April Anime 2025 Week 3

The Introductory post of this series.

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2025/04/anime-year-2025-2026.html

My Anilist Profile.

https://anilist.co/user/KuudereKun888/

And my Social Media

https://c.im/@KuudereKun

GQuuuuuuX episode 2 documents the point of divergence from the usual UC timeline.  Next episode will be back to the new main cast.

Episode 10 of Loner Life In Another World was good. 

The finale of Ameku M.D. was good.  I’m giving the show as a whole an 8. 

I decided to put Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty on hold during episode 3.  I don’t like its use of CGI and was finding some aspects of it surprisingly dull.

Weird how I’m saying On Hold still when I’ve moved to different Database websites, that language has become the default of how many fans talk in general.  Anilsit and Anime-Planet each use a different term, Paused and Stalled.

Episode 1159 of Detective Conan was a decent episode but I didn’t feel like how the movie tie episodes usually feel. The Detective Conan World Wiki is no longer listing who wrote this episode like they were last week, so maybe what I said last week was mistaken. 

Lazarus episode 3 was great, things are really getting interesting now. 

The season 2 premiere of Slime 300 was pretty fun. 

I won’t always be commenting on what Anime I’ve watched outside of what’s currently airing.  But this week I felt like mentioning how I’ve rewatched YU-NO which still holds up great and done a bunch of Gundam watching.  Rewatched Char’s Counterattack and The Origin and some episodes of some other shows.  And I watched for the first time the 08th MS Team which was phenomenal, and Requiem for Vengeance which I have a few mixed feelings on but is overall pretty good, and the first 3 episodes of 0083 Stardust Memory.

Before that I’d rewatched Str.A.In, 86 and a bunch of Code Geass. 

Update April 21st: Well Ubel Blatt's dub dropped on Amazon's Prime Video but after watching 5 episode the dub for Episode 6 somehow isn't loading, so this has caused an annoyance.

Further Update: That issues was fixed the next day.  After finishing the show I will say it's good but it's not a kind of Anime I'm into that much.  It's an adaptation of a Manga that started in 2004 and so is a throwback to a particularly style of Edgy Anime that was already on the way out when it started.

There are a couple things I find interesting about it.

The Empire being depicted has a Holy Roman Empire structure, I know I'd said that before about War on Geminar but this is even more explicit even using the term Elector.  So it's always a big refreshing when a Medieval Fantasy shows familiarity with more then just England and France.

The main character is clearly a Vampire even though they aren't using the word.  I generally don't like Vampires being thrown into full Fantasy settings, I think they're more interesting as a Secret history in the real world.  But in this case I'm intrigued by them actually throwing back to the old 19th Century Ruthven rules with him being healed by the Moonlight.

Penny Dreadful on Showtime

Now that Showtime is on Paramount+ I'm finally checking this show out, 4 episodes in at the moment.

In my repeated discussions of the Anime Community's Three Episode Rule I've at least once said that it maybe shouldn't even be limited Anime, that many Western shows also have Pilots that aren't exactly their best episode.  In the case of Penny Dreadful though I definitely see it even fitting the YGG's observation that it is often 3 episodes for a show's Premise to be clear.  In this case it takes 3 episodes for the main protagonists to officially form their little pact, and episode 3's take on The Creature managed to be both unique and surprisingly respectful to the original novel at the same time.

I was aware of this show as it aired, seeing some conversations about it on the old IMDB Boards.  I was annoyed that it named itself for this obscure medium of 19th Century Entertainment but then took it's characters from the usual 19th Century Novels, I wanted to see Varney The Vampyre finally get some Hollywood spotlight.

I also remember hearing that The Creature was using the name Caliban from The Tempest, so watching this soon after finishing The Witch Form Mercury is amusing

I'm not sure how much of it I'm gonna watch.  Sometimes it's been pretty Entertaining, sometimes it's boring.

Update: Episode 6 really draws my attention to how The Creature is kind of an Incel.

Teenage Vampires can never be guilty of Statutory Rape

 I’ve noticed there being an issue in Vampire fiction discourse lately, tied to the summer Anime Call of The Night but also older stuff like Twilight, of these Teenage vampires being called “Pedophiles” for being in relationships with people the same age as them simply because they’ve technically been around for decades or centuries longer.

Most Proshippers defend this with the usual “it’s not real” argument which I do support.  But this problem runs deeper because it’s really not even accurate to what the scientific reality of such creatures hypothetically actually existing would be.

Everyone gets that if you are turned into a Vampire at a very young age you stop aging, physically, and will thus never truly grow up, physically.  The problem is these people are assuming these Vampires would still age and mature mentally, emotionally and psychologically.  But that isn’t how it works, if physical aging freezes that also freezes the brain which in some key ways isn’t actually fully developed till about 25.

There is more to adulthood and maturity than how long you’ve existed.  The hypothetical scenario of someone who’s been 16 for 600 years would only be different mentally from other 16 year olds in having a larger pool of memories to remember.  Experience in and of itself does not equal maturity, maturing lies in how your brain processes that experience and a brain frozen at a teenage state of development cannot process that experience properly.

One YT video I watched on Twilight said that what makes someone an adult is their “position of power” or something and so the reason Edward hasn’t become an adult is because he’s still living as a dependent basically.  That’s a bad argument, there are normal people still living with their parents in their 40s and they shouldn't be dating teenagers.  In my argument it wouldn't matter if a Teenage vampire was living on their own, a Hundred years on the streets for them would create less maturity then one year on the streets for a normal teenager because their Brain at least developed some during that year, the vampire’s did not.  And plenty of people have held power as teenagers, Alexander The Great conquered a city and rebuilt it in his name serving as Regent at 16, are we going to treat such a person as less of a minor then a regular 16 year old?  I don't think we should.

But it's not just the Brain, part of the reason Teenagers can't be trusted to make rational decisions related to Sex is that their Hormones are in a more chaotic state then they will be when they're an adult.

Now Vampires are Supernatural creatures so if a writer wants to ignore that Science and write their physically Teenage Vampire as mentally an adult that’s fine.  This is directed at Smug Tumblr and Twitter Antis who think they’re on some moral high ground by insisting on treating fictional Teenage Vampires as Adults even when the writers are clearly not writing them that way.  Because most Teenage Vampires in fiction are clearly written to be Teen characters in Teen dramas.

It’s Vampires who were turned even younger who are sometimes written as “body of a child and the mind of an adult” (Speaking of that tagline the Detective Conan franchise often stresses the use of the word “shunkun” over “deaged” when defining Conan and  Haibara’s condition).  Like for example that one antagonist on the Blade TV series (only version of Blade I’ve actually seen believe it or not).

This difference in approach is only a problem when both clearly seem to exist in the same universe, which off the top of my head I can’t confirm ever has been the case.  If it were though an in-universe explanation could still be contrived.

Thing is, it is especially the Antis in the Anime Community who I know are being hypocrites about this. Any excuse to accuse an Anime or its fans of encouraging problematic behavior they’ll latch onto even when one runs contrary to the logic they used against a different show or character previously.

As in they'll call a Vampire who's been 16 for a 100 years a statutory rapist for being in a relationship with a 17 year old human, but put the same vampire in a relationship with a 35 year old human and then they'll repeat all the facts I talked about to explain why the adult looking character is in fact more mature.

Update: I wrote this in part framed as discourse around Call of The Night even though I hadn't seen any of it yet.  Turns out the main Vampire of that show was turned in her 20s, but maybe still under 25, so that framing wound up being awkward.  But it's still not just about that, it's also about things like Twilight discourse.

