Dance in the Vampire Bund is a short anime series that follows the reemergence of the queen of vampires, Mina Tepes. With the help of her faithful werewolf servant Akira, Mina leads the vampires out of secrecy and builds a bund as a haven for her people. At the same time, the two discover their intertwined past and their love for each other.
The most notable point about Vampire Bund is, of course, Mina Tepes. I have written a bit about her loli form before, but it is worth mentioning again. Despite being controversial, the loli factor actually plays extremely well into the series. Vampire Bund attempts to draw us into this fictitious world. By challenging our mindsets about age, social norms, and the female form, the anime compels us to accept the realities of the anime. As the main character, Mina leads this crusade against conventional truths. Her childish appearance is in stark contrast to her maturity and her sensuality. When Vampire Bund boldly shoves this inconsistency in our faces, it forces us to experience and accept the vampire world and its rules. There were several deliberate points that truly push the boundaries of sexual norm, such as the infamous oil rubbing scene and the sexual attraction between a shota and his onee-chan. Once we come to terms with the sexual taboo, “pedophilia,” and other unconventional factors, it is not that difficult to be immersed in this incredible society where humans and vampires coexist openly.
Indeed, Dance in the Vampire Bund succeeds in building a believable world, especially considering how fantastical its approach to the vampire lore is. I am especially impressed with the creation of the Bund in the first arc. The anime pays special attention to various aspects of nation building, including the economics, politics, nationalism, and terrorism. These details add a layer of intricacy that makes the story credible; if there were truly vampires in this world, this would be how I envision their coming out might look like.
Unfortunately, the wonderful story and premise is killed by shoddy execution. The subpar animation is inconsistent and even ugly at times. Characters would be drawn in one style in one frame and a different way in another.* Furthermore, this is worsened by awful directing. Vampire Bund overuses dramatic effects, pauses, and slow motions, such that the emphatic moments lose any effect. Instead, they just seem cheap and over the top.
This is unfortunate because Vampire Bund truly has a lot of potential, not only because of the world, but also because of the characters. Mina Tepes is one of the most intriguing characters I have ever seen in anime. Besides the disconnect in her appearance and age, she also has a deeply layered personality. Teasing, domineering, elegant, weak, compassionate, empathetic, cold, naïve, sexy… There are just so many conflicting yet compatible aspects to Mina’s character. She is an exploration in of herself.
Furthermore, I love the awkward sexual tensions built around Mina and the other women. Seduction, pedophilia, gang rape, and even virginity exams make this a rather dark watch. These scenes serve more than mere gratuity or fan service though. Instead, they complement perfectly a story about vampires. The classic vampire lore has always been inundated with sex and perversions. Perhaps it has to do with the penetration, or the exchange of fluids, or maybe the idea of complete seduction of mind and body. I think it is especially appropriate for Vampire Bund to incorporate this sexual aspect into its core plot.
I really enjoyed Dance in the Vampire Bund. It has so many strong elements. The wonderfully intricate plot is perfectly tied together by Mina Tepes. My only gripe is with the execution. The sloppy animation is just too distracting and disappointing for such a fascinating story.
One last note, I love Mina’s various elegant outfits and sexy lacy lingerie.
*The linked screenshots in this comment show some examples of careless animation.
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There was a certain allure to the series, though i could never finish. Mina was definitely interesting, but the premise and 3-4 episodes I watched just didn’t pull enough weight :<
The first few episodes were kind of slow, but the story and Mina really pulled the series through for me. I’m not completely in love with this though.
I’m a Vampire Bund fan, I have all the manga that’s been translated into English so far. But the anime itself is rather poorly executed. I did enjoy it but I wished it could have been done better, and made longer. I feel like the anime itself was rushed and not taken very seriously. Even so I’ll probably pick it up eventually. I liked Mina’s voice actress and think she did a great job. I definitely see Dance in the Vampire Bund for what it is, an intelligent vampire story in a very well developed world, rather than a fan service filled pedofest. I have issues with a few things that happened in the anime: sparkles, candy girl, etc.
