Katsuki's Media Review Page^{Vampires imminent!_{Most of these reviews are for anime. If it was anything more, this would go on forever.}}

The anime itself had stunning visuals and I really loved the character design! At first, the narrative was great, but it started to take a weird turn when Jeanne was introduced. Was it really necessary to have that moment in there?From then on, the anime started to rub me the wrong way with how... I guess... kinky everything became? I'm no prude, but for such a good opener to the plot, it feels like wasted potential.I wish I had the energy to go back and watch the entire thing so that I can give this show a fighting chance, but it's so uncomfortable that it's difficult to focus.Despite this, the scenes still make for awesome animated profiles.

The anime's visuals were generally a bit underwhelming for my tastes, but it was to be expected for the year it was released. The characters were difficult to find interesting and it felt like there were just too many of them that the show expected you to remember.One character I particular disliked was Shinoa. For some reason, the fandom really likes Shinoa, and I may be biased as a gay man, but her personality was very graining to me. Her behavior didn't feel overly necessary and somehow, every scene she's in just felt like creepy-man eye candy.Midway through, the plot started to kick up and surprised me. It just got a lot better! Still disappointed that Yu and Mika didn't canonically date, though.

Holy hell, where do I even begin with how awesome this show was?I've never been allowed to play the Castlevania games growing up, but if I ever did, I would think the show did it justice. The characters, plot, and visuals were all fantastic! There's even tons of LGBTQ+ representation! Pride win!However, despite how much the Netflix show absolutely rocked, there were still a lot of pitfalls that they weren't able to avoid. Namely, for such good writing, they didn't have the runtime to execute it.I blame funding, of course. I don't think the producers had a choice, but many of the characters (ex. Carmilla) didn't have enough time to develop properly. If there were more episodes, this would've been avoided.

There is a lot I want to say about Diabolik Lovers, but for the sake of this brief commentary, I'll just fit what I can. However, to start, I have many mixed feelings. (Those feelings being mostly negative)I've known Diabolik Lovers ever since I was a child, and boy, is it a guilty pleasure of mine by this point in my life. Obviously, this visual novel series (and the company in general) has many issues with romanticizing toxicity to extreme extents.Yui, as the protagonist, was created to be projected on by the player, so naturally, she is a bland pushover. The plot in the game was okay and I do have some appreciation for the worldbuilding, but yeesh... It's hard to enjoy Diabolik Lovers without immediately cringing from my adult wisdom.

Ahh, yes, the classic. THE vampire anime that everyone knows somehow. And yet, surprisingly, it is not one of my favorites, nor does it elicit many nostalgic memories for me.Vampire Knight is... for what it's worth... very boring to me. Now, while it has similar non-con issues that you'd see in, say, Diabolik Lovers, the mundane plot and characters downplay those aspects by a lot.For the casual viewer, Vampire Knight can be seen as something that is easy on the brain and eyes, given its retro visuals and trope-y story. However, as a lover of detailed storytelling, it's just not for me. I would take an insanely toxic romance dynamic for some entertainment than this.

The first actual live action media I'm covering on the current list! Wow!I watched and read Twilight when I was 14, purely to enlighten myself on even more mainstream vampire content. However, it is just about as I expected. The protagonist was boring, the vampire characters had a lot of bullshit abilities for seemingly no reason, and it was difficult to keep my attention, cringe aside.Of course, this is well-suited for casual vampire enjoyers, but the lack of substance in the Twilight saga isn't for me. Although, forcing people to watch the movies with me is a fun jumpscare trick to play at house parties, putting it a step above Vampire Knight.