Halloween Anime Recommendations Redux

I figured I’m long overdue for an updating of my Anime Halloween Recommendations.  This one will mostly not be about ranking them besides that I will start with is my Number 1.  Instead I will divide it into sections.

I’ll try to always identify places where you can legally stream them, but some can’t be legally streamed anywhere and I feel it's risky to publicly name any unofficial sites on my public blog.  Note anything I say is on Crunchyroll should also be on VRV, but at this point VRV is no longer worth the extra money it costs. I think more of these are on HIDIVE than any other single site, fortunately HIDIVE has a fairly cheap monthly subscription, and they offer a 14 day Free trial.

My Absolute Number 1.

Is still Higurashi When They Cry.  But it has become necessary recently for me to qualify myself.  Start with the first season of the original 2006 Studio Deen Anime which you can watch on HIDIVE, sadly only that of the older Higurashi Anime was ever Dubbed.  Then watch Season 2 also on HIDIVE which is also called Kai.  

Then take a break, sit on that material knowing that for a long time that was the entire story besides some ambiguously canonical side stories.  

Then watch the Rei OVAs also on HIDIVE, then the Kira OVAs which aren’t.  

Then watch Umineko When They Cry which also isn’t legally streaming anywhere, most hardcore fans hate that Anime especially but I prefer it to the VN’s story.

Then take a longer break, and consider watching Gou and SOTSU which are Higurahsi When They Cry New on Hulu.  I find these to have worthwhile content but not nearly the masterpieces the original story was.  So please treat their canonicity as optional.  [August 2022 Update: Gao and Stosu are also on Crunchyroll now including an English Dub.  I hate that this has a Dub but not Kai or Rei.]

Part 2: Some Retro Recommendations.

I mean truly retro, like even most Millennials can't remember when they were brand new.

The Vampire Princess Miyu OVAs from the 80s which are on three Free streaming sites, TubiTV, RetroCrush and Midnightpulp.  It’s a four episode OVA originally but sometimes it’s streamed as two Volumes in which what is usually referred to as the second episode is part of Volume 1.  Also in this case only the Dub is streaming for some reason. [Update March 2023: it's gone from Tubi now but still on the other two.]

Vampire Hunter D, the original 1986 film which holds up better than it’s overhyped sequel.  HIDIVE streams this one both Subbed and the Sentai Dub, which is a good Dub.  But it seems that you will have to turn to Piracy or finding old VHS tapes if you want to experience the original Streamline Dub.

Kyoufu Densetsu Kaiki! Frankenstein called in English The Monster Of Frankenstein or Frankensteins Monster, Horror Legend - Bizarre! Frankenstein.  This movie also isn’t legally streaming anywhere. I watched it on YouTube, however it might not be there anymore since it’s Toei and they've gotten more aggressive recently as PreCure and Sailor Moon focused YouTubers have learned.  It has a Dub that was actually recorded in the 80s, like one of the very oldest Dubs in existence.  I reviewed the movie on MAL a few years ago.

Part 3: Some Millennial era Stuff.

Nightwalker which is an Anime I talked about earlier in the Month. [Update: it's now on RetroCrush]

Hellsing, I only recommend the original, never Ultimate.  This one’s on Funimation.  [Update August 2022: Hellsing is on Cruncyhroll now.]

Witch Hunter Robin, which I’m personally very nostalgic for, but I don’t know how many others remember it.  It’s also on Funimation.  [Update March 2023: and now it's on Crunchyroll.]

Princess Resurrection is more Campy Halloween fun than ever actually scary, but I enjoyed it.  It’s another one on HIDIVE.

Part 4: If you’re into Fate/ try some other Nasuverse Type Moon stuff.

Kara No Kyoukai, called Garden of Sinners in English, can now be streamed on Crunchyroll but it doesn’t have a Dub.  It’s from UFOtable who did the Fate/Zero Anime, the TV Anime of Unlimited Blade Works and the Heaven’s Feel movies so it looks as great as they do.  And Yuki Kajiura does the music which is always a treat.

Tsukihime has an older Anime from 2003 which does have a Dub but isn’t legally streaming anywhere.  Many hate that Anime, but I’m baffled by people who continue to dismiss it but defend Deen/Stay Night. I feel it holds up far better.  Because Tsukihime is more Horror Genre then Fate/ I feel it’s “cheaper” looking presentation suits it better then Deen/Stay Night, similar to Deen’s Higurashi stuff [Update too late: turns out Tsukihime is on HIDIVE as well and I didn't notice.]

Part 5: Zombie Anime

If you want an Anime Version of a George A Romero Zombie movie, I recommend School Live! on HIDIVE.

If you want something more like Zach Snyder’s Zombie movies I recommend HighSchool of The Dead also on HIDIVE. [Update: I also spotted this on Hulu today.]

If you want something outside the standard Zombie format altogether but that still feels appropriate for Halloween, Sankarea was a good show.  I could have sworn I stumbled upon it earlier this year on either Hulu or Netflix, but now it’s showing up only on Funimation.  [Update August 2022: This is on Crunchyroll now.]

Part 6: Something very Modern.

In/Spectre from last year was a very fun and thought provoking show.  It’s on HBOMax and I’m sure other sites too, but I want people to choose sites like HBOmax, Disney+, Netflix or Hulu over Anime specific sites when they can to encourage those sites to consider Anime worth investing in so more Anime can become more easily accessible.  [Update August 2022: and thanks to recent devleoptments I no longer want to encourage people to Sub to HBOmax, fortunately In/Spectre including the Dub is on Crunchyroll now.]

Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood is a slice of life Anime with Yuri undertones about Vampires.  It’s on Crunchyroll and apparently it has a Dub now, I’m pretty sure it didn’t have a Simuldub and thus I had watched it Subbed.

Carmilla adaptation Pet Peeves

This can be viewed as a companion piece of sorts to Carmilla should be allowed to be a Bad Girl.  But here I shall talk about things that bug me in Carmilla adaptations that some may view as a bit more arbitrary but do regardless annoy me.  Some are not the complete deal breakers others are, the lower on the list the more tolerable it is, but it also depends just how well done everything else is.

Depictions of Carmilla can fit into two categories, ones that are in some way an adaptation of the original story however loosely.  And new stories featuring the same character, presented as perhaps in continuity with the original story, or a version of it.  The Pet Peeves I shall vent about here are all things that can be equally relevant to either.

Pet Peeve No. 0: Carmilla In Name Only.

I’m not properly numbering this one because all of them are often symptoms of it.  But it does annoy me when a story just uses the name Carmilla because she's the only female Public Domain Vampire with even close to the same name recognition as Dracula.  There are other more niche ones you can choose, a lot of them come from 19th Century French Literature.  Clairmonde  of La Morte Amoureuse by Theophile Gautier would be the most traditional for a Het Femme Fatale Vampire, the others I’m thinking of don’t have English translations that are PD so we have to turn to BlackCoatPress.  But if a female counterpart to or relative of Dracula is all you're going for just use the one in Dracula's Guest, or Dracula's Daughter, or make a Vampire out of a female historical figure comparable to Vlad Tepes, like one who'll come up later in this post.

You could say Dracula is also subject to this, but he has so many more depictions in total that the In Name Only ones feel less offensive in their very existence.  But also all the major Dracula depictions, however many liberties they have, still feel like a take on Stoker’s character. The same can’t be said for Carmilla.