Yea I had the same feelings too about the anime. It just felt like a low budget production. Mina is by far the most interesting character and I love her voice as well. Her voice is so charming, adorable, and kind of naughty. ^ ^
Anyways, the story was a huge plus for me, but there were a lot of other issues that ultimately dragged this down a bit.
I strongly disagree with you. I thought that the animation and directing were by far the strongest points of the anime, whereas the writing and story were much weaker, mostly held together by the excellent vocal performances.
Agreed about the vocal performances. The voice actress for Mina was excellent. The action scenes were actually not too bad. And the characters are drawn really nicely, but there were just a frame here or there of the characters that sometimes look awkward. There was not much, but just enough to be kind of distracting to me.
For example:
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3
Screenshot 4
Screenshot 5
Here are some screenshots. The first one is what Mina normally looks like. Quite adorable in fact. The second one though is a distortion. The third one is a side view that looked a bit awkward to me. The fourth one is yet another normal Mina, but the style is a bit different. And the last shows a lack of attention to her proportions.
As for the directing, you have a fair point. I didn’t like the dramatization of certain scenes, but that’s just my take. I do understand what the anime was going for though and I can see the appeal.
I tried to give it the three episode test, but by the time I got through with that, there just wasn’t much out there to keep me riveted on the screen since the plot just didn’t appeal too much to me. And since I was pretty busy during that time, there really was no other option than to drop it.
I wouldn’t say you’re missing too much. I enjoyed it, but there are plenty of better anime out there. It’s really unfortunate though because the story is refreshing and rather intricate. If it had better animation, I would’ve loved it.
I had heard a few things about this series. Some good and some bad. The main thing mentioned was the strong lolicon push. Of course that is not a bad thing sometimes. It just tends to make some people feel awkward.
Personally I was a little weary to start this series from the mixed comments, but after reading this I may give it a go. Despite some of the issues with animation and directing I am very curious to learn more about Mina’s character. She does not seem to follow the common tropes we now see today in most anime.
I like the lolicon push. It actually added a significant symbolic layer for me that I think wouldn’t have otherwise.
While I wouldn’t strongly recommend this, it’s certainly worth checking out, and it’s a pretty intricate anime. I enjoyed it.
As a consumer of media featuring blonde twintail little girls, I was hugely disappointed by how this show unfolded, which you have mentioned. Not even the naked oil rubdown was enough to redeem the series for me, and that’s saying a lot.
Yea, the execution was pretty unforgivable for me, which is a shame. Usually, I can overlook the minor flaws, but the issues I had with the animation and directing knocked my overall experience down by too much. I still liked it overall, but just not that much.
I loved reading the Manga and am pissed I still do not have vol 8 yet. I decided to stay away from the Anime as I wanted to enjoy the read first.
I dare to say I will not be watching it as to spoil my love for the written material 🙂
The manga is much better. It has all the good elements and none of the problems the anime has. Further, the anime detracts a bit from the manga story, and that may not be good. I don’t think you’ll be missing much by skipping on the anime.
On that point of the manga being better, I agree completely. I’m an avid reader of the series myself.
As for the anime detracting from the manga, I actually heard that was the intention of the mangaka himself, as opposed to the studio (Shaft), which is rather unusual considering it’s normally the studios that create original plotlines due to running out of original source material. Hardly a problem for Vampire Bund at present.
As to why he wanted the anime to be taken in a different direction, I really can’t say. Perhaps when the mangaka saw he was only getting 12 episodes, he thought he couldn’t do the original justice; or perhaps he wanted to explore a route of the manga he eventually decided against with the anime.
I think he should’ve stuck to the original storyline, as do many who watched it. But at the end of the day I did enjoy the anime all the same. It just had potential to be so much better.
Oh that’s really interesting. I didn’t know that it was the mangaka’s decision. I’m not so sure it was a good idea. The arc with Mei Ren was pretty bland.
Thanks for the neat info.
Oh Yi…
Haha. ^ ^
What is it about this post?
I too enjoyed Vampire Bund overall. I found Mina to be an interesting character and thought her young appearance really worked well. Her outward personality is a complete contrast to her physical appearance. But we’re then also shown her more fragile child like self when she is around Akira.
