So unfortunately for those of my friends who know that Dance in the Vampire Bund is awful, I still had to watch this show to determine just how bad it is. My girlfriend has only seen the nude child photos in the manga and, based on that small encounter, knows it was bad. If only I was as smart… Alas, I still watched this short 12 episode anime to see what all the fuss was about (and, as usual, Christopher Sabat, credited as C.T. Anger.)
This vampires and werewolves love dance that is
Like seriously, what is this?
Dance in the Vampire Bund is… interesting, if I could use any word. If I could use a more accurate word… weird. Creepy. Strange… Pornographic at worst. With such a small range of plot and characters that don’t necessarily change but come full circle, it was more of a laugh then a serious perspective on the age old tale of vampires vs werewolves and their touchy-feely relationships. Oh well…
This doesn't even border wrong. It jumps over it.
In this tale of woe, Mina Tepes (Monica Rial), the “Queen” of the Vampires is planning to reveal the existence of vampires and their desire to live hand-in-hand harmony style with the humans. How does she do this? Quiz/T.V. gameshow style. And some crazy shizz goes down. And people die. And she gets naked. What could be a better way to turn people off from this show?
As the show progresses we meet 3 main villains, a few werewolves, and our main werewolf and pro/antagonist, Akira Kaburagi Regendorf (Eric Vale, credited as Alpha Legrange) who has some freaky love interest with a girl at school, Yuki Saegusa (Alexis Tipton) and Mina… So, yeah, that’s going
This is what's wrong. Twilight won't even touch this.
on. Waking up naked beside a 12 year old girl who is also naked? What an interesting okay view of this taboo, because she’s an old vampire who is far older than Akira…
The show ends halfway through and kicks right back up again, and I’m not sure why… Is it because there was a real push for another 6 episodes? I’m really not sure, but I think (probably based on the manga) there was a need to bring Akira’s backstory full circle.
This is pretty legit...
With a few occaisional sob scenes and way too much boobage, this show is (and should be considered) another in a long string of pop culture spinoffs that should be attached to Twilight (not that that’s a bad thing… please, don’t ask…). With a dark element like Underworld (with very similar Lycan/Werewolf transformations) and a bondage element that is way out of this world/not cool, this show goes places most anime wouldn’t. I give a small ounce of credit to the artwork and sensuality of the drawing, but that’s about as far as that goes.
Other than Eric Vale and Christopher Sabat (One the father, the other the son in this situation.) and a decently not annoying girl voice by Monica Rial, there’s not really anything to say about the voice acting, even in its caliber. I did enjoy the Ayres bro.’s and their identifiable voices as
And there's this guy.
a young quiver voiced wimp (sad though) and a centuries old Chinese vampire, Chris and Greg do it again in what seems to be a string of melodramatic C-rated anime. (Not judging, just giving my opinion. Although, its a career and I like most of their stuff. They’re cool guys in person. Especially Chris with his liters of cola and Greg with his pink hair.)
So I send a sigh your way, Dance in the Vampire Bund. With all your potential, you tell an already told story with way to much sex. And mind you, child sex. No, the transformation sequence doesn’t make it okay. And nobody really dies. Which, okay, they’re vampires, but really? Even vampires have to die someday. And so did this show. 4.5 out of 10.
Oh, and check this out.
reviewsfromtheabyss 
September 14th, 2011 at 6:42 PM
Oh, give me a break. This should never have been published, I’m not even sure this qualifies as a review in a traditional sense for all it leaves out and fails to mention. I guess this is just another in the long line of “reviewers” that have emerged who’s “reviews” are primarily based around whether or not they got a hard on while watching it.
Pardon the rant, but someone needs to say this.
The writer is correct, he (I know, he doesn’t mention his gender here, sometimes it shines through though — although I’m sure this testosterone pumped jackass will take that as a compliment) shouldn’t have watched this, anyone who wants to blanketly condemn all lolicon or shotacon as “awful” without exception should simply go back to masturbating to One Piece and not publicly make a fool of themselves. Attached to Twilight? It boggles my mind the level of generally illiteracy someone must have to conflate the two, Twilight is lowest common denominator hack work, poorly written and not even properly edited, a rip-off of a rip-off, cynically sold to a populace they think is too greedy for the next YA trash “hit” too recognize what they’re consuming — garbage. How anyone can measure that up against the sheer ambition of a project like DitVB is mind-boggling.
Dance in the Vampire Bund is a return to the halcyon days of vampire tales, now pardon me and all do respect to fans of the well-written, the good (and there are some good) supernatural romances but these are the vampires who I grew up with — harmed by the sun, willingly suck blood, and have been in hiding since Humans have existed. Fearsome, y’know? And the writer compares this to Twilight?
This isn’t even a review. It’s a rant who’s point is, what? The writer isn’t a pedophile? We understand that, we would’ve guessed that anyways. And of course this entire rant comes with the nasty insinuation that you can’t defend DitVB without being a pedophile. Who’s benefit was this for?
I said there were things he failed to mention. Fuck yes there are. Dance in the Vampire Bund exists on two levels one of which, if I listen closely, I can hear the wings of flap as it passes over his head. The DitVB manga and to a somewhat lesser extent the anime exists on a double level similar to Blue Velvet (if you’re a regular of this site, don’t worry — no one expects you to have heard of this movie!) in that it exists on a more intense visceral level with a second sarcastic layer of social satire and political commentary layered on top. I’m not really surprised this went over the writers head. I am genuinely surprised however that the writer could dare claim to be a fan of horror on any level and not bring up the barrage of references to classic horror movies that populate this anime — really, did he not even get the obvious ones in the episode titles?
