Anime Spotlight #23: Call Of the Night

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

Answering the Call.

Ring! Ring! Ticketholders!

Hopefully, you also remember to answer the call by liking, commenting, subscribing to and following my blog, and hanging out with me on Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook for the latest news on my content.

Sorry, that call to action was about as subtle as a suggestively dressed vampire with pink hair. And so was that lead-in to today's Anime Spotlight selection, Call Of the Night. But much like the male lead of that anime, I am more than done with humanity and daytime responsibilities, I am forced to wander the night in search of energy drinks and fun, and I wouldn't mind having my blood sucked in a good way for once. So I just want to get this out "on time."

Here's the anime poster:

And because this is an anime review of the only anime where I have watched every episode without skipping the opening and closing credits theme songs (two very different music genres, both by Creepy Nuts), I'm going to format this review like an anime, so here's the OP video:

This jazzy, horns-and-piano banger is on my Hype Tracks playlist, as is the ending theme, which you can watch at the end of this post, because duh. Endings.

Call Of the Night is a supernatural romantic comedy that follows the night-time escapades of Ko Yamori, a stereotypical, romantically clueless (possibly sociopathic) high school dropout with dark hair and insomnia. The Wikipedia article for the series says Ko dropped out of school and developed insomnia because he was traumatized after rejecting a classmate's confession of love (which I know from personal experience is tihsllub--that's backwards bullshit--logic). I don’t know if this was the case in the manga (this is the Anime Spotlight, after all), but in the anime, Ko just "doesn't understand feelings," and is restlessly searching for purpose and excitement. Vending machines work, too, though, as this is how he meets Nazuna, a suggestively dressed manic pixie dream girl type who loves alcohol, giving massages, and making dirty jokes (but not being on the receiving end of them). Also, as I alluded to above, she is a vampire, and she likes the taste of Yamori's blood.

Despite being freaked out by this revelation, Yamori enjoys the time he spends with Nazuna at night, and soon asks her to turn him into a vampire. The thing about vampirism in this series, though, is that vampires can only turn people who are in love with them. Which means most vampires--yes, more will show up later, turning Call Of the Night into a shonen harem series for a few episodes--have to be, for lack of a better word, slutty. Contrary to how she dresses, though, Nazuna despises the sexual nature of turning (as love is involved, becoming a vampire is essentially a form of self-birth, which is agreeably gross), and has taken a personal vow to "save herself for the right person," which her vampire peers (vam-peers?) ridicule her for.

So begins the slice-of-life romantic-comedy formula of "flat, clueless dude gradually learns what love is while sexy, controlling chick screams internally that she is most definitely not in love with this dork until they bash their heads against the wall enough times to realize that they've always been in love and labels are what matter the most," but with vampires. And a vampire hunter that's only in one of the last three episodes. And a mystery childhood friend plot that gets resolved three episodes into the season.

Yeah, the pacing and genre adherence are all over the place, dramatically shifting from city tour (the animation and backgrounds are gorgeous in this show) to romance to comedy to horror to vamp-on-vamp Dragon Ball fights and back again, with only a few recurring gags (the three drunks on a bench are the most memorable) and the important side characters (the vampire hunter and the childhood friend, in particular) being treated as if only Yamori and Nazuna are important.

Then there's the doomed romance implication of the taste of Yamori's blood. It's never explored--in the anime, at least--whether his blood tastes delicious to all vampires or just to Nazuna, but given the ties between vampirism and love (a chemical reaction), it could be that Yamori's blood tastes the way it does because he doesn't understand love. So in the event that he truly falls in love with Nazuna and becomes a vampire, the taste of his blood will change, and Nazuna won't want anything to do with him anymore. Then they're both immortal and stuck with the person they resent most in the world, forever. Talk about a grim fairy tale, huh?

Whatever you think about it, I hope this gets another season to fix its pacing and character focus issues because for everything I can recall about Call Of the Night, I cannot remember the ending. It's like it just stopped and disappeared. Call Of the Night isn't a terrible anime. As I said, it's gorgeous. It's also fun and funny and has good lead characters. But it commits the one sin for me that is worse than being a terrible anime, and that is being forgettable.

But that ending theme, though!

Speaking of Grimm Fairy Tales and damnation, I'm doing things a little differently this week because Wednesday is my birthday, so I've moved the Inferno edition of Zenescope - Omnibusted to Thursday to make room for a new part to Dragon Blog Super: What If GOKU Was NEVER BORN?

So when the base stops reverberating in your spine, remember to like, commenti (Italian typo, LOL), subscribe to and follow my blog, and check Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook for the latest news on my content.

Animeister,

Yofukashi No Utta!

Something-something Red Eyes!

Something-something Blue Lights!

Out!