- Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1/2.35:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24
- Audio Codec: Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0, English Dolby TrueHD 5.1
- Subtitles: English
- Region: AB (No Region C)
- Rating: TV-MA
- Discs: 4 (2 x Blu-ray + 2 x DVD)
- Studio: Funimation
- Blu-ray Release Date: June 14, 2011
- List Price: $64.98
[amazon-product]B004TP55J8[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase Dance in the Vampire Bund on Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Series
[Rating:4.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
–
The Series
[Rating:4.5/5]
Sultry and irresistible from episode-to-episode, Dance in the Vampire Bund is a romantic, supernatural, loli-goth anime based on the series of manga written and illustrated by Nozomu Tamaki. If you love vampire stories, then you can put away all your contemporary preconceptions of a vapid world filled with “Twilight” characters. Uh, uh, this is a hip, risqué, and purely addictive take on the genre.
The story revolves around the childlike vampire Mina Ţepeş, descendent of Vlad the Impaler and ruler of all the vampires, who decides to reveal the existence of vampires to the entire world, and her protector, the sixteen-year-old high school student Akira, a werewolf of the Earth Clan, sworn to be by her side forever. At the outset of the series, we learn that Akira has suffered a head injury and lost his memory, not even remembering who or what Mina is. In fact, he doesn’t even know he is a werewolf.
Slowly, as Akira recovers his memory, he realizes his bind to, and his love for Mina, but he is uncomfortable, since princess Mina is in the body of a prepubescent girl. But she has a secret that she desperately wants hidden from everyone and that is when she transforms (as all vampires do) she takes on the form of an adult woman with wings. She must keep this hidden lest the heads of the other two families of true-bloods (the original vampire bloodline) force her to marry and bear a child.
Other problems also arise from the princess’ revelation to the world. She has negotiated an agreement with the Japanese government through a plan to take over their national debt to lease permanently a large plot of land that will become a self-governing homeland for all vampires, the Vampire Bund. There are those out there, however, that want to see Mina killed, so she must face threats from vampires and humans alike. Meanwhile, as Akira and Mina grow closer, he also grows suspicious of her intentions and her true nature – is she really well-meaning, or is she just a vicious, blood sucking beast? Things really blow up between Akira and Mina when Mina kidnaps the Prime Minister’s son and has him bitten in order to secure passage of the bill securing the ratification of the Vampire Bund. So determined to fight her, Akira sets off to confront her, but soon realizes that there is something he still doesn’t remember, something dangerous, about the true-bloods, that could be the key to all that is going on and to his loyalty and love for Mina.
With its gorgeous animation, excellent character design and development, and downright marvelous story arc, Dance in the Vampire Bund is destined to be a classic.
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Dance in the Vampire Bund looks great on Blu-ray. The AVC 1080p encodement looks nearly flawless, showing deep, rich colors, sharp line art, and little in the way of artifacting outside of some sporadic color banding that may be inherent to the animation itself.
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio is strong as well, whether you go for the original Japanese language track in lossless Dolby TrueHD 2.0 or the English Dolby TrueHD 5.1. You get clean dialogue, a punchy midrange, and decent dynamics. The Japanese mix has a nice wide stereo spread while the English 5.1 mix opens things up a bit with a good amount of ambient sounds in the surround channels, but doesn’t get overly aggressive with discrete sounds.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]
Everything here is promotional outside of the Intermission 1 – 12, which is a motion comic of sorts that expands the anime with an added storyline outside of the Dance in the Vampire Bund manga.
The supplements provided with this release are:
- Intermission 1 – 12 (1.78:1; 1080i/60; 0:16.25)
- Original Commercials (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 0:01.25)
- Promo Video (1080p/24)
- Textless Opening Song
- Textless Closing Song
- Trailers:
- Drop
- Ga-Rei-Zero
- Claymore
- Rin – Daughters of Mnemosyne
- Funimation.com
- Speed Grapher
- TO
- Darker than Black
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:4/5]
Addictive, gorgeous, naughty, heartbreaking, and well thought out from start to finish, it’s love at first bite with Dance in the Vampire Bund. This is a certified instant classic for sure and it looks and sounds spectacular on Blu-ray.
Additional Screen Captures
–
[amazon-product]B004TP55J8[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase Dance in the Vampire Bund on Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Series
[Rating:4.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]