:spoiler:
Although I would have been happy if they just ended around episode 7 with them both stabbing each other. But instead they chose to drag it out, start new arcs half heartedly and ended up creating a confusing mess in the end.
Agreed wholeheartedly about Mina! It’s this combination of mature toughness and innocent fragility that makes her so fascinating.
You also mentioned another really good point about the anime. I didn’t have much space to discuss the two arcs and the pacing; the post was running a bit long. But I agree again. I thought the story had a great wrap up with the end of the first arc. It managed to create a believable world and story, develop the characters, and have a definitive and satisfying ending. Then the anime tacked on another rushed arc of a much smaller scale. It just seems really awkward to go small, big, climax, denoument…… and then yet another small story. It killed the flow. I was not impressed with that arc.
You make me want to pick it up again…I made to episode 6, and then dropped it. I may give the manga a try though.
That’s good. I’m a firm believer in finishing series all the way through regardless of its quality. I thought I was pretty harsh about Vampire Bund, but there are certainly people who disagree. Best thing would just be to view it for yourself. The manga, however, is almost unanimously thought to be better, so that’s also nice to pick up.
I watched and reviewed this show during the dark ages of Twilight New Moon, or whichever movie was released at that time. I don’t care since I loathe the Twilight movie series. Basically my gimmick for the review was:
“Pro Boyfriend prisoners edition: Dance in the Vampire Bund”.
Anyway, that’s what it was. Basically I gave it an 8/10 because I loved it for bringing back the greatness of vampirism, not 100% since another on-going anime, “Shiki”, is doing that at the moment. However, at that time, DitVB did a great job for the most part. Sure, it’s not a masterpiece but it was most enjoyable. I had a pro outweighing con mindset watching this one, so I didn’t mind the flaws that much. It was a good adaptation of the manga version.
The slo-mo camera moments were actually amusing to me. Heck, when you can make accidentally shattering an egg look epic, that’s gold to me. You disliked those parts and it’s understandable.
Everything else you mentioned I agree with, especially Mina Tepes being the epitome of awesomeness in 2009. She’s that epic.
Lastly, about the little boy and her megane super babe, I only had this to say when I saw it happen…”WHERE WAS MY SUPER MEGANE BABE WHEN I WAS HIS AGE?!” I was more envious than judgmental over the age difference. Heck, they’re vampires now, so she’ll probably wait until he’s of legal age before they….”get down to business”.
It was a huge step up from the Twilight series in terms of building an interesting vampire lore and the surrounding rules/ world of vampires. I really appreciated that and I liked the anime because of it.
“Pro Boyfriend prisoners edition: Dance in the Vampire Bund”
Sounds interesting! Is there a link to it?
“WHERE WAS MY SUPER MEGANE BABE WHEN I WAS HIS AGE?!”
Haha! ^ ^
Most of the time, manga adaptations are superior to their anime counterparts for obvious reasons. At least we agree on the fact that this show has managed to revive vampire greatness during a dark year for that genre.
http://animeforum.org.uk/showthread.php?t=10116
Here’s the link to all my reviews. DitVB is lucky number 13.
I’m serious. Something that upsets me about anime males is that they’re so unfairly lucky. Dang that megane girl was hot.
Great review! Love what your wrote about the loliness. People who dismiss this show because of Mina needs to lighten up indeed.
Also, agreed about Akira being a male lead in a potential harem situation who actually is very likable. That’s rare and that’s always a refreshing thing to see.
Disagreed about the animation and the directing, but you already know that. ^ ^
However, agreed about the artwork. Certain frames and the associated artworks are truly gorgeous. Also a special shout out again to Mina’s clothes. She has a purple parka/ hooded overcoat that’s really pretty. Her dress during the inauguration is also lovely too. And she has a very sexy lingerie collection.
I don’t know yet since I haven’t seen the series, but from the images that I’ve seen so far, it does seem like pedobear would have a field day with her. So to hear that these concepts are thrown into a contrary is quite cool.
