Review #30-Diabolik Lovers

Welcome all to another review! Today we will be covering another shoujo (girl) anime, granted not a very good one, in Diabolik Lovers. This series is more or less considered the Twilight of anime. So be prepared for that, and beware of minor SPOILERS.

Now without further ado, let us begin the review.

Summary: Yui Komori’s father moves abroad, so he sends her to live in a new town with the six Sakamaki brothers. When she arrives at their mansion, she discovers that they are vampires. They abuse her psychologically and physically, often feeding off her. While she optimistically accepts her situation, she unravels mysteries both of their past and her own.

Plot: 4/10

Diabolik Lovers simultaneously has no plot and an atrocious plot at the same time. How is this possible? The first half of the show hints at a mildly interesting backstory, but is completely overshadowed by the fanservice that is the protagonist getting her blood sucked every single episode! This continues until the second half of the show, where more of a plot develops, and I use the term plot loosely. It is more like a collection of supposed backstories for the characters that some how translates to the modern day. Next to nothing is clearly explained, and motivation is next to nonexistent for the characters to drive the plot. Throw in some random events that make no sense/ are actually deus ex machina for the plot, and you see the trouble even more clearly. While the plot itself is able to be followed, it is full of holes due again to a lack of explanation. It is more crammed into the anime to justify watching it some minuscule degree, if not just for the fanservice. The overall mood is also completely lost with fanservice, making anime seem more erotic than the horror it claims to be.

Characters: 3/10

With such a big cast, you really only feel you are interacting with two omnipresent characters during the entire show run time. All the brother, while there are six, feel about the same, being angry as their primary personality trait. While they do each have some quirks to distinguish themselves, it is easily lost between their anger and possessiveness. What are they possessive of you might ask? The main protagonist Yui, of course. She is extremely weak willed and receives next to no development, much like all the vampire brothers. You just end up feeling bad for her, contrary to what the anime was trying to do. The main villains receive more development than all the other characters combined, despite being truly present for two, maybe three, episodes.

Animation: 10/10

The only real appeal of this show is the pretty good animation. The background and character designs are all well drawn and attractive, to say the least. They appear to be somewhat stylized, but it actually fits with the series.

Soundtrack: 5/10

The show’s soundtrack is not really that bad, but it does not make good use of its soundtrack. The opening and ending are misleading to the mood and nature of the show, making it seem much more horror than it is. This causes it to basically emphasize how not scary the show is.

Themes: 3/10

The show is very very limited in its themes outlook. It mostly focuses on how women should behave and family relations. Basically, it screams do not be like these characters if you want happiness. The genres it was trying to fit into, such as horror and drama, are not present, being drowned out by the excessive blood sucking and sexual harassment.

Final Score: 5.2/10

Final Grade: F

B-Ro’s Take

Diabolik Lovers was an awful anime. The anime starts off not having any plot what so ever to going head first into what is supposed to be some deep plot. Even once they added the plot it felt forced and honestly a plot was not necessary for this kind of show. This show should have just been a fan service vampire show for women, but of course they had try to throw a plot in. Also there were way too many characters. They tried to develop all of the characters but it just ended up doing nothing for them and it just seemed sloppy the way they went about doing so. The character were also all hate fueled, except for the main character who just too docile. The only thing this show really had going is the animation, it was really good but not enough so to redeem the show. Out of 10 I would give this show a 4. I recommend this show to anyone who wants a lot of male vampire fan service, but if that is not your thing do yourself a favor and don’t watch the show. – B-Ro

LowKev’s Take

Idea Factory, we meet once again. However, it doesn’t look like this series was made by the same people as Skelter Heaven or Mars of Destruction (first clue: there is more than one episode), and of the three Idea Factory based animes reviewed here, this one is by far the best. Granted, that’s not saying much, and it is honestly still quite terrible. I love how this is supposed to be considered “horror”. If this is any form of horror, it would be torture porn, which to me can be a little scary, but more shocking and disgusting (and is usually more of a chore to watch than it is worth). It’s almost torture for me having to watch random distressed girl be victimized by a knockoff, uncool, not scary vampire boy band (and I bet their name as said boy band would be something stupid like Fangz!, or The Diabolik Lovers. Oh wait….). By the way, did you know Diabolik is actually an Anti-Hero character from Italian Comics? That character’s story sounds much more interesting than this anime… So each episode pretty much goes like this: poor distressed girl Yui gets near one of the vampires, the vampire(s) sexually harass her and suck her blood in a very long and drawn out way (combined with stupid, possessive and degrading dialogue from the vampire(s)), and maybe a sentence of plot comes out as well. Is this supposed to be scary? Or even the least bit spooky? If so, can someone tell them that too much repetition and predictability kills the scare factor? The first time one of the v-angst-ires (sorry, bad pun) tries to suck Yui’s blood, it was a little unsettling in how sexually harassing it was for Yui. But then it keeps happening and happening… I got sick of it by episode 3, and it happens multiple times each episode!! None of the vampires are likeable or scary, just annoying and enraging, though they do provide great drinking game ideas! Take a drink every time one of the characters attempt to suck Yui’s blood, or every time “bitch chan” is mentioned… I definitely felt bad for Yui, but there really isn’t much to her character, and I never really cared to learn the supposed “mystery” of why she’s there. Come to think of it, this plot has a lot of loose ends, and more holes than poor Yui’s neck (okay, I’ll stop with the bad jokes). Again, there is really only a few sentences of plot per episode. There is a quick conflict at the end, and then that conflict just sort of ends. There are plot twists, but I didn’t really care to be shocked. The music, however, is pretty good and fitting for something in the horror genre. While I don’t personally like the opening, I get what it was trying to do tone-wise, and the ending is just spooky and fast orchestral music. Here’s the problem though: this anime is not scary or horrific. Putting horror type music in something as not scary as this just emphasizes how not scary this is! That combined with the visual style shows that they wanted it to be scary, but really failed in my eyes. I’m guessing this anime is more for the Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey crowd, which I’m certainly not part of. It was a chore to watch this, even with shorter episodes, and I cannot recommend it.

Final Comments: With its only true redeeming quality being animation, Diabolik Lovers leads the viewer into a terrible plot and overload of fanservice, despite implying with many elements that it is actually something it is not.

Thank you for reading our review! If you are interested in supporting us, give us a like of Facebook or follow on Twitter. Our next review shall be Wagnaria!!.