And no being a Lesbian isn't enough to make one more then in name only.  Being Lesbian itself isn't a character trait, it's how her attraction to women effects that story that makes it part of Carmilla's character.

Pet Peeve No. 1: Straight Washing Carmilla.

Given how much of Carmilla’s defining characteristics are tied to being a lover of Girls, any “Carmilla” who is completely Hetersoexual is obviously also an example of No. 0.  Perhaps you don’t even believe me that this has happened, but trust me it has, I no longer remember any titles to single them out, but they exist.  [Update: 2005's The Batman Vs Dracula made Carmilla the name of Dracula's wife, so that's one example.][Further Update May 2025: I've now learned even Osamu Tezuka did it.] 

The gray area is, can Carmilla swing both ways?  It can seem like Bi Erasure to say definitely No when the original Novella does imply she had a male lover during her human life, and suggesting her orientation changed as a symptom of being a Vampire would be very problematic.  However we don’t know that story from her POV, only how it’s told by a generations later kinsman of a person said to have been her lover.  Carmilla The Return is a Prose Novel I liked but some things are blurry in my memory of it right now, I think that Carmilla might have been a little Bi but only in Threesomes where another girl was present, but again I could be remembering it wrong, Lauren in the novel is definitely Bi.

Lust for A Vampire is the second film of Hammer’s Karnstein Trilogy, and probably the one I like the most.  As a Carmilla film it does most of my Pet Peeves. But like how many say the 98 Godzilla would be a fine Kaiju movie if it weren’t presented as specifically Godzilla, this is one of the better Hammer Vampire movies.  The 98 Godzilla however perhaps wouldn't have been watched at all if it didn’t have the Godzilla name, this movie puts neither Carmilla or Karnstein in the title.  The informal name of the Trilogy is Karnstein not Carmilla, so why couldn’t it just star another vampire of the same house?  Yutte Stensdaard is one of my favorite On Screen Vampires of all time, she has exactly the vibes and look I would want a Bisexual Femme Fatale Vampiress to have.  She just shouldn’t have been called Carmilla.

Pet Peeve No. 2: Making Carmilla’s origin story that she committed Suicide.

I don’t know why this is so common.  The original Novella does supply an origin story and it’s not that.  There is some evidence that one of the old superstitions about Vampires is that they are sometimes products of Suicide (The Virgin Vampire is a 1825 pre-Carmilla example of a Vampiress with a Suicide origin story).  So it makes sense that there is some Vampire fiction exploring that, but I don’t get why it’s so common to make that specifically Carmilla's origin story?

Sometimes it’s not Carmilla herself who committed Suicide but Suicide is still made a theme of the story. .Even then I’d rather not have that heavy subject crammed into Carmilla.

Pet Peeve No. 3: Making her some epic Rival to Dracula.

So with my writing this in 2021 many may take this one as a stab at specifically Castlevania, and it partly is.  But it also kind of begins with Hammer.  And Castlevania’s Carmilla I firstly consider an In Name Only example.

The Vampire Lovers is by some metrics the most faithful adaptation of the book, the same kinds of metrics that give that title to Coppola’s film for Dracula, indeed it takes more from it's book then any of Hammer's Dracula or Frankenstein films.  However one thing that ruins it’s ability to feel like the Novella is that the Novella is a very intimate story, The Vampire Lovers wants to feel like an epic battle between good and evil.

However one thing the Hammer Karnstein saga couldn’t make up its mind on is if Carmilla is actually the most important Karnstein or just the one we happen to be following the most.  You see I’m fine with the idea of the Karnsteins as an Aristocratic Vampire House doing some Game of Thrones type stuff in a secret Vampire Underworld.  But Carmilla herself should be neither the progenitor or head of the family but rather someone more concerned with her own personal Sapphic conquests than any Vampire Politics.  Ideally she should be the Tyrion of the family.

I think this is one of the causes of Carmilla being conflated with Countess Elizabeth Bathory. I decided not to give that one it’s own number since I only know of it happening once, in Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, but that once is enough to annoy me and cause me to fear discovering that it's been a trend I hadn't noticed.

[Update May 16th 2024: Well I should have known that Fate/Grand Order has conflated Bathory and Carmilla treating it similar to how Vlad and Dracula are connected in Apocrypha.]

Pet Peeve No. 4. Making Carmilla Blonde

Actually any hair color other than pitch Black will bug me, but Blonde is what usually happens.  Also the person who should be Blonde is Laura.  You can call this my most superficially pedantic complaint, but the way these characters are described in the original story is vividly etched into my brain, it’s difficult to accept any deviation on that point.  That movies keep changing it, often swapping them completely, baffles me.

As far as movies go I think only Meg Tilly in the 80s Nightmare Classics TV movie looks right.  Though if we count films that are not Carmilla in name but clearly modeled after her, then Ernessa in The Moth Diaries has a great Carmilla look.

Pet Peeve No. 5: Carmilla being harmed by The Sun.

The concept of the Sun being Fatal to Vampires was born out of a misunderstanding of what happened at the end of the 1922 film Nosferatu.  Bram Stoker’s Novel provides some prior precedent for the Sun having some kind of effect, but Stoker’s Dracula definitely has no trouble walking around freely in it.  No pre-Stoker vampire has even that, when they’re Nocturnal it’s because of a positive relationship to the Moon not a negative one with the Sun.

This is one of the few things Hammer’s Karnstein Trilogy got right.  Even once they drifted far from being even remotely connected to the original Novella, Karnstein Vampires remained unaffected by Sunlight.

In this case modern adaptations retconning in the Sunlight weakness like they do for all Pre-Dracula Vampires bugs me less then people analyzing the original story wanting to retrofit it in.  Their argument seems to be based on LeFanu’s oft memed overuse of the word “Languid”, they seem to think the Sun is what’s making her Languid.

There are perhaps two reasons to describe a Vampire as “Languid”.  Number one, in normal humans it’s a pretty natural side effect of staying up all night getting what little sleep you do get during the day.  And then there is how The New Testament refers to physical death as being asleep, so there is a natural logic then to depicting the Undead as seeming like they should be sleeping right now but can’t. Remember the name of the original anthology Carmilla was apart of was a paraphrase of Paul.

One of the most memorable quotes of the Novella to me is Laura saying “the sunlight did not diminish her beauty”.

That’s not the only traditional Vampire weakness people try to retcon into the story. Her reaction to the Funeral procession is taken as evidence of standard vampiric aversion to religious relics and symbols.  However elsewhere she herself bought Laura a trinket said to repel Vampires, it obviously didn’t repel her.  There are potentially two things going on with the funeral scene.  One, the dead girl is one of her victims, and maybe this is a hint at Carmilla’s conscience.  Second the scene also reflects Carmilla's classism, she’s expressing her Argath level disdain for peasants.

P.S.

There used to be on YouTube this independently made dramatization of the opening scene of Carmilla that I really liked, it’s tone was perfect.  But now I can’t find it.  It could be just too buried under all the newer post viral Webseries Carmilla content, but I even tried using Google to look for specifically older stuff.

