Blood-C - Episode 4

By the end of last week's episode of Blood-C, I was beginning to think that the "C" of its title stood for "cake", such was its obsession with coffee and snacks.

Thankfully, the Elder Bairn's final words telling Saya to "honour the covenant" finally seem to have kicked the series up a gear, as we rejoin Saya while she ponders these words and exactly what they're supposed to mean despite the dismissive approach of her father when she mentions them to him.  Even as Saya's decidedly normal school day carries on, wavering doubts and what seem to be ever-stronger flashbacks plague her consciousness, while we as viewers are finally, perhaps, allowed a glimpse into her inner psyche with the suggestion that Saya's love for all and sundry is little more than a veil over something much darker.

With that suggestion still spinning around in our minds, Saya finds herself with another Elder Bairn to take on and more people to protect - something she manages with a varying degree of success in easily the bloodiest battle we've seen in Blood-C yet; so much so that it brings out the censors to cover certain scenes in swathes of black.  Aside from a tough scrap against three opponents, allusion is made to the fact that Saya is little different to those she fights against - merely a cog in the wheel or a tool of a greater force, as she's once again reminded to "honour the covenant" amidst the suggestion that something is amiss with her current duty.

Compared to what's gone before, it isn't really too difficult for this episode of Blood-C to claim a place as the show's best so far - all it needed to do was trim the fat of too many cakes and lunch dates and it suddenly feels like a much tighter, more focused series.  Beyond that, it finally seems as though there is more to the action portions of the series than meets the eye - we have a hint of a disturbing past on Saya's part, and more importantly some kind of pending conflict between her duty to protect the town from the Elder Bairns and other forces involved, be they her father or otherwise.  All of this adds up to a series that suddenly feels like it has far more potential than I've previously credited it with above and beyond its admittedly impressive, visceral action component - it's just a shame that it took us four episodes to get there.