Blood Lad – 04

Meet the family.

I’ve been made aware that my posts are getting awfully wall-of-text-y and thus hard to read. With this in mind, I will try to keep my paragraphs shorter in the future so that they do not look as formidable as they do up til now. I’m always open to criticism and suggestions, so if any of you readers do have some concern, do not hesitate to make it known, just as has been done with the readability of my posts. That said, on to the show.

Horrible Siblings

This’ll only hurt a bit.

Last time we saw that Staz has problems with his big bro, Braz. And now we have a bit of background on the situation. Braz, for whatever reason he has, wants to kill Staz. Of course, he’s never succeeded as Staz is clearly still alive and well (mostly). But he has managed to accomplish the next best thing: sealing Staz’s powers. It’s not yet made clear why Braz was after Staz’s life under the pretense of unlocking his powers. Moreover, its even more suspicious that he seemingly lost interest after sealing away Staz’s powers. But I can only imagine that perhaps Staz overpowers both of his siblings normally and Braz felt his position threatened as a result. Or equally likely he simply can’t stand the thought of someone being stronger than him, if he’s as snobbish as Staz would have us believe.

Must… *breathe* Kill… *breathe* Brother…

And speaking of siblings, we’re also introduced to the third and youngest of the Blood siblings: Liz.¹ As mentioned in the comments previously, she’s that girl with the mask(s) that we keep seeing in the OP. And it’s quickly apparent that she’s not much more fond of Staz than Braz is, although it’s hinted she doesn’t really have an innate dislike for Staz. Instead, her problem with the middle sibling is that he ran away from home. This makes him a disgrace to the family in her eyes, and obviously black sheep should be chopped up with giant axes, crushed by giant brass-nuckle wielding fists from the sky, and then thrown into jail if they’re still not dead. Seriously though, it’s more than likely she’ll come around soon enough, considering her only problem with Staz stems from what is essentially a misunderstanding about a situation created by Braz.

Bell and Fuyumi

How to manhandle Bell.

Moving on, we get some exposition on the Acropolis, which conveniently sets up several developments. The Acropolis is unsurprisingly revealed to be the home of elite demons who set the rules of the demon world. There’s talk of having to conquer every territory in order to gain entrance to the Acropolis, which suggests some sort of hierarchy system beyond simple street gangs. I guess as a demon controls an increasingly large amount of territory, he assigns “deputies” who help micromanage formerly individual territories. And then when said top demon controls all of the demon world, he “graduates” to the Acropolis while his underlings duke it out, thus repeating the loop. Legacy apparently applies though, so as long as a demon is of “noble” lineage, he is allowed the privilege of living in the Acropolis.

Beer and flirting.

Of course, this means Staz should technically be able to waltz back into Acropolis. And if he weren’t so reluctant or his sister so displeased, he would have probably done so. But that’s not the case, so Bell comes into the picture with her ever convenient spatial magic. I’ve previously discussed how hard it is to deal with the massive troll, but here we see that it’s actually not so bad. You just need to grab her by the collar and spout some cool-sounding lines like Wolf does. That’s right: the secret to beating Bell is just to sound like a badass, which Staz learns the hard way. He gets suckered into yet another unwinnable situation against the spatial mage after a bit of flirting in her room. But fortunately he’s able to turn the tables, because she ends up all doki doki for the vampire after he spouts a few cool-sounding lines of his own.

Why so kawaii?

While Staz and Bell were flrting, however, things aren’t going so well for Fuyumi. We’ve previously been led to believe that her disappearing act in the second episode was due to her inability to survive in the human world as a low-level demon. However, that’s clearly not the case as she starts disappearing again; this time in the demon world. The one working remedy we’ve seen is Staz’s blood, but the guy is too busy being pushed around by his little sister, so Wolf brings her to the local mad scientist, appropriately named Frankenstein. I guess we’ll find out next time what her deal is, since it would be awfully strange for a demon to be incapable of surviving in the demon world, even if she used to be human.

Extras

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This episode brings an expansion on the workings of the demon world, which is much appreciated. Bell’s development is also a nice change in my eyes, as it really helps take the edge off of her usually grating character. She’s technically still just as manipulative and selfish, but at least we see that she has a bit of a mellow and romantic side, even if her idea of what’s romantic is highly questionable. I guess being as powerful as she is, she likes to be challenged and dominated by a good, strong man? That statement is rife with potentially unwelcome gender stereotypes though, so I guess I’d better take my leave before things start getting political.

¹I swear they gave her the exact same respirator sfx that was used in Star Wars for Darth Vader.

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