AKA: レジェンド・オブ・デュオ

Genre: Futuristic vampire drama.

Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 5 minutes each

Distributor: Currently unlicensed in North America.

Content Rating: 13+ (Violence, deaths, blood 'n guts.)

Related Series: None, thankfully.

Also Recommended: Vampire Hunter D (original AND Bloodlust), Vampire Princess Miyu.

Notes:

Rating:

Legend of DUO

Synopsis

It is the future, and the humans are faced with the "disease of death", which seems to claim their lives completely at random. The only cure is a vampire's blood.

Zieg is on a hunt for his former best friend, who betrayed the vampire clan's secret to the humans. (We never learn his last name, but it would be totally awesome if it was "Heil".)

Review

Well, damn....

If I ever thought I'd never see another show as badly animated as Crying Freeman, then Legend of DUO swiftly rectified that notion.

But first, let me introduce you to a few of the characters in the show.

From left to right, we have Zieg, our main protagonist, his former friend Duo and his adopted son Vash the Stampede Stefan. It's not a bad looking show, is it? To its credit, the art is consistently good, both in character and background.

It's when things start moving the problems arise. Or rather... it's when things DON'T start moving that you can see where some of the problems in this show come from. Horrible, cheap animation litter the entire show. People hardly move, and when they do, the very blatant and obvious use of panned animation cells stand out like an sore thumb. And for a show that consists mostly of scenes with dialogue, that is a very bad thing. Not that the action parts are any different, with fight scenes consisting of mostly stills with some added blur effects and the most hilariously hokey walking animation I have ever seen in any anime, bar none. SOUTH PARK is animated better than Legend of DUO, and they're not even trying.

However, as bad as the animation is, most of the unintentional comedy in this show can and will be credited to the writing. If you look at the "Length" section in the review at the bar on the right, you will notice that the episode lengths is at five minutes. That is not a typo. I have no idea what possessed someone to split anything that isn't slapstick comedy shorts into five minute chunks, but there you go. Coincidentally, the whole story feels disjointed and haphazardly edited as a result of this, each episode interrupted by a "to be continued..." (or rather, "to be continue..." in true form of Engrish for added laughs) before it even had a chance to start properly. One might be forgiven to wonder why they didn't just slap the twelve parts into an hour long OAV, but I guess that would REALLY make the viewer aware of how nonsensical the whole story is.

Let's review, shall we? The human beings seems to be suffering from a certain "disease of death" that makes them shrivel up into mummies and die at a second's notice. The show doesn't really see fit to explain exactly when this happened, though there is at least some indication that it happened some time ago. There's also no pattern whatsoever to when the moment of death incurs. In the duration of the show, children and elderly alike dies from this affliction, and from what I understand, everyone suffers from it.

The only known cure for this disease is vampire blood, which means, naturally, that every human is clamoring for this. (Ironic, innit?) The curious thing is that there's no logical reason why the vampire clans can't just... I dunno, start a blood drive or something. From the looks of things, this would easily and conveniently rescue the entire human race (what's left of it anyway) and ensure that the vampires still have their source of blood at the ready.

But no, can't have that, I guess. Because that would basically nullify the whole reason for the human beings to turn into inhumane monsters as soon as they learn there's a vampire nearby. This eventually justifies the actions of our buddy Zieg and brings to the table what can be considered the "meat and bones" (if you'll pardon the pun) of the main bulk of dramatic scenes found within, which eventually segues into the dumbest dialogues I've heard for quite some time (which, if nothing else, at the very least stops reminding the viewers how badly animated this show is. I guess that's something, at least.) Never mind that the show points out very clearly that Zieg didn't turn his "son" into a complete vampire, and yet, one of the last episodes sees this Stefan attack the human beings, fangs bared and eyes glowing red. Inconsistencies much?

It's hilarious, I tell you. The show seems to be made up of scenes that are meant to be all cool and awesome, but since it doesn't have any actual material to rely on, the deep and meaningful speeches end up being... not so deep and meaningful. There's a lot of dramatical scenes in the show, especially in the flashbacks, but since there has been practically NO buildup whatsoever, I find myself at a loss for caring. Even the magnificently homosexual flashback with Zieg and DUO fails to incite any emotion whatsoever outside of mirth over the badness of it all. Combine this with the soulless acting, and you have a proper turkey that just begs to be experienced by any fan of such material.

Besides, it'll only take an hour of your life, if you have as much to spare for some grade B cheese.

It's god-awful to the highest degree, but I still recommend watching this at least once. The laughs you'll get out of it is definitely worth it. — Stig Høgset

Recommended Audience: Badly animated or not, the violence in this one is definitely unfit for younger people. People are stabbed, murdered and dies horribly from the disease they made up for this series. Naturally, it's not the prettiest sight for a variety of reasons.

For those whom it might concern, there's also a rather blatant yaoi part in the middle of the show, starring our two main characters that needs to be taken into consideration. Although that is more a case for preference rather than age.

And that's about it.