violently puts down the vampires they have created.
In short, intentionally or not, the series trivializes the real tragedy of 1923.
The best part of the series is the opening theme performed by the Wagakki Band and the closing theme by Hyde.
Recommendation: If you're a fan of the Wagakki Band or Hyde, save yourself some time and watch these videos of the themes 13 times.