It all starts with references

▶ Video In the second OP, the teacher puffs on her cigarette like Onizuka in the first GTO OP Mamoru Oshii - living legend is back. So much time has passed, time to create something new! But Vlad Love is more like the 12 episodes of Urusei Yatsura in a new package. Twelve wonderful episodes, where one of the most famous directors in the industry is do Sh1tposting. The anime was filmed without a production committee, with the investment of 4 studios. Therefore, the series consists only of what the director loves. Nothing for random zoomers, anime for himself and for those who are not indifferent.

Oshii loves his creativity, so he uses his insanely outdated ways of presenting comedy, and allows to redraw some of his own work.

Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993) VS Vlad Love (2021)

Oshii loves games, so game references are everywhere: Follout (shouting STIMPAK), cosplayer girl constantly in Chun Li's outfit, an entire episode dedicated to the production of Castle of Vania, because F*** Konami.

He is very fond of his dog, the signature Basset Hound is here

Oshii loves cinematography, # 7 with a post about the director's life as a creator, # 8 re-filmed scenes of boomers films like the 1970 Sunflower.

I havn't watched this movie, but it has good reviews

Ep #9 and Grandpa calls Oshiyama to help him make Yoshihara Tsuge's spooky Sh1tposting.

A small festive spectacle for those who know firsthand about Beautiful Dreamer and Tenshi no Tamago

In the fourth episode, I hooked on one unfamiliar word - Nanmaider, a reference to Osomatsu-san. Quite by the way, because only Osomatsu today can afford to do something like that - to talk about his incomprehensible, but interesting (sh1tposting).
But Osomatsu suffers from frantic self-censorship, and only laughs at his heroes. Grandpa is not shy, and make fun of his bro Miyazaki.
And adds the typical dialogue of anime fans who will discuss CG and the amount of budget in a scene. And CG was not there ...

Vlad Love completely depends on Oshii's wishes, without looking at the audience. This is rare today because a committee-led production system imposes enormous constraints (Neverland 2 could have been just a manga adaptation, but the production committee decided otherwise). Few people can create something of their own that will not be decided by the committee, and even fewer have the resources for this.
The system has reached a dead end for a long time, and Vlad Love shows that this can and should be corrected. At the very least, you can respect the show for that.