S-MAC’s Anime Review: Rosario+Vampire

You know what? I actually had a lot of fun writing a review for a bad anime. So, I’ll try it again. And just to let you know, this is probably the only fanservice bomb I will ever watch/review. So, here we go!

Genres: Romantic Comedy, Ecchi, Harem, School life, Slice-of-life
Synopsis: Tsukune Aono accidentaly enrolls in a school for monsters, isolated from the human world. He'a about to leave when he meets a sweet girl named Moka, who happens to be a split personality vampire. Pretty soon, he's got monster girls going after him left and right. How's he supposed to hide his human identity now?

Story and Characters:

After being a part of the anime community for about a year and a half, I have come to a safe conclusion that Japan will come up with ANYTHING to ensure a harem situation (One guy, several female romantic interests). And this is the case with Rosario+Vampire. While this doesn’t have the most obscure premise, I didn’t think a harem was necessary, honestly. The story is set at Yokai Academy, a place secluded from the human world to educate all different kinds of young monsters to coexist with humans. Now, one such unlucky (or rather, lucky) high school student named Tsukune, happens to enroll, without knowing what he’s in for. He ends up “saving” in a sense, many young female monsters, who all end up vying for his attention and romantic interests.  The anime does include some ridiculous lovey-dovey scenes, 30 second action scenes, and essentially, an episodic presentation (until, like, the last 2 episodes of both seasons). What I’m saying is that there is no coherent plot, and that this show is a romantic comedy with (not so extreme) fanservice.

As for the characters, well, I really didn’t like many of them at all. Pretty much all of the characters were annoying or a jerk. For a main character, Tsukune is rather bland, but he’s at least got a good heart. He’s also NOT a pervert, unlike many fanservice harem animes out there. Outer Moka, in my opinion, was the best character in the entire series. She treated Tsukune nicely, tried to “share” him, and was very kind and sweet overall. But for the other characters, I kind of hated. Kurumu: Loud, annoying chick with big boobs. Yukari: The loli-shojo with an annoying, shrill, high pitched voice (Good job, Monica Rial) Mizore: The weird, creepy, annoying stalker girl. Ruby: The wonder-struck, somewhat annoying who is probably at least 10 years older than Tsukune (I might be wrong, here). And, OH MY GOSH, KOKOA WAS THE WORST. So was her annoying bat. To top it all off, there needed to be one other male character (so Tsukune doesn’t get all the action) who happens to be a pervert. At least Gin was kind of good looking.

Art and Animation:

Rosario+Vampire was produced by studio GONZO, which, from my previous experience with anime, have a very generic style of art for anime. (My previous experience was from the anime Kaze no Stigma. I’ll write a review for that later.) And when I say generic, I don’t necessarily mean in a bad way, just that it doesn’t add or take anything away from the anime itself. Nothing in particular stood out to me art-or-animation wise.  But, it’s just the way it is. Animation wasn’t sloppy, either.

Voice and Music:

I only watched the dub for this show (I’m more of a dub fan than a sub fan). And after watching many titles from the dubbers at Funimation, I think I’ve safely come up with an idea of what their usual treatment for a dub looks like. I’m going to call it SFF, or Standard Funimation Fare. And that’s pretty much exactly what this show has. But, trust me, the dub IS NOT BAD. I think it worked out pretty great, actually. Everyone’s voice suited the characters almost perfectly. There was no over or under-acting, and the script isn’t shabby, either. High points for this dub.

The music, however, is a bit of a different story. None of the OST tracks that play during the anime were terribly memorable (It’s a fanservice romantic comedy, what do you expect?). I will say differently about the 2 opening and ending themes. All sung by Nana Mizuki (Popular Japanese voice actress and singer), they really did resonate with me, and matched the two sides of this anime quite well. The opening themes are peppy and colorful (song and animation), while the ending themes are dark, dramatic, and rich (Again, song and animation). Now if only the anime could’ve done that nice 50/50 with the actual show. 

My enjoyment:

I will be honest, here. I actually enjoyed this anime somewhat. I know, even though I’m a girl, and there was no purposeful plot, this show was mildly interesting. And I think it was this that made me watch this whole series. But I don’t really have an idea what that “force” was. Now that I look back, most of the “annoying” characters weren’t so annoying when I was watching this show. They were irritating, instead of “I-want-to-punch-them-in-the-face” kind of way. But I had to bash them for review purposes.

The Score:

Averaging all four values of the categories listed above, I give Rosario+Vampire a 6.0875 and would recommend this to anyone who wants a lighthearted romance/harem with fanservice. For similar anime, I suggest (Keep in mind I have only read the descriptions for these online and haven’t seen them) To Love Ru and Is This A Zombie. Sorry if these are bad suggestions.

UPDATE 3 MARCH 2014 Scores
Story: 4.0     Characters: 4.0
Art: 5.5     Animation: 6.3
Voice: 8.0     Music: 6.2
Execution: 7.9     My Enjoyment: 6.8

There is a manga review to come (All 18 volumes of Ouran), one (or two) rants, a few fandom posts, and more anime reviews. I hope I am getting better at reviewing anime!

You can find me on MyAnimeList! My username is: GeekFangirl99

Last Updated: 8 April 2014
Originally Posted: 23 December 2013