Black Blood Brothers

Introduction

Given the title, I was unsure what to expect from this. Not knowing where the emphasis should be, I was half expecting a blaxploitation anime!  To explain a little, the series revolves around two vampire brothers, with vampires classified as 'black bloods' which differentiates them but does not put them on a higher or lower standing than the 'red blood' humans. 
 
Jiro Mochizuki is an 'old blood' vampire and one of the most powerful.  The truce formed 10 years ago after the war between humans and vampires is under threat due to a new and ambitious group known as the Kowloon Children, led by Cassa who killed Jiro's partner Alice at the end of the war. 
 
Jiro and his young brother Kotaro are trying to get to the Special Zone where vampires are allowed to live freely. However people from his past emerge and it is up to Jiro, the 'Silver Blade', to form an uneasy alliance with the Order Coffin Company, a powerful organisation based in the Special Zone.  Jiro and Kotaro are helped by Mimiko, a Compromiser who works for the Company to get access to the Zone. 
 
Jiro is unusual amongst the vampires in this setting - it seems that each film and TV series has different rules for them - and he is the only one affected by sunlight and running water, including rain.  His brother isn't affected by these and can go out in any weather and at all times of the day, as can members of the Kowloon Children but, though he smokes and his skin and muscles can be stripped from the bone, it doesn't seem to kill Jiro, more inconvenience him.
 

Video

Vampires are probably one of the easiest creatures to draw - all you need to do is sketch a normal human and elongate the canines and everyone knows that's a vampire.  That's as simple as the distinguishing features get in BBB - the vampires have pointed canines and the humans don't!  The animation is fluid and action sequences show the obvious manga influences.  The characters are all easily identifiable and there has obviously been care taken with some of the framing and lighting, giving some scenes a real horror look.
 
There are some obvious references to other films and shows, with Jiro having the Neo-esque ability to stop bullets in mid-air, wields his sword a bit like Blade and vampires die in a puff of dust as in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV show.
 

Audio

Given the choice of DD 2.0 stereo Japanese or English, I (as I always do) went for the native tongue which has very good optional English subtitles (not dubtitles).  The voice acting is excellent and the casting is spot on.  I sampled the English dub and found that to be perfectly fitting, with nothing incongruous or offensive to the ear. 
 
BBB is nicely scored but with some rather odd musical cues; when there is some slapstick humour, the action is accompanied by the sort of piano music from a silent comedy!
 

Extra Features

Each episode has a commentary hosted by voice actors Reiko Takagi and Ryoko Nagata; they begin each episode by introducing themselves and then, in tandem, saying "Order Coffin Company Audio Commentary".  They are joined by various members of the cast and crew throughout the volumes and do get a little annoying, especially in episode 9 when they are drunk and don't have much to say as they would rather talk about the pie that's been brought in.  However, there are things worth listening out for, especially when they are joined by BBB's creator Kōhei Azano. 
 
You also get the usual assortment of anime extras: textless openings/closings and trailers. 
 

Conclusion

I am no expert on anime, having only seen a few series and the films that most would be familiar with (Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Perfect Blue and the Studio Ghibli movies) but I like and know horror films.  Therefore, I went into this more as a horror fan than an anime buff - this may be a good thing, I don't know. 
 
It didn't take me long to figure out who was who and where everything was in the Black Blood Brothers' universe which is generally a good sign, I don't want to spend several episodes confused and wondering who's who and what their agendas are.  The three main characters are Jiro, Kotaro and Mimiko and no matter which one you root for, your sympathies will always end up in the same place.  Cassa makes an excellent villain and she is more than a match for Jiro who, unusually, is affected by sunlight and moving water.  Unlike Trinity Blood, which I did like, this didn't make the mistake of introducing too many characters through the volumes which meant it got bogged down in the final episode with people all over the place. 
 
At only 12 episodes, this is a relatively brief series, but in the words of Goldilocks, it's 'just right' - neither too long nor too short.  I was interested to hear in the commentary that there is more in the source material and that they could do another series but, given how it finished, I am not sure how it could be done. 
 
I enjoyed this more than the similarly themed Trinity Blood which I thought was excellent and whilst it's not as good as FLCL, Black Blood Brothers is an engrossing series which I will watch again and is worth the attention of any anime fan, regardless of whether they like horror films or not.   The press release says that fans of Blood: The Last Vampire and Hellsing should enjoy this but, as I haven't seen those series, I can't comment on the veracity of this claim.