AKA: 吸血鬼すぐ死ぬ

Genre: Comedy

Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 24 minutes each

Distributor: Currently licensed by FUNimation, available streaming on Crunchyroll..

Content Rating: 14+ (Non-explicit nudity.)

Related Series: Upcoming sequel.

Also Recommended: Excel Saga; Kill La Kill; Strange+

Notes: Based on manga by Itaru Bonnoki, published by Akita Shoten in Weekly Shonen Champion Copyright: 2021 Itaru Bonnoki/Akita Shoten

Rating:

The Vampire Dies In No Time - season 1

Synopsis

Vampire Hunter ("The Great") Ronaldo sets out to defeat the vampire Draluc, but said vampire turns out to dissolve into a pile of sand at the slightest threat. (He can reconstitute himself quickly, though.) Somehow, Draluc ends up boarding with Ronaldo, and becoming involved in Ronaldo's "cases".

Review

I didn't really think much of the first episode or two of this show, but then I got hooked. It belongs to a familiar style of anime comedy: lots of shouting (Ronaldo is the most accomplished shouter), goofy slapstick, rampant vulgarity, AND a mascot character that has more sense than any of the other principals. (In fact, the mascot is occasionally worshipped as a god in the show.) Ronaldo may be the lead, but he suffers one indignity and humiliation after another over the course of events.

The show's delightfully weird. ANYTHING can be a vampire here: a cat is a vampire; so are foodstuffs. ("Old vegetables sometimes turn into vampires.") A few are ridiculous-looking monstrosities. Most of the vampires don't just want to suck your blood- they want to work some sort of weird magical transformation or other on the humans.

The majority of the vampires here aren't really that dangerous, which is just as well, considering their opponents. There are two groups of those: the uniformed agents of Vampire Control, including a woman named Hinaichi, who apparently doesn't know ANY dirty or suggestive words; and the Hunters, most of whom hang out in a bar that's described thusly: "This place feels like the dressing room of unpopular comedians". The Hunters don't seem that eager to destroy the vampires, so there's a nice balance in the apparent lack of effort on BOTH sides.

The things that endeared the show to me included one episode that Harry Potter's Voldemort should have watched before creating Horcruxes; it turns out there's a definite disadvantage to having those things. And some of the one-liners are absolutely wonderful; for example, Ronaldo's comment about Draluc, that "He's harder to keep alive than a festival goldfish." (Aha, now we know the TRUTH about the Goldfish Scooping!)

There's some possibly offensive material here- the presentation of an excessively fat woman might be taken as female fat-shaming, and one of the Hunters is a stereotype of a certain gay subculture- but the show operates at about the insensitivity level of a Benny Hill episode anyway. (I HOPE that's not too obscure a reference for the reader.) Really, I'd like to have seen more about the Hunters, some of whom are pretty bizarre, but the only one of the group that gets much screen time is named Satetsu- and he's described by everyone, including himself, as extremely boring.

Oh, some good stuff I nearly forgot. There's a trio of kids who call themselves "The Shin-Yokohama Boy Hunters" who mainly specialize in bullying vampires, by kicking them in the shins, squirting glue on them, and so on.

And there's the most frightening character of all, by far: the Editor of Ronaldo's self-aggrandizing memoirs, a Mr. Fukuma, who has a thing for medieval weapons and torture instruments. (Looking back at the depiction of the mangaka's editor in Kotaro Lives Alone as well, I wonder how many OTHER manga authors use their work to take a swipe at editors?)

Judging by Crunchy's readers' comments, the most popular character in the show is its mascot, an armadillo named John. (Excuse me, but don't armadillos carry Hansen's Disease (leprosy)?) John occasionally goes on adventures of his own. (I seem to recall a dog in Excel Saga that did the same thing.) John IS certainly the most placid character here.

Another thing is that some alert Crunchy readers caught (I must confess I missed it) is a visual reference to the Demon Slayer franchise. Hint: carefully check the costumes at the Halloween party toward the end of the show.

I started watching this expecting a 2-star show. It's too crass for 4 stars, but the one-liners, and some of the vampires' bizarre schemes, on their own nudged it to 3. Did I mention that I was really a fan of "stupid comedy"? — Allen Moody

Recommended Audience: Rightstuf rates the Blu-Ray 14+. There's some very non-explicit nudity, but truthfully it's the males who wind up nude here much more often than the females; and there's some "lewd" talk as well.