December 2021 Update: I found that dramatization on YouTube of the opening scene I was having trouble finding, turns out it was buried in my favorites.  It's called Carmilla (first 3 minutes).

https://youtu.be/9yIcyAq2DHw?list=FL75vHmAjjxxgZ61xHMmWNMg

Vampire Private Detectives, there was even an Anime one

Back in the late 2000s I caught a handful of episodes of a TV series called Moonlight which first aired in 2007-2008, who’s basic premise reminded me of Buffy’s spin off Angel, particularly its first season and a half which aired in late 1999 and 2000.  I sometimes went to Moonlight’s IMDB board where I found that naturally I wasn’t the only one to see the similarity.  However others pointed out that the Vampire Private Detective Idea had been done previously by a Canadian TV series called Forever Knight which aired from May 1992 to May 1996.

Fast forward to 2021 and I’ve become a Weeb looking into the history of Anime Adapted from Visual Novels (and Adventure Games that often get confused with Visual Novels), and on AniDB I find that the Summer of 1998 had both of the first two TV Anime it lists as Visual Novel adaptations, one is called Night Walker:Mayonakano Tantei.  It’s official English Title is Nightwalker: The Midnight Detective but it seems a more accurate English translation of the subtitle would be Eternal Darkness.  The Game it was adapted from came out in 1993, it seems the personality of the Main Character was changed significantly.  The Anime didn’t get it’s English localization till 2001.

I still haven’t seen a single episode of Forever Knight, and as of my starting to write this have only watched the first 3 episodes of Nightwalker.  Still I am fascinated by how many notable variations this one very specific concept had in like a decade and a half.

The idea of having a reluctant Vampire be a Private Detective is one I can easily imagine multiple creators coming up with independently.  It’s a pretty natural way to combine Pulp/Film Noir tropes with Urban Fantasy.  In both Angel and Moonlight the protagonist’s Sire serves as a sort of Femme Fatale.  But in both Nightwalker and Forever Knight the protagonist had a male Sire which I’m sure resulted in some Yaoi shipping.

The Anime nature of Nightwalker certainly makes it stand out within this Tetrad.  The Demons behind our Vampire’s cases kind of have a Youkai vibe.  He also makes weapons from his Blood which anticipates premises like Deadman Wonderland.  And for reasons he has a secretary who’s a Japanese School Girl who wears her School Uniform on the job even though I know in real life you’re not allowed to wear your School Uniform doing other things in Japan, but Citrus is the only Anime to ever acknowledge that.

The Music is interesting, it has this one Guitar riff that keeps making me think of Jesus Christ Superstar.

The Dub is one of those Dubs where the only character who feels off is the main character, this should have been a Crispan Freeman role.  Okay I realize some will assume Hellsing is the Freeman role I’m thinking of given the Vampire context, but in this case I’m actually more thinking of him as Amon in Witch Hunter Robin.

In episode 3 we’re told he became a Vampire centuries ago, but the brief Flashback footage we’re shown has him already in his very 20th Century business suit.  So I’m wondering if there’s an explanation for that or if it's just a huge blunder?

After watching episode 4 of Nightwalker, screw what I said before about Shipping, Cain explicitly calls himself an ex Lover. Also for only being episode 4 it felt pretty big, like a season finale or at least a mid-season finale.  I suspect the source material had enough story for a two cour Anime, but one was all the network felt like investing in.

Well I wound up completing Nightwalker.  It was mostly all good stuff, but the last episode annoyed me a bit.  Also there are dangling plot threads, they were clearly hoping for a season 2 that never happened.

Carmilla should be allowed to be a Bad Girl.

There has been a trend online lately of people complaining about how a lot of these modern Disney remakes and reboots making their classic Villainesses more sympathetic ruins what their original appeal was.  But comparatively they’ve had it a lot better than Carmilla, at least they are still allowed to have some Edge.

Carmilla in the most well known recent adaptations isn’t even allowed to be an Antiheroine, she has to be made completely innocent of any wrong doing in order to be considered good “reclaimed” Lesbian representation.  And I’m seemingly the only person who’s not fond of it.  And no I'm not counting the many In Name Only Carmillas who pop up in franchises that were not originally about her, that Castlevania wanna be Anime's take on the character is a Joke to me.

One thing I want is a genuinely faithful direct adaptation of the original Novella. So many people talking about Camrilla just assume a book written by a Male in Victorian England must have actually had a homophobic agenda and there can’t possibly be any positive pro Lesbian reading to the original text itself so we have to change things in order to make it Gay affirming.  One YouTuber in their video on Male Bisexuality in Vampires went into a lot of speculation about Bram Stoker’s own Sexuality, but no one’s willing to do the same for LeFanu.  As a connoisseur of Lesbian content written by people who were assigned male at birth from different cultures, for reasons I can’t explain Carmilla feels to me potentially like the work of a Transbian Egg who never hatched.

But regardless of what gender LeFanu actually was, something about the Ending, how Laura still misses Camrilla in-spite of everything, tells me Laura was a Lesbian herself, not just a victim of one.

In the 1970s we saw the opposite of this trend I’m complaining about now.  The Lesbian Vampire craze of that decade shows us what it looks like when Straight men write Lesbian erotica while still actually morally condemning it.  They are titillated by it in spite of viewing it as a threat, like how many White Men fetishize their fear of the Black Man’s Penis.

Most of those films were not officially adaptations of Carmilla, but regardless what symbolizes them as a counter point to this modern approach to making Lesbian Vampires more Woke is the Het male Romantic rival for Carmilla, the difference is whether that Het male is a Hero or not.  He's the coin with two sides.

So if you really need to add something to your modern retelling of or sequel to Carmilla to make it more unambiguously Pro-Gay, make the third member of your triangle third woman instead of throwing a male in.  Instead of pretending women can never be just as abusive and manipulative as men can, add a Lesbian Romantic Rival to be the good girl alternative option for Laura, make it a full Lesbian triangle.  In part this is what The Moth Diaries is, which is mostly what I like about that movie, but that film also has this “maybe the MC was just imagining it all” subtext which distracts from that and also just can’t work on film as well as it may have in the original Book which I own but haven’t read yet.  There is also a Yuri NTR Manga I like called Your Fault who’s code on a certain website is 115990.  Take that story, make Senpai into Carmilla, but also switch the Hair Colors of the Carmilla and Laura analogues, (I’m also very pedantic about how Carmilla should have Dark Hair and Laura should be Blonde), and you have the start of something pretty good.

I'm not saying she needs to be a one dimensional villain, she should have depth and complexities, and maybe as a part of grander saga one of those villains who seems less evil once you get to contrast her with the greater threats.  And maybe even eventually character developed into more of an Anti-hero.  But her introductory baseline should still be as a Lesbian Femme Fatale.

I could now go deeper into the complex relationship in my mind between Yuri Anime and Lesbian Vampires.  Or the broader problems with making Vampires an allegory for Marginalized groups.  But those are potentially their own posts.  However the next Vampire related post I might make on this Blog for October 2021 will mostly be about Male Vampires.

There are some decent Carmilla adaptations already in existence.  A Radio Drama you can find on YouTube, I think it was a BBC one.  A Polish movie that I can’t fully critique because it’s never been Subbed but it looks better then most glancing at it.  And a Comic Book adaptation that I bought, you won’t find it on Amazon searching for Carmilla because it’s in an Anthology, look for Gothic Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 14.  Due to its lack of Color you could almost mistake it for a Manga adaptation.  And if you want something 80s, try the Nightmare Classics TV Movie starting Roddy MacDowell and Meg Tilly, but even that has some twists I don't like.  I've meanwhile still been unable to find a way to watch 2014's The Curse of Styria.

