60 years ago, an epidemic of insomnia leads to the creation of a medicine with the side effect of turning anyone who takes it into vampires. The series follows four of these vampires - Mi Liu, a half-bloodivore, half human breed dubbed as the "Child of Hope, along with his friends from an orphanage Anji, Win Chao and Chen Fong. Following a failed bank robbery, they are captured. Their misadventures continue as they later wake up in an unknown warehouse filled with other bloodivores who also commited crimes.
Bloodivores is a vampired-themed Thriller anime which aired from October 1, 2016 to December 17, 2016 as part of the Fall 2016 season. It is an adaptation of a Chinese manhua called Space-Time Prisoners by Bai Xiao.
Tropes present in Bloodivores
- Action Prologue: The first episode begins with a car Chase Scene on the road.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Unfortunately by way of the Compressed Adaptation trope, this anime leaves a lot of lore unanswered or simplified, leaving plot holes left and right, such as the exposition of D-GPS, the strange medicine, how the monsters and the hemomancers' powers came to be, the android that looks like Anji, the goals of the BST organization, Yaya's origin amongst many others.
- All Men Are Perverts: Specifically elder men. One bloodivore rips of the clothes of the Anji-lookalike android in plain view during the briefing scene, while the other males are cheering and laughing at the sight of her naked, until Chen Fong interrupts.
- An Arm and a Leg: In the final episode, Lee Shin blocks a monster's mouth with his whole arm just as it was about to bite an unconscious Mi Liu, costing Lee Shin's arm.
- Artificial Gravity: Mi Liu's hemomancy powers is "creating a point of gravity and directing himself into that place for as long as it is on his line-of sight". Or in simpler terms, quickly leaping himself and others into any directions within 10 meters. This also allows him to defy gravity itself to stand and run on walls.
- Bank Robbery: What the protagonists did the first episode which led them being arrested by the authorities.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Cho Ifen betrays Mi Liu and Anji by pushing the latter towards a monster, then she is later in cahoots with Lou Yao, now seemingly antagonistic against Mi Liu's plans.
- Blood Lust: Bloodivores are stated to crave for blood the longer they are unable to taste some, and it is physically signified by their eyes turning red.
- Body Horror: Lee Shin's hemomancy powers make bladed weapons come out from his body and pierce him from all directions. Fortunately, it's all Bloodless Carnage despite some shots focusing on the painful process for a while.
- Call-Back: Lou Yao is so annoyed of Chen Fong not even bothering to wear upper clothes that he himself stripped his outfit to have Chen Fong dressed. Chen Fong didn't actually wear it afterwards, and Lou Yao calls him "half naked" once more when they reunite.
- Cannot Talk to Women: Lee Shin has an absurd phobia of females.
- Casting a Shadow: Anji's hemomancy power is the ability to physically manifest strings of shadows to bind others, which is actually activated already even in the first episode.
- Chekhov's Gun: Mi Tenju burning Mi Liu's arm in the prison cell. He is actually implanting the Master Computer Sapphire in his wrist to help him at least when Mi Liu would be transferred to Aori.
- Chekhov's Skill: After watching Lee Shin cut the monsters with ease using his blades, Mi Liu realizes that physical attacks can be just as effective as long as it is aimed in the head. So when he is forced to defeat two of these monsters, he uses a spiked rebar to repeatedly pierce the monster's head until it does. Another encounter has him using a rock to repeatedly bash a monster's head.
- Cliffhanger: Episode 12 ends with The cast in dire straits, with Lou Yao and his men arriving only after Mi Liu and Lee Shin are incapacitated by monsters. Then a female spectre digitizes in front of them.
- Chase Scene: The first episode begins with this, with Mi Liu and Anji running away from the cops until they run into a barricaded truck.
- Covers Always Lie: The poster shows Mi Liu, Anji, Chen Fong and Win Chao wearing face masks with intricate designs. Nowhere did the anime actually showcased these face masks, but their disguises in the Bank Robbery scene are merely tinted visors.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Lou Yao and Cho Ifen's scene when they are both locked in one room. From the outside, Mi Liu wonders why he's taking so long from opening the door, then we get to see shots of the two gasping, a glass of wine tipping and Lou Yao screaming from being interrupted. All of these imply that Lou Yao and Cho Ifen might have had sex in his room.
- The Dreaded: Lou Yao is infamously known for being the strongest among the bloodivores to the point where other criminals allude him to the devil.
- Establishing Character Moment: Lou Yao beating monsters with his bare fists, showcasing his insane Super-Strength, as the other bloodivores can do nothing but watch at their "savior".
- Extreme Omnivore: One of the signs that Lee Shin's hemomancy powers are activated is when he eats one of his blades for no reason. He tries to voluntarily activate his powers by eating a blade once more but Lou Yao stops him midway.
- Grievous Harm with a Body:
- Lou Yao throws some of the monsters into each other during the warehouse fight.
- Mi Liu also kills some of the monsters in the hallway by luring one to collide with another.
- Immune to Bullets: Firearms are useless against the abominations in Aori, but explosives and other forms of close-combat and physical weaponry can kill them.
- Katanas Are Just Better: When the bloodivores are quick to realize that firearms are ineffective against the monsters, Lee Shin proves than bladed weapons such as katanas can still cut them with enough force.
- Locked in a Room: The initial premise has a group of bloodivores locked inside a strange warehouse.
- Master Computer: The Sapphire supercomputer implanted on Mi Liu's wrist. At the touch of the blue object, he is able to open an interface with voice commands for searching any information related to Aori and the bloodivores currently inside.
