Kekkai Sensen / Blood Blockade Battlefront

Discuss Kekkai Sensen (or Blood Blockade Battlefront, for those so inclined)! There's a manga as well, of which the now-airing anime is an adaptation - although some aspects of what's been shown so far make it clear that Studio BONES have added a few original things of their own to the mix - so for those who've read the source material, please make sure to put discussion of such behind spoiler tags. Thank you.

I'm a little bit surprised I'm not seeing much discussion about this one. The two episodes so far have been fantastic. The OP and ED are definitely some of the best this season, not to mention the soundtrack, art direction, characters, setting, etc.

New York, New York, it's a hell of a town / The bridge is up, the Alterworld down

So, it's my pick for the best thing airing this season

Second episode stepped up its game, I think. I have a clearer idea of what this series is trying to do (in terms of abilities, setting, characters and mood) now. I liked it. Nice action comedy. Likable characters. Sinister otherworldly villains. Hook for the next episode with a ghost girl.

About Episode 2, if Leonardo can make other people see what he sees (like he did inside the truck), why didn't he just show Zapp what was behind the illusion?

...You saw what happened when he did that, right?

He did it twice. The second time (at 16:01) was devastating, true, but the first time (at 13:59) did nothing more than distract the guys. Which means he can control it so that it wouldn't have hurt Zapp.

edited 13th Apr '15 4:26:10 AM by Elfhunter

I'm one of those getting an old-school feel from this show, for some reason. It's fun, bombastic, and utterly shameless so far. I like it.

Also, man, that's prime Rie Kugumiya face from White there at the end of episode 2.

Amazing soundtrack (that jazz, man), way above-average animation, amusing aliens, superhumans, werewolves, ghosts, eye powers and uncertain-shaped abominations. Why did I dismiss this series again without watching it? Because that's certainly the biggest mistake I made this season. This just screams fun and style of the highest order.

That's an understatement. The animation is amazing. The bright lights and vivid colors; no surprise considering the director's the one who did Kyousogiga.

Another reason why this series is awesome.

Captain Grodek became a demon, broke out of hell, and started beating monsters up with his own blood.

For some reason, Gintama leaps to mind. I blame the voice cast, especially Leonardo and (now with episode 2), White.

I, on the other hand, was really happy that Sunohara managed to land a main role in an anime, but also sad that Tomoya had to be somewhere else.

edited 14th Apr '15 5:49:36 AM by Elfhunter

Episode 2 felt even MORE like Hamatora than the first. Must be Libra's boss. Looks sort of similar to Three.

I don't think Leo knew he could do that with his eyes till he decided to try it out on the guards. Pretty cool though, attempting to induce vertigo with the projected images.

Episode 3: Chess for Masochistic Genius Chess Nerds all over Earth and the Alterworld.

Props to Klaus for surviving the checkerboard mindfuckery for 99 hours.

Ridiculous, semi-coherent, and so fucking pretty. Yeah, this is Nightow all over

Just to show how much this game will mess with you, a number of the boards that appeared over time were spheres, and then pieces could combine, level up, had special abilities, and to top it all likely has a very small time limit between moves considering how fast they play.

And Klaus has done this four five times with the Don, who has four brains.

It's like if Chess fused with a Rubik's Cube and Dn D.

Mind, Klaus was bleeding through his nose already — that's just how much stress his brain was under just to not lose. Not win, but NOT LOSE.

That's impressive, especially given the opponent was nearly all-brain.

Three episodes in and in each one at most I only understand half of what's going on. Normally I'd say it's because I overlooked somethings but this just seems almost intentionally incoherent. I don't know about the manga but hopefully the anime gets better about that.

I think they're trying to maintain the tone of the manga (the particular form of incoherence strongly reminds me of Trigun Maximum), so I'd only expect it to get better if they move to something entirely anime-original, and then probably accidentally

I thought it was pretty easy to understand. There was a drug that augmented human abilities to superhuman levels, including surviving decapitation, and they wanted to stop the drug trafficking.

They weren't get anywhere the normal way so they went to the don to find out where it's all located.

While a genius from likely a nation that splintered off from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union wants nuclear weapons for his nation and made a deal with the Don for it.

The Don really likes playing Prosfair with Klaus, so he used the situation to his advantage.

edited 19th Apr '15 4:47:58 PM by OmegaRadiance

That is it exactly. The only confusion I had was due to Leo being in mid convo with the ghost in the intro and then we see nothing of her until the end where it just like oh they live together now.

Given it carried over from episode two, that strikes me as an ongoing thing that has yet to become the main plot. Yet being the operative word in that sentence.

Episode 3: So, are all alterdudes dicks (other than the monkey who started out as a dick but is now much less of one), or...?

Cool music.

Oh goodie, this is another one of those anime where I only understand half of what's going on due to the complete otherworldliness of the setting and introduction of new elements with little exposition.

@LSBK Oh that's a relief, thank you. I'm usually the only one and everyone else is like "wut didn't you get, they had to get the Exporennimus device from Grogor castle, which has been lost for 249 years, so they went to Madam Krankersnauss, who was introduced in scene B of episode 2 as Fiori's sister's college roommate's gynecologist, and she gave them the map, which was located in a microchip disguised as a false nail."

x3 I did gather that much. It just seems like there's more to it, maybe there really isn't. Maybe the weird tone/pacing just makes it confusing.

Okay, this game is boring.

So did everyone involved just sit there for four days and three hours?

Back at the Extremely Gorgeous Giant Hospital. I wonder what White's deal is, since evidently she's not a ghost.

edited 19th Apr '15 6:39:01 PM by Ruise

I'm so glad I picked this up, it's been awesome so far.

Why is BONES so good

Huh, I'd been assuming that Klaus was a vampire. Guess he just has fangs for some reason

Looks like we'll be seeing Femt next episode, which should be entertaining