I like how some anime series and video games basically challenge social norms and present different realities. It gets you thinking and questioning ourselves and humanity.
It saddens me to know that the presentation is terrible though. The screenshots you showed makes it look like a low budget hentai film. 😦
If I recall, there’s manga right? I might consider picking that up instead.
I think the resemblance to Rachel Alucard also helps. nom nom.
I’d imagine too that pedobear would love this probably for reasons in addition to the ones I wrote about. It’s understandable though since Mina is very pretty and cute.
The animation is pretty low budget looking so I was kind of disappointed. The manga is considerably better in many’s minds, so that’s probably better time spent.
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Hurray for purple Eskimo Mina! Also, a shout out for “Super Gold Mina”. when I saw that for the 1st time, my eyes opened wide and my mouth slammed down to the ground. Such beauty and splendor.
I didn’t mention much about Mina’s clothing because she makes anything that she wears look epic.
As for my lack of content when it comes to music and animaion…well, it’s because I rarely have anything of value to say about them. It’s up to the viewers what they think about them. Whether they like it or don’t. That simple. You explained the show’s flaws much better than I did. Still, the point is that we both enjoyed the show, despite its flaws.
Yea. I think despite what I wrote about the flaws, I actually did enjoy the series quite a bit. The review may have made me sound as if I disliked it, but that’s certainly not the case.
Also, Super Gold Mina is lovely!
The 1st episode, I thought it was kinda slow the 1st time I saw it, however, after watching the 2nd and 3rd episodes, I realized how important the 1st episode was. I mean, it was the perfect location for Mina to make the identity of the bund and the existence of vampires known to the all humanity. After all, it’s like you said, the 1st arc is all about building a vampire nation where vampires can live peacefully in their own kingdom without being a bother to humans or vice-versa. I wish they continued with a 2nd season because the revelation near the season finale was just too awesome to deny.
Agreed about the 1st episode. When it first aired, I remember a lot of people not liking it. In retrospect though, I think it was actually brilliantly placed for reasons you mentioned.
The first episode confused the heck out of me so I didn’t watch any more beyond that. I wasn’t aware that there was any nation building in the anime, most of what I hear is about how hot or not hot Mina is. If there was an anime focused on nation building, I would watch it though.
The creation of the Bund is part of the core plot for the first arc, and the part I found most interesting. The first episode, if I remember correctly, also generated a bit of talk among many people for its controversial beginning. I didn’t mind it too much though, and I was glad I stuck with it.
“what I hear is about how hot or not hot Mina is.”
That’s also important. ^ ^
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I didn’t like the first two episodes of this series much at all, so I gave up on it at the time that it aired. I plan to finish off this series next on my list, so hopefully I can find some elements to like just like you did.
I think overall, it’s a nice series, but not a must-watch. There are good elements but there are also unforgivable flaws.
I’ve been debating reading this manga for a while now, in fact I’m still debating it even after reading your post. I’m really not sure if I should try this series or not. Generally I dislike anything loli, but there are always exceptions to the rule. And I’m trying to figure out if this series is one of those exceptions.
That’s a good question and I don’t know if everyone will agree with me on the loli simply being a way to further the story. There are times when Mina’s sexuality is meant to arouse, and that can be uncomfortable.
Personally, I don’t tend to get into things I’m not too sure about due to time concerns, but I think it could be worth checking out if you have a lot of free time.
For some reason I’m a lot less picky on which manga series I read as opposed to anime. Anime I think over for a while before I start. But manga is all about my random impulses.
Well, in that case, I’d suggest keeping this on your radar. You might end up liking it… or hating it.
I dropped this series after a few episodes because the presentation and animation quality wasn’t what I was used to.
The animation really wasn’t something I was used to or even enjoyed. 😦
I stuck through though (out of an obsessive need to finish every series I start). And I’m kind of glad I did.
I really loved Mina, but somehow I wasn’t overly satisfied with how the series went, honestly. I felt like the series somehow became half-baked toward the end. It was such a letdown because Mina Tepes is a really interesting character and the whole premise of the Vampire Bund itself is very interesting. I might consider picking up the manga… Do you know which company licensed the manga?
