6/10
Style, costume, design tick. Plot?
5 November 2020
This series is bifurcated into the many things it does so well and the things which appal. The filming done on location in Romania, though short, is suitably strange and gives the series an international look. The anime flavour to the fluffy story inspires some of the best live action choreographed anime. People do walk into hits but that's to be expected with so many bodies flying about.

The costuming is exquisite and playful from tourists abroad to Grand Guignol vampire fashion. Cosplay elements helped define character and ordinary weirdness of this vampire world. Soundtrack plays well with the violence and mayhem. The strident stripes of the hotel give way to colour and warmth reflecting both sides towards the end coming to a friendly arrangement.

Characters have no life of their own, even caricature would work better. Manami, the major focus of the series, walks around stunned and not knowing what she is doing most of the time. The brilliant action sequences squeeze out the plot so that it is inconsequential. Some humour in the vampires' breeding programme for humans but drowned out by the violence. K's lesbian back story is tokenism and if foregrounded would have given the plot more sinew. The overriding plot of vampire faction machinations fizzles out to... From the very first massacre we are warned that style comes first, explanation if any is an afterthought.
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