Streaming: Funimation
Episodes: 12
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: Ronaldo is the world’s premiere vampire hunter, so when he catches wind of a potential vampire-related kidnapping involving Draluc, a so-called progenitor vampire, he jumps at the chance to intervene. As Ronaldo enters Draluc’s lair, however, it’s obvious that the situation is not quite what it seems. The missing child has just been sneaking in to play Draluc’s video games, and Draluc is so weak that he turns to sand at the slightest provocation. Though Ronaldo tries to handle things as a proper vampire hunter, one thing leads to another and he ends up destroying Draluc’s home.
Now homeless, Draluc travels to Ronaldo’s agency and takes up residence there. As the two argue over the propriety of this arrangement, Ronaldo is called to handle another local vampire crisis, this time at the convenience store right downstairs. There, a wannabe vampire threatens a hostage. But of course, the situation is somewhat more emotionally complex and involves an unrequited love never fated to be successful. With the local journalists now aware of Ronaldo’s “arrangement” with Draluc, there’s no going back to being a one-man operation for Ronaldo.
Impressions: Hey look, we’ve got a madcap comedy over here! Anime comedies aren’t rare, but there was a time where what we used to call “crack anime” was much more common. These types of shows were goofy and absurd and didn’t give you a lot of time to think too deeply about what was happening – they were kind of like being beaten over the head with a stick. You know, in a fun way.
That type of anime seems to be much more rare nowadays, with anime comedy skewing more towards situational comedy that isn’t quite so fast-paced. The Vampire Dies in No Time definitely isn’t quite a return to glory for crack anime, but it certainly expresses some of those features and I found myself on a bit of a nostalgia trip all the same.
The show’s central gag is that Draluc is so weak that he turns to sand when the very slightest negative thing occurs. Some situations that provoke this are:
- Getting hit by a door
- Getting karate-chopped
- Seeing his video game get stepped on
- Being embarrassed
- Getting sprayed by a questionably-branded scent remover
- Getting caught in an automatic door
…and many other things that I will leave to you to discover on your own. I’m typically a little bit bored by one-joke comedy shows, but the catch with that is that if the escalation of comedic stakes (or comedic ridiculousness) is handled well, then it tends to breathe a little more life into something that might otherwise turn stale rather quickly.
This show doesn’t really have a lot of meat on its bones to talk about or analyze; it’s simply a goofy show about an odd-couple pairing of dudes who accidentally stumble into a shared purpose. There are a lot of visual gags that come and go in a matter of seconds. It’s not complicated at all. But it is pretty funny and serves as a nice counterpoint to some contemporary shows that like to take themselves more seriously, and I can’t really be mad about that.
Pros: This episode has a nice visual style, with colorful character designs and background art. It’s the sort of series that’s not top-tier as far as animation resources are concerned, but it uses what it has at its disposal to express visual comedy in an effective way.
Ronaldo’s and Draluc’s personalities are portrayed in a way that allows them to butt heads with one another, but aren’t so oversimplified as to become annoying. Ronaldo is a haughty celebrity type that has some sense of what he needs to do in order to maintain his image in the eyes of the public, but who falls apart a little more easily than one would expect, giving him a more sympathetic air than he might have otherwise. Draluc tries to fake the “spooky, powerful vampire” image, but is such a clear disaster that it’s hard not to feel sort of sorry for him. When the two come to verbal blows, their hostility never reaches the point of pure or effective hatred, which allows the show to maintain its goofy tone.
I like that the vampire mythology in this series changes things up a little bit, including revealing the existence low-grade vampires who lack the ability to fully “turn” people. There are apparently also medical interventions that can be taken to prevent people from fully transforming into vampires, which feels very modern.
Cons: There are a couple of gags that don’t hit, mostly because they deal with sort of gross material. There’s a few lines of dialog during the characters’ initial encounter where Ronaldo still believes that Draluc has kidnapped a village child, and he accuses Draluc of being both a shotacon and a lolicon. It’s just something that I find to be in poor taste.
Content Warnings: Cartoonish violence, including slapstick and some silly traps. Brief jokes about shotacon/lolicon.
Would I Watch More? – I don’t tend to make a lot of room for comedies like this anymore because I tend to get tired of them partway through, but I could see coming back to this one at some point if I catch wind that it stays funny and mostly harmless instead of relentlessly mean-spirited (which is always the trap of these kind of comedic scenarios).