Among those of us who are true fans of the original Carmilla Novella, the word “Languid” is practically a Meme.  And as someone who likes to intersect my various Nerdy interests, I've started wondering if there is a Dere type I could use to explain what Languid means to my fellow Otaku. An argument could be made for either Nemuidere (Sleepydere) or Darudere (Sluggish).  But The Dere Types Wiki has not proven all that useful in helping me understand these more obscure Deres (as a self identifying Kuudere, I kinda hate their Kuudere page). What I will say is that one Anime character I would definitely describe as Languid is Mako Reizei from Girls Und Panzer.  Margaret Burton in Madlax could also be described as Languid.

Update: So Curse of Styria is on Amazon called Angels of Darkness which doesn't register to me as a great name for a Carmilla adaptation.  It's a decent film, but manages to in it's own way annoy me as an Adaptation.  I guess Carmilla is the one subject where I am everything I hate about VN fanatics hating on every VN Anime.  But the changes I'm being petty about are comparatively far more story relevant.

Yuri and Lesbian Vampires as we approach the end of Anime 2020

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear episode 5 is a lot more enjoyable when you try not to think about the ideological ramifications of it. I went and watched the first episode of Vlad Love. There isn’t really anything wrong with it, but as someone who got pretty burnt out on Vampires right before I went all in on Anime, this isn’t compelling or interesting enough. Vampires of course have a strong association with Lesbianism independent of Anime. What I am perhaps uniquely positioned to notice is how often Yuri Vampires kind of break with Yuri conventions. To the point where I kind of feel like some non Anime non Japanese Lesbian Vampire fiction actually has more Yuri appeal. Carmilla itself can work as a Yuri Anime pretty well if you made a direct Anime adaptation,( instead all adaptations of Carmilla feel the need to “update” the story even though the original was ambiguous enough to allow a perfectly Woke interpretation). Or the film The Moth Diaries. The real major Yuri Genre show of 2020 was Adachi and Shimamura which has a Simuldub starting right now. Looks like shows of 2020 are gonna be Simuldubing all through 2021. I’d really prefer shows they didn’t start dubbing till they were in fact done and aren’t Toonami/Adult Swim broadcasts to just be dropped all at once. This show I’ll probably wait to binge, or at least wait till I can do the 3 episode test. Well next week is likely to be the end of this series as a weekly feature.

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Buffy as a Vampire Show

So you may have noticed that the two Buffy posts I made in the middle of the month didn't include my Vampire Fiction tag, well that's because in my mind Buffy has always been compartmentalized from my relationship with Vampire Fiction in general.

You see in-spite of how much I did and to some extent still do love Buffy, it's take on Vampire lore is actually just about hands down the absolute worst in terms of what I look for.  Isn't that kind of weird?  How could this be at one time my favorite show even though it's the worst at it's face value main genre?

But that's the thing, it was only ever a Vampire show at face value, the show is about the Slayer not the Vampires.  Now originally most Vampire literature was more about the Humans dealing with them, but in Buffy's case her ability to kill Vampires was never her real obstacle.  The show could just as easily have been Buffy The Goblin Slayer and... OH MY GOD!!!! I wish I'd thought of that when that show was still relevant, the memes I could have generated.

I'm honestly more interested in comparing Buffy to Magical Girl shows then to more conventional Vampire fiction.  The show is about this particular Heroine's Journey and how the friends she makes along the way are the source of her real strength.  There are also other types of Anime that might equally apply to, like Railgun.

So why do I hate Buffy/Angel's version of Vampire lore so much?  I'll start with the core reason, then the most superficial reason, then something I don't seem to care about nearly as much as other people who take the opposite of my position.

The whole "Soul" issue and how that complicated the show's morality in general.  If someone is going to have a seemingly very different morality as a Vampire then they did as a human, I'd rather why that is be psychologically explored.  Instead it's just that killing "Souled" people is murder but killing people without "Souls" is not, some Vampires are basically the same personality with or without it, but some are not.  This should effect more then just my opinion of it as a Vampire show, and it kinda does, but in the context of comparing it to stuff like Magical Girl shows allowing if someone is good or evil to change at the flick of a switch is a bit more precedented.

I hate that Buffy pretty much started the whole, they turn ugly right before biting you, thing.

They burn in the Sun.  I'm someone who's ultimate preference is for vampires to return to how they were before 1922, when the Sun had no effect what so ever, they can be nocturnal because that's how they prefer to hunt or because they like the Moon, but the Sun should mean nothing.  But as long as writers are unwilling to do that, as long the Sun is an issue they feel has to be addressed, I'll take Sparkling over being harmed by it any day.  Yes you read that correctly, it's not a Joke, I sincerely mean that.

So those are the three issues that are kind of representative of the whole.  There are some ideas I like, for example some Vampires losing the ability to look human once they become super old.  The idea of Dracula being unique among vampires is something I have mixed feelings on, but performance wise Rudolf Martin is still genuinely my number two Dracula after Lugosi, so that makes up for everything else in that department.

Buffy and Angel were over well before my interest in the general Vampire craze started in 2009 and lasted till about 2014.  If I knew way back then what I know now I might have been annoyed that Dracula was the only Public Domain vampire written into the show, I'd wanna see at least references to Carmilla and Lord Ruthven and Varney and hopefully some of Paul Feval's vampires.  But that's just the Nerd in me who wants to see a Victorian Vampire shared cinematic universe.

The fact that I don't particularly care about Vampire media anymore is perhaps why it can still not actually matter to me as I revisit my fandom for this show.  Maybe part of why it declined in my mind during my vampire phase was because of how it conflicted with my tastes there.  I had endless issues with The Vampire Diaries but it came a lot closer to what I'd want from a Vampire show.  Still I was never willing to say it was now better then Buffy even when it was my favorite currently airing TV show, it was Pretty Little Liars that dethroned Buffy.

Fifty Shades of (Alleged) Plagiarism

I haven't read or watched Fifty Shades of Grey, so I may be the least qualified person to do this.  But as someone who cares about defending the legitimacy of Remix culture, I really feel the need to address the accusation of it being guilty of Plagiarism due to it's relationship to Twilight.

The deepest I've actually dug into this is these two Folding Ideas videos I recommend.
A Lukewarm Defense of Fifty Shades of Grey (The Movie).
Book Club is a Theatrical made for TV Movie

First thing I want to say is that E.L. James or at least her lawyers have been unfortunately hypocritical in going after Fifty Shades derivative works.  I don't like defending hypocrites, but it's for the benefit of others I'm doing this.

Even some people who are ardent defenders of Fan Fiction and other Fan Works like Vraik are calling Fifty Shades plagiarism and saying that it's exactly us who should be condemning her for doing what Copyright holders are so irrationally afraid of.  But I disagree, to me agreeing with the notion that this is plagiarism is in and of itself vindicating the notion that all Fan Fiction is plagiarism.  And that's without even getting into how I ultimately reject Copyright law altogether.

The first context that needs to be added to the fairly well known "it started as a Twilight Fan Fic" fact is that it was specifically an Alternate Universe fan fiction, and one that was more of a retelling of the basic story of Twilight then a sequel or side story.  And that's the real crux of the plagiarism accusation. It wasn't her telling a completely brand new story with Twilight characters and then later writing the Twilight out of it.  Instead we have a story that, in both the version using Twilight names and the one that doesn't, can be described as following the same basic beats as the story of Twilight, but without Vampires or other Supernatural elements.

