Dance in the Vampire Bund

Synopsis:

Vampires and werewolves are the stuff of legends, just a myth, right? Well, that's what everyone thought until a young girl named Mina Tepes announces that she is the queen of vampires and has just paid off Japan's national debt and procured land as a haven for vampires to exist in called the Bund. As Mina integrates vampires into society, not everyone is willing to accept such a merger. There are those of the human race that do not want to even acknowledge the existence of monsters but also vampires that want to display their superiority. This, of course, puts Mina in a dangerous position with the constant threat of death from those who wish to oppose Mina's ways but along with the protection of her loyal followers she has chosen one boy, Akira Kaburagi Regendorf, to protect her as her personal bodyguard. The only thing is, he has no idea why. Akira's about to discover something about himself that he forgot long ago.


Reviewer: Endosanity
Number of episodes: 12


Review:

Werewolf and vampires and... other things, oh my! Dance in the Vampire Bund is the complex story of how such beings would live along side us mortals and the rules which govern their lifestyle and... oh wait. I'm thinking of the manga, silly me. Let me start over. Dance in the Vampire Bund, the anime, is the tale of the queen of vampires that resembles an underage girl who's in love with her amnesiac werewolf bodyguard Akira. In the anime's defense though, there is so much going on in the manga that you really couldn't hope to fit much of it into a measly 12 episodes so they chose to loosely base the story off the source material focusing on what most people wanted, the relationship between a young man and an eternally underage girl. Hey, she's the ruler of all vampires. But as the anime tends to jump around from one situation to the next you see what Akira has to deal with to be Mina's guardian and he meets all the challenges head-on and he starts to become quite the likable character. Eventually you start to see how Mina's bull-headed and almost sadistic ways offset him perfectly which makes them a well matched pair despite the physical age difference. The only thing is that this tends to push everyone else aside and practically makes them non-existent in your mind putting the world around Akira and Mina as just a blur.

A dark tale of vampiric proportions? No. If you want that then go read the manga. I can't believe I just said that but it's true. No, what the anime version of Dance in the Vampire Bund is an almost unprogressive forbidden romance that is constantly interrupted by real world events that, at times, you just won't care about. Why? Mainly because of what Dance in the Vampire Bund really encompasses in no way can be portrayed in a mere 12 episodes making the plot seem like it's jumping all over the place with no steady flow to it. What you're left with is an average anime that doesn't give you much more than you started with making for a very medicore viewing experience. It doesn't help that Shaft's presentation was nothing more than an extreme close-up of someone's eye 50% of the time. That's not the usual head-trippy Shaft that I'm used to.

Dance in the Vampire Bund (opening)

Recommendation: |Average|

Online viewing: Available at FUNimations website -

Dance in the Vampire Bund (subtitled)

*Note - You may have to verify your date of birth to watch due to adult content. Also, the only version available is with TV station censorship but as an added bonus you also get FAILimation's own censorship and edits to go with it, YAY!

Media type: Free internet streaming
From: FUNimation
Spoken languages: Japanese
Subtitles: English