Hello! This is Kuuki, the member of the organization who forgets the most stuff!
Summing up very quickly, Vassalord is an anime about a vampire cyborg (I think that is what he is but I cannot be sure, I have not researched very thoroughly) and the one who made him into a vampire. These two seem to have quite a strange relationship and it will play quite a role in the adventures they will have.
Actually, that is quite hard to write a summary of a OVA that isn’t very long. It is also quite hard to write a review of it, but I will try because I am strong and smart. (And also because it has quite a lot of shonen-ai tendencies and that the fujoshi in me just cannot leave that alone.)
To be completely honest, labeling it as a shonen-ai, especially when you consider the OVA alone is a bit far-fetched. A friend of mine said something along the lines of “It may be shonen-ai or whatever but so much stuff happens that is not!” And I tend to agree.
You see, many stuff like that play a bit too hard on the whole shonen-ai elements and everything feels artificial. Vassalord did not. For once, I felt like this anime played the whole vampire/pupil pretty well. It used the bond between the creator and his creature to make it believable and it worked, because that is a thing that has been used over and over in non shonen-ai context.
Either way, even without knowing it before hand I felt the shonen-ai elements, but if you are not a fujoshi I am pretty sure you can pretend not to see them. It is not really important.
Hell, they even seriously tried to kill each other at the beginning. Which is actually a good way to introduce the characters.
It was pretty short so, as a result it cannot really introduce many other characters and the world they live in mostly stays a mystery. I honestly did not even get who the little vampire girl exactly was. Yet she was a character that was central to the plot of this OVA.
That is my main concern with this anime. I did not get the plot because I did not get the world.
I understand they wanted to focus on the main characters because it probably targeted people already familiar with the manga but it was a bit too much. As I said, I could not get into the world nor into the plot and it is quite a shame, because I have always loved vampire stories.
On the other hand, if there is one thing I really got into it is the relationships between our two main character, I fell into the trap as expected.
I am quite curious as to how “Cherry” managed to become a cyborg vampire, I am sure everyone would be. I am actually very curious about him because it does not make sense that he can be a cyborg, a vampire and a priest all at once.
That and he is after all pretty cute.
I could not leave you without saying a word about the seiyuu performance which was pretty awesome, especially Keiji Fujiwara as Rayflo, I always like to hear Keiji Fujiwara, all the time and in every role, he has such a deep and soothing voice and he can even sound really scary. Awesome. I cannot really say a lot about Okiayu Ryotaro, none of the character he has played before really left an impression on me, but at the same time I thought his voice fit Charles so it’s fine.
And, to finish, I would recommend this OVA in a heartbeat, especially if you are a fujoshi, especially if you do not fear the need to start reading yet another manga. Because that is the effect it had on me.
