Review for Black Blood Brothers: Complete Series (Review)
Saturday, 3rd December 2011, 17:37

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Introduction
I'm taking a break from the here and now of UK anime releases to wander down a back catalogue alley, catching up on a title or two that I might have missed the first time around. The retro look of the characters in Black Blood Brothers was what initially dissuaded me from trying its charms, but having read mostly positive things about it since its release, I've been persuaded to give it a try. And it's another vampire anime. What is it about anime and vampires, the bloodsucking genre seems to be a staple of the medium to the point where every second show has some poor maiden having her jugular drained by someone tall, dark and fangy. Black Blood Brothers is a tale about vampires trying to coexist with humans, in their own private annex, a manmade island off the coast of Japan. If that sounds familiar, you may be thinking of Dance in the Vampire Bund, released a few months ago by Manga Entertainment. But Black Blood Brothers has one thing missing, the dubious taste loli-vampire sexuality. That's a plus point in its favour before I've even started watching the thing.

Ten years previously, a brutal war erupted between vampires and humans, spurred on by the emergence of the Kowloon Children, a breed of vampire unlike any other; mindless, animalistic, brutal, and passing on their vampirism like a plague. Had they prevailed, humanity would have been swallowed up in an instant, but only through an alliance between old blood vampires and humans were they destroyed.

Now, Black Blood vampires live in peaceful coexistence with Red Blood humans in the Special Zone, a manmade island off the coast of Japan, a peace administered by the Order Coffin Company, an organisation dedicated to preserving both communities and keeping the continuing existence of vampires discreetly hidden from the general human populace. The Special Zone is where brothers Jiro and Kotaro are heading, but what they find is less than inviting. The Order Coffin Company's Suppression Squad is tasked with policing the Special Zone, and that means keeping out the various vampire refugees that want to settle there by any and all means. Their brutal violence and attitude towards vampires is at odds with the Order Coffin Company's Compromisers, mediators who work to promote peace and harmony between the two groups. Straight off the bat, Jiro and his brother get caught in the middle of the crossfire. Worse, it turns out that the Special Zone is restricted to vampires of certain bloodlines only. The reason why becomes clear when it transpires that the Kowloon Children weren't destroyed in the war, and that they are on the rise again!

Manga Entertainment present twelve episodes of Black Blood Brothers across three discs.

Disc 1: Bad Tidings
1. Black Blood Brothers
2. Compromiser
3. The Kowloon Bloodline
4. Old Blood

Disc 2: Emergence
5. The Special Economic Zone
6. The Coven
7. Silver Blade
8. Protector

Disc 3: Resurrection
9. The Eleventh Yard
10. The Order Coffin Company
11. The Ocean
12. For the Eternal Pulse of Mine Bloodline, I Would Offer This Blood in Totality

Picture
Black Blood Brothers gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, which given that it's a show from the days of the old 'born of flame' Manga logo, is inevitably an NTSC-PAL conversion. It's a pretty good one though, free of significant ghosting or similar artefacts. The first thing that strikes you is the rather retro look to the character designs, angular features and elegant proportions that wouldn't be out of place in a nineties anime. That said, the modern digital techniques are still in place, rendering a clean and fluid animation. Black Blood Brothers is a little variable in quality though, with some sequences decently animated with a high frame rate and vivid action. Some scenes just slow down though, and occasionally resort to the freeze frame action techniques used when a budget is lacking. As a result Black Blood Brothers' high points are too often let down by its low points.

Sound
You have the choice between DD 2.0 English and Japanese stereo tracks, with optional translated subtitles and signs. I went with the Japanese track as always, and found it to be acceptable. The English dub too is pretty fair from what I sampled. The show's action comes across well, but where Black Blood Brothers really excels is in its music, getting a theatrical score, grand and broad enough to belie its lower budget visuals. The subtitles are timed well and free of error.

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