- Mind over Matter: A bloodivore is shown with telekinetic abilities as he holds the barricades in place with his mind. Anji's ability is initially demonstrated like this as she moves a distant rock with his hand, but it is more closely related to shadow manipulation instead.
- Noodle Incident: Lou Yao holds a grudge for Mi Tenju for being the only man who was able to capture him, but it wasn't explained how Mi Tenju was able to do so.
- Once More, with Clarity: The Bank Robbery scene from Episode 1 is played again after Anji's hemomancy powers are revealed. At first, the protagonists wonder how some civilians were killed in the bank without any gunshot wounds, how the cops were suddenly alerted to the incident via D-GPS, and it wasn't explained yet why Win Chao is suddenly wary of Anji outside the bank. Win Chao's flashback then shows that he saw Anji's shadow moving in a corner of the room, activating her collar's D-GPS and giving their position to the authorities.
- One-Man Army:
- Lee Shin is capable of killing the monsters with ease using bladed weapons, as he is a professional assassin, and he holds back the line for Mi Liu several times and reunites with them unscathed. When he does get wounded for protecting Mi Liu near the end of the anime, he was shown with a ton of monster corpses already slaughtered.
- While the rest of the bloodivores are stuck behind their barricade, Lou Yao arrives on the scene and begins thrashing all of the monsters just with his bare fists and a grenade given by Chen Fong.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Bloodivores distinguishes its bloodsuckers from regular old vampires by calling them... well, take a guess. Their bloodsucking ailment is the unfortunate side effect of a drug intended to cure a strange case of insomnia.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: One of the young bloodivores can transform into a werewolf-like beast. Unfortunately, he cannot control this form and the others had to restrain him.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The protagonists' disguise in the Bank Robbery scene from the first episode consist of nothing else but simple tinted visors. Literally anyone else can recognize their voice and see their outfit and unique hairstyles.
- Pokémon Speak: Inverted, Chen Fong names Yaya from the only sound she knows, as she is uncapable of speaking properly due to being a Wild Child.
- P.O.V. Cam: Episode 1 ends with a perspective from Mi Liu being shot by a SWAT officer.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: When a bloodivores enters a Blood Lust frenzy, their eyes glow red. Lee Shin's eyes also glow red when his hemomancy powers are awakened.
- Required Secondary Powers: As Lee Shin's hemomancy powers makes blades come out from his body, he is also seemingly invulnerable from pain as his flesh turns into metal when Mi Liu tries to strike him with one of his blades.
- Robotic Reveal: The Anji lookalike briefing everyone in the warehouse is revealed to be merely an android when a monster rips it from behind.
- Storm of Blades: Part of Lee Shin's hemomancer powers allows him to rain blades in several directions.
- Super-Strength: Lou Yao's hemomancy power. He is strong and agile enough to take on a horde of monsters by himself.
- Survival Horror: The trapped bloodivores have to survive in Aori while being threatened by strange-looking abominations.
- Taking the Bullet: Chen Fong blocks a Blood Lust-fueled Lee Shin's katana aimed at Anji by blocking it using his entire body. For some reason, he survives long enough to have it removed afterwards.
- Telepathy: Cho Ifen's hemomancy power is mind-reading, although it isn't explained how she is able to do so, the only situation where this is demonstrated is when she confirms Mi Liu's statements whether they may be truth or lies.
- Time Crash: Mi Liu speculates at one point that those who are trapped in Aori are in some sort of a space-time distortion, aside from the manhua being titled Space-Time Prisoners.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Mi Liu gains his hemomancer powers after a kidnapper drops him from the school's rooftop.
- Waking Up Elsewhere: The four protagonists wake up in a strange warehouse after being tranquilized in the van.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Chen Fong for most of his screen time after he threw his clothes to cover a naked Anji-lookalike android. Even Lou Yao notices it and mocks him for being "half naked" twice!
- Whatevermancy: Bloodivores who drink human blood gain special powers and are later called "hemomancers", with these powers being unique to the individual. Mi Liu doesn't need to suck others' blood since he is a half-breed.
- Wild Child: Yaya is introduced walking and leaping on all fours, with the only noise she can make being "ya ya ya".
- Willing Suspension of Disbelief: The anime does tend to break away from established rules In-Universe and out:
- So Win Chao freaks out when a child is able to see his face. But it is actually his own fault for taking off his visor while they are still inside the bank, not to mention the fact that they are only wearing visors to conceal their identities, anyone else can know their true name under simple investigation. There's also the part where the four are accused of committing civilian murder when in fact they did not, and no camera footage can prove otherwise, aside from the other fact that the police have no evidence of linking them as the criminals when there are no gunshot wounds from the victims.
- Episode 2 reveals that The collars are rigged to explode when a bloodivore fights another. Later episodes then seem to Retcon this rule as Lou Yao and Lee Shin were able to kill some of them without having their collars explode. It could turn out that the android was lying when Chen Fong notices Lou Yao's collar has a counter that increases for every monster killed, and decreases for each passing day in Aori.
- Lee Shin's phobia of females is rather inconsistent as it revealed only when they found Yaya, and he is uncomfortable when left alone her and Anji in the same room, despite the fact that he is just perfectly fine sharing the same locked room with Cho Ifen in the second episode.
- Your Head A-Splode: The punishment for fighting other bloodivores in Aori is having your head explode, as demonstrated early on when a rowdy inmate starts a brawl with Chen Fong. It turns out the android lied about this for some reason, as the collars explode when their counter reaches zero.