Thing is, lots of very different stories follow the same basic beats.  Frankly what I'm far more annoyed by are Remakes disguised as Sequels like The Force Awakens and Superman Re[dacted], but no legal objections will ever come up there since they're made by the Copyright holder.  But of course even The Phantom Menace which I really love can also sort of be described as following the same basic story beats as A New Hope.  And comparatively it seems to me like Master of The Universe was closer to TPM then it was TFA in how much it mimics the original.

And that subject brings us to Star Wars relationship to The Hidden Fortress.  The Phantom Menace draws even more on THF arguably, in fact it's TPM similarity that makes me want to get around to actually watching THF some day (maybe once I've actually watched it I'll stop mis-remembering the name as The Forbidden Fortress).  And I shouldn't need to be retreading the defenses of Remix culture that have already been laid out, but my usual allies sometimes disagree with me here.

The thing that makes this Inspired By story feel like more of a Rip Off story is that it actively began under the Twilight name and then later removed it.  And that's why George Lucas is very relevant here.  Because you see there was a stage in the development of Star Wars where he was considering trying to get the rights to simply make it as an adaptation of The Hidden Fortress, but dropped that idea once certain similarities were dropped.  Likewise key aspects of Twilight are dropped for Fifty Shades, I mean MOTU may work fine as a fan fic but if it was an officially licensed Twilight Elseworlds project the publisher tried to make money off of you know darn well someone would go "how can you call this Twilight when no one Sparkles?"

One of the main reasons Star Wars seems so creative even when people are Nerding out over it's influences, are that there were many influences, the creativity is thought to be in how Lucas mixed them together.  So the question is, is Twilight really the only literary ancestor Fifty Shades has?  Often the point of an AU fic is putting the skeleton of one kind of story into a totally different genre and that's exactly what we have here.

What the final product of Fifty Shades still has in common with Twilight is mostly what Twilight has in common with many Teen/YA romances.  The removal of the Vampire aspects make Fifty Shades seem a lot less directly like a Gothic Romance, though Christian Grey is arguably more Byronic then Edward.

If I were to analyze Fifty Shades with no prior knowledge of it's origins, I'd compare it to the many Harlequin romance novels about women having affairs with hot young rich guys that become arguably unhealthy relationships way before I would any typical Young Adult Romance.  And if you told me it started as a Fan Fiction but without telling me of what, my first guess would probably be an Ayn Rand novel.

That's right, once you have even entry level knowledge of Ayn Rand, the ways Christian Gray fits her ideal Individualist male shouldn't take too long to notice.  I'll bet I'm not the first to write about it, but I haven't looked for it yet.  It's interesting how Rand comes up discussing both Batman and Iron Man (I love how Zach Snyder haters will constantly complain about the Randian influences he puts in his DC movies, but are besides KyleKallgrenBHH blind to the far more Randian implications of Tony Stark.  For the record I despise Rand's philosophy, but I can enjoy fiction I don't ideologically agree with).

Recently I've watched YouTube videos comparing Frank Miller's DKR Batman to both Rand's ideal male, and to the Byronic Hero.  And that makes me wonder to what extent the Byronic archetype was an influence on Rand.  But either way this Randian similarity, intentional or not, is a big factor in distinguishing James writing from Meyer's, Meyer as a Mormon was certainly no Individualist.

So at the end of the day Fifty Shades of Grey is no more or less similar to prior works then any other trashy romance novel.  It's only the direct involvement of internet fan fiction and it's stigma that gets it singled out.

The Solution to Gender Double Standards should never be to give Men the restrictions Patriarchy puts on Women.

Doing that runs counter to the point of Progressiveness in my view, it should be about increasing Freedom not taking it away. We should be liberating Women (and Men) from the shackles that patriarchal gender norms have long placed on them.  Not forcing the bull-crap women have always dealt with onto men.

What has largely prompted this was seeing some people respond to Lindsay Ellis recent Video About Twilight, by saying "we need to start holding media aimed at boys to higher standards".  I am inherently against higher standards for Media consumption, period. I want more wish fulfillment fiction about Taboo and Problematic relationships, whether I agree with it being wrong in real life or not. These fantasies are something we need.  Back in the 90s it was conservatives saying immorality in media leads to immorality in real life, now many on the left have become what they used to hate and have no self awareness of it.

There are a few details of Lindsay's video I disagree with.  The whole Bella was leaving her family for her Boyfriend thing I addressed last month in Clannad and Twilight.  And I might be doing something in the future on the accusation that E.L. James is guilty of plagiarism.  But over all that video is saying what I've been saying for years, but much more eloquently.  In posts like My Feminist Defense of "Cute Girls doing Cute Things" and Yuri Anime.

But leaving Twilight aside, let's move on to something much more directly relevant to actual Political discussions of what should and should not be legal.

I can also see people mocking me for seeing anything progressive about the Open Polygamy in In Another World With My Smartphone.  It hasn't happened yet, but I can see it coming.  'A male with multiple female lovers is still a male fantasy, only other kinds of Plural Marriage can be viewed as progressive, Polygny is Regressive.'

Yes, I'm well aware that for most of human history in most cultures men having multiple lovers was accepted and even expected (even if in Greco-Roman and most Christian societies they could only have one actual Wife), while Women could be punished with death for the same thing.  But again, the solution to that Double Standard should have been allowing more Sexual Freedom for women, instead we did the opposite and now men are being held to the same unreasonable monogamous restrictions women used to be held to.

Not to mention how opposition to Polygyny is frequently tied to religious bigotry towards Mormons and Muslims.  The abuses associated with how Polygyny has been practiced in the worst forms of those religions can be made perfectly illegal by outlawing arranged marriages, (and helped out by our statutory rape laws).  But forcing Mormons to go outside the law to practice what many view as a central tenet of their faith violates the First Amendment, and only makes it harder to prevent those abuses, just like all other forms of Prohibition.

The Polygamous resolution to In Another World With My Smartphone's Harem is completely consensual, in fact it was one of the women who first suggested it.  I see quite a bit of Feminism in a group of women agreeing to share the man they love, considering how often in fiction women liking the same man seems to inevitably lead to conflict that could potentially end their friendship.  For the most part these girl's friendships began with their liking the same guy so it's quite the opposite of that problem.

I hope it becomes a trend, and I do want to see it expand to more diverse kinds of Group Marriages.  But if it takes a male fantasy to get the ball rolling then so be it.

MithrandirOlorin’s Halloween Anime Recommendations.

I’m by no means the first Otaku to provide some Halloween season Anime recommendations in October.  So why care about mine?

October 31st happens to be my Birthday.  So even though I’ve defined myself as not a Horror fan in the strictest sense (in that I’m not looking to be scared by any fiction I watch) I have other reasons for enjoying a lot of stuff in the Horror and Gothic genres.  And I have a lot of memories of enjoying such fiction during the Halloween season.  

I love the classic Universal Monster movies, I’ve also enjoyed many Hammer films.  And other more obscure horror movies, like those Public Domain ones you sometimes find in DVD box sets selling 50 for only $10.  Slasher films I’ve tended to not be fond of, but I do enjoy Halloween 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6.  And some of my favorite episodes of Western live Action television have been Halloween specials, from NCIS episodes like Witch Hunt to Pretty Little Liars‘ epic trilogy of Halloween specials.  Plus I love the first two Ghostbusters movies, and I don’t hate the reboot.

Since I’ve become mainly an Anime watcher over the last couple of years.  It’s overdue that I make some Anime Halloween recommendations.  Though I feel kinda like I haven’t watched enough Horror centric Anime.