Same here. The second arc was kind of a flop… This could have been really good, but somehow it just didn’t come together.
I think the manga is licensed by Seven Seas. Not sure though, so you might want to double check on that.
Decent review, from your own perspective of course. I can see that you are a loli fan, and are thus drawn to the whole sexual taboos. But I still fail to see the intricate plot, the coherence factor, and Mina being out-of-the-world as you keep glorifying her as such. Sorry, I have already disagreed to it point by point. You and I disagree on so much, that it is pointless to bring that up here all over again.
Saw one half of the first episode, and well, it was an average looking anime at best. They did not have enough story to back it up anyways, as the whole manga is one huge sleaze-fest and pedophilia-esque galore to boot. If only they had left the over-the-top in-your-face skankiness, and the usual frequent sluttiness of Miss Mina and actually worked on the plot, then it could have been a decent, even good series.
Alas, like some many lolis before it, it only caters to the set audience. Truly a shameful experience for me.
P.S: Sorry for the late reply. I was busy.
Yea, it’s fine that we disagree. Actually, I find a lot of people tend to disagree with my reviews here and there. The more important thing though is that we can at least read each other thoughts. ^ ^
I haven’t been called a loli fan often before though… Haha, I guess I kind of am.
The anime is not just average looking… It’s pretty ugly. I really hated the animation. It was inconsistent, and the designs were grotesque. Mina does not even look good in many of the scenes.
Anyway, don’t worry about the late reply. I’ve been pretty unresponsive myself these last couple of weeks. We all have our real life issues. Good luck. ^ ^
Yeah haha, at least we can understand each other that much.
Trust me, I have seen worse looking animes. Some of the episodes of Death Note are so damn hedious, that this ends up looking better. La Corda Doro Primo Paso is an ugly looking anime as well, right up there with the likes of Loveless. I hate inconsistencies, they ruin the anime experience, and I think majority seem to suffer from it. Hellsing OVA’s did not escape this dilemma as well.
Yeah, life can be a handful sometimes. Take care.
Hehe, now I’ll know to avoid those anime. I thought Death Note manga looked OK though, but I’ve never seen the anime. I guess sometimes, things just get lost in adaptations.
Adaptations can be good as well. It depends how much effort you put into them. But I have a rule for games to movies adaptations…. fail. They always DO. Tomb Raider, and Silent hill were bearable movies, but the rest… dear Lord!
You can always contact me on mail if you want to. My net is pretty slow, so, it takes a while to open up your site.
I agree about game-movie adaptations. Most I’ve seen are pretty bad…
Anyway, sorry about the slow loading. I tend to use a lot of graphics in my posts, and that slows things down. Also, same here about emails. If you want to talk about anything, my email is open. You can just use the contact page on the menu for the first email. ^ ^
Read the Manga the anime is based off of, it pulls through where the anime fails.
That’s what I hear too. When I get a chance, I’ll definitely check it out.
Thanks for visiting. ^ ^
I have to disagree with the sloppy animation. I personally think that the animation quality was one of the best aspects of this show. Plus, considering it’s anime, you can’t really expect the characters to look exactly the same in one seen or another. Take Lucky Star for example. You can’t say they always look the same in every frame. For example:
So you can’t expect anime characters to look exactly the same in each frame. If they did, it wouldn’t be anime!
While it’s true Lucky Star has varying animation, that it does not take itself seriously and that the deformity are often intentional work toward the comedy–the chibi faces and whatnot–whereas I feel like Vampire Bund’s inconsistencies in animation are glaringly apparent in an anime that over dramatizes everything with slow motions and freeze frames. And that animation is certainly not intentional.
I don’t expect anime characters to look exactly the same in each frame. With that said, Vampire Bund’s characters sometimes look like they were done by a completely different production, in a different style, for a different anime. To make matters worse, the characters often look pretty ugly in certain moments…
(My comment here addresses this as well, and gives some examples.)
Of course, I suppose we all have different takes. If you think this level of quality is acceptable, enjoy~ ^ ^