Artistry and animation you might expect to be brought up in an anime review, especially considering the many interesting directorial choices, quite possibly the most interesting part of this sub-par, manga-lite adaption. No mention.
This is a perfect example of how not to do a review — vague, prejudiced, ignorant, poorly written, arrogant, a review that examines something on only the most conceivably base level. Only one thing was done correctly (two actually, the english dub is horrible which was properly identified) — the option was given to rate this post.
Here’s my rating: one star. Very poor.
September 14th, 2011 at 8:42 PM
Wow, alright here we go.
You’re talking to someone who clearly identifies themselves with the “average person” so hell no am I not gonna mention the finer points of this show. And this is coming from everyone I’ve talked to before I review it for myself who gave this show a “Never Watch.” Oh, and surprise surprise, this shining through male actually read Twilight, so I guess that could equate to how poorly I thought of this anime. Oh, and, here’s another shocker, I DON’T READ MANGA. So I can’t compare the two. I simply watched this anime for the pure enjoyment of hearing the most badass voice actor of all time, Christopher Sabat, attempt to pull this show from the shambles.
And you don’t find it strange at all that in a global world like this, one year following the first of the Twilight novels, this sudden surge in vampire obsession all over the world? Hmmm, let’s try to connect the dots here. Case in point, the manga of DitVB (cute abbreviation) could have been influenced by the poor shoddy work of Steph to the motherflippin Meyer. (I hesitate to take you seriously with your constant use of swearing to drive a point home.)
Let’s keep this rebuttal train going on this (how should I say it, Bella sympathizer with them bloodsuckers?) and the horror aspect of this. Now I have not seen your Blue Velvet, so thanks for the suggestion, I’ll check it out (Oohh, hidden compliment among all the trash talk.). You need to take a chill pill and truly realize that any vampire, naked or not is a cliche gone out the window. I’m sick of it, my mom’s sick of it, and I think you’d agree, the world is sick of vampires. So pardon me if this show came to my knowledge at the absolutely wrong time. Okay, horror movies? Let’s see… hmm… What should I say about this… Prom Night? Yep, seen it. The Howling? Check. Teen Wolf? Yep. Interview with a Vampire? More thriller but yeah. Would you like me to continue? And THOSE AREN’T EVEN WHAT’S CONSIDERED IN THE VEIN OF HORROR FILMS. I’m talking Ringu, The Eye (original) Ju-On, The Host, Halloween (entire series), Thirst (a legit horror movie about vampires), The Hills Have Eyes, Bela Lugosi shizz, not those fan based “horror” films the titles suggest. Let’s get real horror here. I’m talking An American Haunting, The Blair Witch Project. EXORCIST.
And yeah, those vampire wings can flap on over if they’d like, but I was so bored to tears of this so bold and brazen vampire story, I couldn’t believe it. Oh my nudity? Seen that. The taboo of those born in different times and the struggle with that fact? Yep, that’s straigh outta everything. Little known fact? Also, TWILIGHT. Cause, you know, everything is a Twilight reference these days, sucka. The political and satirical commentary? Are you talking about the big vampire families and them ravaging Mina Tepes? (and yes, I get the Vlad the Impaler nod, and yet, they insulted me by saying it straight out anyway. For shame.) Sure, call a 12 episode anime what you’d like, it and the manga should’ve died long ago. And don’t tell me that contrived vampire skin lotion wasn’t just to explain how they can walk around in the daylight. If it was a hardcore vamp story, silver stakes, crosses, sunlight, no reflections, and they can’t enter without being invited. Most of those little facts were overlooked. And what’s this straight B.S. about vampires transforming in whatever the hell they want? The iguana beast? Come on. Vampires are more classy. They stay the way THEY WERE BITTEN, thus negating Mina’s unnecessary transformation into her whorish woman form (Unless she was bitten then, and then it still makes no sense.) So yes, you were right about some points, but I guess I should’ve clarified for the MOVIE/ANIME/VIDEO GAME/MUSIC/MISC. audience I am speaking to, and not directly to you and your high evaluation of Dance in the Vampire Bund. I’m a PERSON of few words, but you forced me to react.
And I give the fact you ranted about this a poor evaluation as a person. No stars, no thumbs up. And no, I didn’t get a hard on to this or One Piece, both of which I consider terrible. Congratulations, you just got destroyed.
September 14th, 2011 at 8:58 PM
lololol
September 30th, 2011 at 2:02 PM
Great website…
Cool post, I really enjoyed reading it. I will check out your site for some more content on this subject….
October 2nd, 2011 at 2:33 AM
I like how this reviewer loathes the shows cliche parts. Even better, I like how the reviewer hates that it doesn’t have even more vamp cliches such as staying the way they were bitten, not being able to enter without being invited, ect. And I really enjoyed how he hates the “contrived” aspects the show uses to try and be a little bit different such as the advanced research (lotion and the bombs, ect) and the transformations. Nice.
The first episode is pretty terrible, but I found the show as a whole quite enjoyable and worth a watch. The nods at other vampire stories is interesting, and Minas Tepes’ personality struggling with her own wishes versus her duties was enjoyable.