I listened to about like an hour of the Podcast that Mother’s Basement did with Digibro, Gigguk and BestGuyEver about their Halloween recommendations.  And really none sound like they fit what I look for this time of year, but they might for others.

One thing Gigguk said that rubbed me the wrong way, was that he doesn’t like how Anime Horror is too “aesthetically pleasing”.  I don’t like how western horror in recent years is so obsessed with being Aesthetically ugly.  I like the first two Saw movies as Mysteries, and that’s about it from the Torture Porn genre.  And I like none of those movies that revolve around women crawling out of caves all slimy and muddy and dirty.  Classic Horror, like Universal and Hammer gave us, was very Aesthetically pleasing, it was simply a Gothic Aesthetic.

These recommendations are largely for people relatively new to Anime in general, if you have a respectable MAL already you’ve probably at least tasted all or most of these.  If however you consider yourself a hardcore Otaku and you’ve missed any one of these, you need to reconcile that immediately.

Why give Halloween themed recommendations to Newbies?  Maybe Horror or Gothic romance simply is your favorite genre and so Halloween fitting Anime would be the best entry point possible.  Or maybe now simply is the time you decided to finally give Japanimation a shot.  Or maybe you’re already at phase 2 or 3 of burrowing down the Otaku rabbit hole and are looking for new routes to dig into.  Perhaps specifically saving the Horror Route for October.

One more note before I start.  I haven’t watched the Castlevania series on Netflix yet.  I’ve decided to wait till during this Halloween season (and thus after I’ve already posted this) to watch it.  Then I might talk about it somewhere if I feel compelled to.  (Turns out it’s not actually Anime.)  I don’t want to include in this list something that hasn’t already stood the test of time somewhat.  And it gives me something new for the season to enjoy myself.  It annoys me that the Godzilla Anime doesn’t drop till November.

1. I’ve already declared When They Cry/Higurashi the ideal Horror Anime.  If you haven’t seen it yet, don't read that post past the Spoiler Warning.  In summary what I’ll say here is it has very much the Japanese equivalent of a Gothic Aesthetic.  And it makes an engaging mystery, with well done shocking moments.  And never abuses the Jump Scare.  
   
   
   But one thing I forgot to mention in that post was the Score, the Music in this show is perfect at setting an eerie mood.  If you can find the music on it’s own, it’d be excellent for a Haunted House.  
   
   
   Another note before moving on, for the numbered entries here I’m not recommending entire franchises but single series that might be part of larger franchises but still have a distinct entry on MAL or most Streaming sites.  For Higurashi it’s really only season 1 I’m recommending for October viewing.  Season 2 (Kai) is perhaps better for early November, when you’re kinda still in a Halloween mood, but want to phase yourself out of it before Christmas.  (Don’t expect Christmas recommendations BTW.)
   
   
2. Vampire Princess Miyu, the 4 episode 80s OVA.  This would be best if you want something shorter to get your feet wet.  It’s probably the only pre-2000 Anime I’ll recommend here.  It similarly has the Japanese equivalent to a Gothic Aesthetic.  And I really like it’s use of sound effects.  I also like the 90s TV series, but that’s better watched in the context of how to make a darker Magical Girl show.
   
   
3. School Live I now consider the best Zombie Anime.  Highschool of The Dead still has value, but if you’re gonna watch only one watch School Live.  Don’t let the cuteness fool you, it gets pretty scary.  And it isn’t filled with tasteless fanservice.
   
   
4. Witch Hunter Robin.  I can’t believe I haven’t talked about this on this blog more yet, since it’s about as ancient as the BeeTrain trilogy in my development as an Anime Fan.  It’s use of its horror elements is pretty interesting.  It's also got intrigue.  And is one of the best examples of why I love the 26 episode structure.
   
   
5. Hellsing, (the original Anime not Ultimate).  Is a satisfying Anime spin off to the legacy of Bram Stoker’s novel.  While all of the above 4 have Dubs, and the Dub is what I watched, this is the only one I feel confident in calling a top tier Dub, after all Alucard is Crispin Freeman.  Though I will say for Miyu not to write off the OVA’s dub based on how the 90s show’s gets called one of the worst of all time, it’s a very different Dub.

The only honorable mention I shall provide is the Fate/ franchise as a whole, it has Horror elements but that is not quite it’s main appeal.   But since the mythology/folklore is a large part of why I’m into Horror in the first place, it does overlap well with part of why I like Fate/ so much.  From the quasi Lovecraftian quality of Fate/Zero’s Caster, to the Fate/Stay Night:Unlimited Blade Works Caster’s berserk button being when she’s called a Witch.   Those are as I’ve explained before the best entry points to Fate/.  

Heck, Rin Tosaka pretty much always dresses like it’s Halloween.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya, is the worst entry point only appealing at all if you're really into the niche it’s made for.  I am, so I enjoy even it’s much maligned Dub.  But as the ultimately least dark version of the Fate/ universe, it still has some solid Halloween season material.

The Grand Order OVA’s Dub becomes available this October, so I’ll also be watching that before the month is over, I can’t comment on it before then.  But on the subject of single episode OVAs, Fate/Prototype can be a spooky quick Halloween viewing experience.

But another reason I couldn’t leave Fate/ out of this post is that Fate/Apocrypha is a currently airing show that includes the characters of Vlad The Impaler and Frankenstein’s Monster, and also Jack The Ripper, and Semiramis is fairly Witchy.  So if any currently airing TV Anime this October needs to be mentioned it’s that one.  The tone however doesn’t fit Halloween as well as the other shows from what I’ve seen so far, unfortunately.  Maybe they’re saving the scarier bits for the Fall, either way it is again not a good entry point for Fate/.

As of episodes 8 and 9, Vlad and Frank’s characters are finally getting some good exploration.  And as of episode 11 I’m very into it.

Normally a list like this doesn’t end on the honorable mention.  But I organized this from the top down anyway.

It turns out this year’s October 31st will be the last day the legal streaming site www.Daisuki.Net operates, it’s being shut down.  So this month is your last chance to watch any Anime there.  But it has none of what I’ve recommended so that’s not actually helpful here.

Vampire Princess Miyu and Witch Hunter Robin had past legal western releases, but I can’t find them currently legally streaming anywhere.

School Live, Hellsing and Fate/ should be easy enough to find legally, between Crunchyroll, Funimation’s Website and Netflix.

Higurashi I was having trouble finding on any legal site, but then I found HIDIVE.  You can watch stuff free with ads, but need a paying subscription to view the Dubs it has.  For Higurashi the Dub isn’t that well received anyway, I was okay with it mostly but I can see why others wouldn’t be.  School Live is also on that site.  And it has some Fate/ stuff as well.
Update One Year Later: Now Witch Hunter Robin is on Funimation and VRV, but Miyu is still not legal anywhere.  Higurashi season 1 is now also on Hulu and Yahoo but season 2 is still only on HIDIVE.

Update May 2021: The English Dub of the Miyu OVAs are now on TubiTV, MidnightPulp and RetroCrush.  

Higurashi is still on HIDIVE (and VRV via HIDIVE) but that site doesn't have legal free viewing anymore.  Gou is on Hulu and FUNimation but I do NOT recommend watching it till you've seen the main series.

Witch Hunter Robin is still on FUNimation but not on VRV anymore.  Hellsing is also on FUNi and School Live! is on HIDIVE/VRV.  Most of Fate/ can be watched on either Netflix or HIDIVE.

