Dance in the Vampire Bund - Episode 6

After finding himself and Yuki attacked by vampires last episode, it seems a little like Akira is perhaps losing patience a little with the vampire race as a whole - A train of thought exacerbated by the appearance of Meiren as this instalment begins.

Meiren's revelation that Mina Tepes' first meeting with Akira which reunited them and everything that transpired afterwards was carefully stage managed unsurprisingly shakes up our male protagonist somewhat, and things only get worse when he not only finds himself barred from seeing Mina to question her motives for himself, but also finds out about her plot regarding the kidnapping of the Prime Minister's grandson. Combine all of these points and it's safe to say that Akira's trust in his "princess" is beyond dented.


When he finds that there are still yet more vampires prowling the school, Akira finally gets to confront Mina, who hardly does a good job at assuaging Akira's concerns - A situation which sees Akira turning to an unlikely new ally in the school's student council, as he vows to help them rid the school of vampires. If this really even possible? Between Akira and the council members a plot is formed, but as you might expect things aren't quite as simple in reality as they are in the heads of a few bright high school students.

If I had to find one word to describe this sixth episode of Dance in the Vampire Bund, then the word would be "disjointed". While previous episodes have suffered a little from not moving things forward enough, this instalment seemed determined to pack so much in that it jumped all over the place without giving either the viewer or the story time to settle and establish itself properly. The whole thing felt almost like a Toyota with a brake failure, careering along with no opportunity for consideration - A real shame when you consider how much was revealed over the course of the episode.

Maybe it's just my attitude towards this series reflecting back upon me, but I can't help but think that the whole of this series thus far feels a little half-hearted - There's no real life or verve to it, leaving it depicting "a bunch of stuff that happens" rather than a story in the truest sense of the word. Even the depths and conflicts within Mina's character are getting rather short shrift when they should make for a rich vein of material, to the point where I'm struggling to find anything positive to say about Dance in the Vampire Bund at all. Am I just missing something?