Deviation Actions
Description
When you're without many means of getting a higher education, especially when you have the most average grades in the world, unless you or your roommates and/or closely blood related family don't really care about that, you will often find that, as some may say, "where there's a will, there's a way". However, one may need to take into consideration how worth the "way" will be when you, a normal everyday human, is incidentally taken to a school that's filled completely with monsters that are disguised as humans...
Here we have an anime about a fantasy school setting, with several real mythical monsters to boot.
And so, let the review commence.
Premise
As said earlier, this anime is set in a fantasy school setting, and the story focuses mainly around the male protagonist, Tsukune Aono, who is basically the embodiment of the word "average". As this results in him failing his entrance exams, it will naturally be difficult for him to be accepted into any high schools. Until, of course, there comes a solution to his father in the form of a shady man in the street who's ambling around in the middle of the night, with said solution being Youkai Academy (in a brochure that said man drops without realizing it).
Without being given much of a choice by his parents, he's sent there despite him questioning his father for picking up a brochure talking of the academy right off the street. Arriving there, he goes there with the expectation of the school being fear invoking, though the fact that his bus driver said to be careful there just for that reason would do something like that to someone, and of course, when he starts to get the feeling that someone is following him, he gets scared. However, as it would turn out, the thing he was scared of was a girl named Moka Akashiya, a pretty, and visibly innocent girl who befriends Tsukune, despite having run him over with her bike and sucking his blood soon after while revealing to the boy that she is a vampire.
But despite her being a vampire, Moka's powers are sealed in a cross that hangs around her neck, and when removed, it not only releases her power, but also her "inner personality", the once shy and pure girl changing into a prideful, overconfident person.
The genre most visible in the beginning of "Rosario + Vampire", despite its rather creepy setting, is, above all, romance. However, as first impressions would have it, after seeing the first episode, one may think it to be very likely to also be in the "action" and "drama" as well. On the technical side, one may be right in that.
Notice the emphasis on "technical".
Plot
The plot of Rosario + Vampire isn't very clear. If I were to say it was anything, I'd say that it was just about the lives of Tsukune and Moka, Tsukune in particular, and how they deal with the problems they're faced with.
But then, when I say "they" I probably should say "she" since it seems that every single problem that those two have is always solved by "Inner Moka" kicking the source of the problem through the sky.
And speaking of that, it's kind of hard not to see that this anime kind of takes something good in it and uses too many times over in a very predictable fashion.
When one sees "Inner Moka" for the very first time, they get the sense that she'd either be the "trump card" or "the badass" of the entire show.
In a sense, she is the former.
However, one also can't call something or someone you always use to take care of something a "trump card".
In short, the show itself suffers from severe predictability when it comes to how conflict's end, it almost always being a one episode long conflict, simply giving off a "monster of the week" pacing, only one conflict actually being an exception to this. This would be more forgivable had the amount of filler in some of the episodes weren't present.
This can especially be said for the swimming pool episode. The only pieces of valuable information a person can get from it is that vampires weakness is all water and not just holy water, and that Tsukune feels guilty for being insensitive to Moka. Instead of wasting an entire episode just for that in an already short 13 episode season, the writers could've very easily made an everyday scenario that could've taken a couple minutes at most.
Say, something like Tsukune drinking from a water fountain and asking if Moka is thirsty.
But I suppose fanservice helps bring the money in...
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Characters and Development
The characters of Rosario + Vampire all seem to be rather cut and dry in their origonal character traits and flaws, and even after they develop, it still is rather predictable in the way that it's more of an immediate "cause and effect of friendship" thing than a deeper thing than that.
Tsukune Aono
He develops in character, not at a very noticable pace, but the change is still there. He basically just goes from "bored high school freshman" to "supportive high school freshman" by the end of this season.
Moka Akashiya
She too gradually changed, but only slightly, in a way that she had the habit of relying on "Inner Moka" more, while also becoming less shy about her feelings as well.
Kurumu Korono
Kurumu is rather misleading in her actions and personality. She acts, for lack of a more fitting term, like a slut in most situations, when she is in fact much more caring and loving than she lets on. Her behavior is at first to every male she set her eyes on, but then only towards Tsukune. The strange thing about this is the fact that Tsukune himself is so obviously infatuated with Moka that it's almost painfully so at times, yet despite this, he always fails to tell Kurumu to stop her advances towards him, even when Moka herself in standing right in front of them.
Whether this is done to create a different perspective on Tsukune's feelings for Moka, or even just something done so that the creators can serve what the shippers of Kurumu x Tsukune pairing, I don't honestly know, nor will I pretend to.
Mizore Shirayuki
Her being lonely, she too is also a somewhat stereotypical character, even after her character development. She seems to be a bit more outgoing since befriending Tsukune, like Moka, but also puts down her own obssessive tendencies towards Tsukune, if only by a tad, gradually becoming closer to him rather than watching (or stalking) him from a distance.
Yukari Sendo
She starts out as a typical troublemaking prodigy. Due to her being with people in school who are supposed to be four years older than her, she is extremely childish, and often pulls pranks to get revenge on people who mistreat her. But after befriending Tsukune (are you starting to see a pattern here?) she stops with pranking, simply being her childish self with her new friends, while also openly aspiring to have a three way romance with herself, Tsukune, and Moka.
Overall...?
This anime itself seemed to be a borderline high school romance harem that really had no over arching storyline (unless you count "the misadventures of a guy and his monster friends at high school" an over arching storyline).
Besides this, the anime itself has several cliches that are common ground in romance, and even outside of those, makes it own cliche with Inner Moka scowling at whoever ticks her off, telling them something along the lines of, "Learn your place," before kicking them into oblivion, and then, near the end of the season, all of Tsukune's friends trying to "protect" an injured Tsukune, not with their powers... but with this pose...
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How... just how can you call this protecting when someone who took the same pose nearly got himself killed by doing it...
May their werewolf friend rest in peace...
Though the comedy isn't exactly what it could be, everything else is fine. If you're a fan of the harem, romance, or supernatural genres, then I definitely recommend this to you.
Just be warned that there is immense fanservice present in here.