Tsukihime is the gender flipped Twilight

I recently watched the Tsukihime anime.  It's in the same universe as the Fate/ franchise.  The existing Anime from 2003 is generally not well thought of by Type Moon fans, but I enjoyed it.  However I hope Tsukihime gets it's own UFOtable reboot, perhaps once the Heaven's Feel movies are done.  I think it'd even also work here to start with the second route.  In Fate/Zero season 2 the first episode of Kritisugu's origin story ties into the Tsukihime lore.

I was big into the Vampire craze for awhile, I was someone who did not particularly like Twilight but was far more annoyed by the Twilight hatedom. The Vampire Diaries was my favorite Vampire TV show airing at the time.  I had a past complicated history with Buffy but that's a different matter.  I also read the books from the 90s that TVD was originally based on.

I was interested in what little was written that attempted to be a gender inversion of the typical Vampire YA romance formula.  (This was well before Meyer made her own Gender flipped version of Twilight that was rather lazy.)  Christopher Pike's The Last Vampire series also known as Thirst, was the primary example I could find of a Female Vampire falling in love with a boy in high-school.

And what I noticed from that is the female "Good Vampires" are much more morally ambiguous.  Sita was very much an Anti-Heroine, and Lesbian Vampires tended to be modeled after Carmilla.

That's not exactly what I would expect based on the prevalence of the Madonna-Whore Complex.  I would expect it'd be Female Vampires who had no choice but to be either complete Vamps or totally pure angels.  But perhaps it's a product of the belief the ancient Greek philosophers had that women inherently can't control their passions, and therefore only male Vampires could be "Vegetarians".

Eventually I got out of Vampires for the most part.  Lately when I do watch something Vampire related it's checking out Anime Vampires.

I was never able to find a story about a Female Vampire refraining from drinking Human Blood who falls in love with a High School Student.  Not until I was long done looking and decided to watch Tsukihime because I'm growing increasingly obsessed with Fate/ and didn't even know it was a Vampire story going in.

There were no Werewolves though, the Jacob in this case is a sword wielding Vatican Assassin who's name is pronounced C.L. (in the Dub at least).  First time we see her in action she has those same wanna be Wolverine claws Kirei uses.

Meanwhile, we also have a "Little Sister" who in every conceivable way seems like an Older Sister.  And Red Headed Twin Maids.

It's fun, I may check out the Manga, and I rarely read Manga that isn't a Yuri Doujin, so that says something.

I shall share some thoughts on Twilight Hatedom and an Anime called School Days

 [Update February 2019: I'm not too fond of this post anymore, I kind of stand by the the basic points I was arguing but say some things in ways I wouldn't any longer.  So don't read this one, Lindsay Ellis has now said better what I wanted to say about Twilight, and School Days was never something I actually cared about.]

Douglas Le Vampire (Lord Ruthven Begins)

Availible for sale here.

The play was not officially a Ruthven play in the original French version written in 1865. But it's clearly drawing on the earlier French Ruthven plays, so the Translator (Frank Morlock) chose to take some artistic license.

The play gives it's Vampire an Eastern European background. That seems standard to us today, but among French and English 19th Century Ruthven and quasi Ruthven plays that all seem to have a 17th century Scotland fetish (due to Ruthven being a Scottish name) this is the only one I can think of. This Vampire clams to be the heir to a Scottish noble house through his mother, but his father was a Moldovian count.

It fits the usual Ruthven play pattern in that the lead of the play becomes an unwitting accomplice of The Vampire, knowing what he is but being for some reason unwilling or unable to warn anyone as The Vampire proceeds to target his Sister and/or Love interest.

I actually think it was unnecessary to make this name change of Douglas to Ruthven to imagine it being Ruthven (or any other more well known Vampire), because I feel it highly probable that The Vampire is NOT who he's claiming to be, and so his true name is never reveled at all.  Meaning you could just make it Rutvhen or some other more well known Vampire via Headcanon/Fanon.

It anticipates Dracula in having the Vampire's antagonist be a Doctor, a man of science familiar with the Vampire legend, but unlike Van Helsing and Dr. Stewart this scientist is also a remorseful accomplice of the Vampire. But Dr. Maxwell does follow the tradition of the protagonists of other Ruthven plays going back to Aubrey of Polidori's original story in being a person who becomes aware of his Vampire state and is mostly helpless as the Vampire then targets his Sister and love interest.

The Vampire also has a sort of Hypnotic ability. This was also not a universal trait among Pre-Dracula vampires. I think Stoker took it primarily from Carmilla which is still latter then this. I don't recall it appearing in any other Ruthven plays, not nearly so explicitly anyway.

I read this play months ago and I feel it serves an interesting overlooked stepping stone in the development of Vampire fiction from Lord Ruthven to Count Dracula. It's unlikely that Stoker read it though, since it wasn't available in English back then.

Most shocking, it does seemingly provide the only example that I've found Pre-Nosferatu of a reference to Vampires who have to avoid Sunlight. This Vampire doesn't currently have to, rather it's something he's trying to avoid becoming by succeeding in his current plan. An early example of the possibility of there being different kinds or classes of Vampires.  Thing is, since I know Morlock is more wiling to take liberties then Stableford, maybe that wasn't in the original version?

Since the BlackCoatPress translation sets a precedent for changing the identity of the title Vampire. I think it could easily work to make another translation, that moves the setting from 1648 Scotland to 1890s London, replaces the Douglas inheritance the Vampire is after with Carfax, and then...

Dr. Maxwell = Dr. Stewart
Fanny = Mina
Anna = Lucy
Reginald = Johnathon Harker
Sr. William Clifford = Sr. Arthur Holmwood
Dick Thorn = Quincey
Tom Platt = Renfield

And you'd have a script that arguably resembles Stoker's novel more then Horror of Dracula (the first Hammer Dracula film) does.  And, Spoiler Alert!!!!  Anticipates Scars of Dracula by having The Vampire struck by Lighting at the end.

I'm going now to add my thoughts on the original story Morlock adds.

It's basically a Ruthven origin story, and ties him to the historical Ruthven clan of Scotland. Who were prominent during the reigns of Mary Stuart and James VI of Scotland and I of England.

It's focused on Patrick Ruthven who was behind the Murder of David Rizzio. But it's implied to be his Son who actually becomes The Vampire.

I like how the story starts but not where it ultimately goes.

But back to the subject of removing the name Douglas not even being necessary to pretend this Play was a Ruthven Play.  It could have benefited Frank Morlock to do some genealogy research and find that this historical Ruthven clan had marriage with a historical Douglas clan.

My Review of The Vampire Countess by Paul Feval

 My Review of The Vampire Countess by Paul Feval translated by Brian Stableford for BlackCoatPress

Written in the 1850s, it's surprisingly modern in that it blends being a Vampire tale and other genres. It's set in 1804, as Napoleon is about to make himself Emperor. It has a Film Noir vibe to it with the titular Vampire (Often described as an Enchantress) serving as The Femme Fatale.

From here on the review may contain spoilers, but I'll try not to spoil to much.

The Vamp in question is involved in (And at times seemingly the leader of) a secret society plotting to Assassinate Napoleon. But she also latter secretly helps the police trying to thwart them. Her true agenda seems to be simply to obtain wealth for her master Count Szandor.

Some dialogue scenes drag to a great deal, but when we see the Vampiress in action it's one of the most powerful Seduction scenes I've seen written, rivaling even Carmilla (My favorite Vampire Tale).

I recommend this, for all avid fans both of Vampires and of Crime/Pulp Fiction.