Call of the Night

This review contains a few spoilers and this is the 30th review that I wrote so far

My heart is broken.

As I really like the concept of the story, I noticed that they didn’t turn out to be exactly what I thought before. I never really had expectations for this, but there’s only one reason why I watched this show… ROMANCE.

Since I first watched anime, romance is the only genre that introduced me to watching more. I never really cared how many shows I’ve watched, as long as I see the “romance” tag from it, I’m surely sold. If it’s “romance”, I know that it would be good. Even I said to myself that romance is better than action or any other genres out there. There’s no way that romance can take away from me.

Or… so I thought.

One of the best things about romance is when it can combine other genres to it, and the first one is the supernatural. Twilight was the one that introduced to me that world, so I watched any romcom animes that involve vampires, entities, ghosts, etc. I thought I can enjoy all those kinds of animes until I stumbled upon this anime that has pretty good characters and chemistry from the start, top-notched animation, and amazing music, but a gross plot and impossible for me to enjoy. In other words, I stumbled to another STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE show this season… AGAIN.

The story is simple, yet nothing special. Yagami Ko, a “14” year old student has a distaste for school and everyday life. He has so-called insomnia so chooses to skip school and stay up at night, walking around in the city. Okay, let me decipher this first. Well… some people are like that. But wait a minute! First of all, he’s 14 YEARS OLD. Again. FOUR FUCKING TEEN. So it means, he’s a kid, right? He must have his parents living with him, while they should make him go to school. Because it said that he was sneaking outside of his apartment. Let me get back to the previous part. What are his parents doing every day? How could they let their 14-year-old son slack off, not going to school, and wandering the streets at night? Who in their right mind allows their 14-year-old to stay at home instead of going to school? What kind of parents they are? Now that I’ve thought of it, did they think about bringing their son to a therapist? There are dozens of millions of hospitals in Japan, so why not give him medications or therapy to cure his insomnia? I’m sure sleeping pills are still invented at that time, right? And one more thing, not sleeping all night but sleeping all day is a serious problem. But Ko is like an immortal! He didn’t get sick or diagnosed with some shit from not sleeping properly at night, heck even from draining so much blood from feeding his blood to a vampire. Based on his reactions, he seems healthy at all times, not having anemia. Based on my medical research, lack of sleep can affect your immune system. Studies show that people who don't get quality sleep or enough sleep are more likely to get sick after being exposed to a virus, such as a common cold virus. Lack of sleep can also affect how fast you recover if you do get sick. In addition, infection-fighting antibodies and cells are reduced during periods when you don't get enough sleep since your body is producing cytokines. It needs to increase when you have an infection or inflammation when under stress, but it only happens AT NIGHT. This is so outrageous and annoys me on so many levels. Like Michael Jordan said in his commercial, “Stop it. Get some help.”

One night, he stumbled upon a vampire girl named, Nazuna, the perfect new-gen simp material. Young-looking, perverted vampire gal with barely any clothes on. Wow! It’s another waifu bait, isn’t it? She befriends him and brings him to her apartment. They sleep, and she bites his neck, but he doesn’t turn into a vampire. She said that for a human to turn into a vampire, they must fall in love.
Now the premise of the show is over, let’s get into the bad.

For starters, it’s disturbing when Nazuna manipulates Ko in some ways, and the soft-porn jokes aren’t funny. Ko has the free will to decide whether he wants to go to school or not, while she’s trying to lead Kou down a dark path just for her enjoyment. She wants to suck her blood; Ko wants to be a vampire. But it only works if he falls in love with her, which apparently, he isn’t. She keeps biting him again and again but nothing happens. That’s the whole story.

This show is targeted at males. The women in this show are being sexualized a lot, with applauding shots of Akira’s thighs, and a bunch of sexual imagery of Nazuna. It’s like the new norm, yet the same problem in the anime industry, just to please men. Not to mention the blatant pedophilia, which grosses me out. Why? Short and straight answer, some of the characters in this show are minors.

Before I get to that part, I just wanna say that I don’t mind watching age-gap romance shows. I’m open-minded to watch any kind of that, except for those shows where the minors are being molested. It’s okay if it’s hentai since it’s my guilty pleasure but in this case… EWW… As in! A big emphasis! That’s the obvious reason why this show is that gross. The word, “pedophilia” from Yofukashi isn’t the appropriate word to describe this. But the fact that a 40-year-old woman is molesting a 14-year-old boy, makes me puke and wants me to describe it.

Let me restate that Ko is a 14-year-old. It's very explicit and obvious that he is only 14 and it's made a point that he is emotionally childish as well, not even knowing what a kiss is. They even go as far as to have sex. That’s the part when pedophilia enters the stage. Nazuna manipulates Ko in some sexual manner, sexualizes him openly, as well as encourages him (the child, remember?) to fall in love with her. And the funny part is, she’s an adult! It’s like I’m watching a hentai reverse rape, with the manipulation of an adult. Do you know Esther from the horror movie? “Orphan”? This show is exactly like that. The adult woman manipulates the man who is younger than her, to have sex. “How is Nazuna an adult, while she’s an immortal vampire?” Bruh… She drinks a bunch of beers with him at a bar. And even vampires are immortal, there are others the same age as Ko. Check out Jitsu wa Watashi wa and Rosario to Vampire, which are better shows than this.

This is the part where I’m disappointed. IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A ROMANCE??

After many years of watching different kinds of romance, this is one of those shows that I don’t know if this is a romance or not. I can tell if a show or a movie is romance, based on the interactions and the atmosphere of the show. But in this show, I don’t know if the romance is forced due to the pedophilic ways, or just nothing at all. Even a little bit of subtext, there isn’t one. Heck, this show isn’t even a romantic subtext and the way the material was promoted it’s a supernatural romantic comedy. The show didn’t have any romance at all. I just watched a show about a lazy-ass MC, with a pedophilic adult woman, and watched him as he builds his own “harem”. It’s sad to know that my first and favorite genre is being treated like this.

So let’s go with the characters. They are lazy, bland, and average as it is best. The characters aren’t anything special, they are just to make the flow less stale. They didn’t develop and they just stayed as they are. Things happen but do not affect the world. And so episodes go by one by one until we are almost at the end and still nothing has happened. Well, to be honest, there are some parts of the characters like Nazuna and Ko that were entertaining. But the rest of the characters make me yawn. Not bad, not great, but plain. Nothing more and nothing less.

What can I say about the animation and the music? It’s obvious that they are great, so let’s skip this part.

In the end, it’s not as great as the manga readers or others said. Even the opinion of Gigguk about this is pretty shitty, but I don’t watch his videos anyways. It’s just the anime is being overhyped to the next level, while the product doesn’t have the actual substance. It’s the same fate for most of the popular animes, that ended up being average ones. If the substance can match the impressive style, it would be great. But so far, I’m disappointed in this show. I even think that I wasted my time in consuming this. It’s a bit enjoyable, but something like this just gets pretty hard to ignore after a certain point.

For the summary of my review, this show is horny teenager bait. I never felt this way bad when watching a romance anime about vampires. This could be a great story if the author removed the age gap and the fact that a 40-year-old woman taking advantage of a kid. A show that successfully imitates the Monogatari style, look, and sound, but lacks clever writing and thematic substance. I guess… People are just easy to please.

___Story: 5/10
Animation: 8/10
Characters: 5/10
Sound: 7/10
Entertainment factor: 4/10
Enjoyment: 5/10
Score: 5/10___