English Dub Review: Lord of Vermillion: The Crimson King “Who Set Fire to an Old Conflict?”

We didn’t start the fire.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The fight between Chihiro, Kotetsu, and the demon, (Called a Diabolos, now) continues, and it turns out their new friend has powers as well, and they can only be activated by calling out her true name, which is “Cerdid.”

Their fight gets interrupted when Kakihara, the investigative journalist, and his young partner show up to take pictures of the fight, which frame Chihiro as a murderer. The two get embroiled in the fight with these Diabolos, and awaken powers in their own right.

After the fight, our heroes are brought, at the behest of a young hooded woman, to a chapel of sorts to be inducted into an organization of heroic blood under the tutelage of Dux. They get some more information on who they are and who the people trying to kill them are. They learn that it’s up to them to save the future, by surviving against the conflicts to come. Its a grim future for our heroes, and one they might have to sacrifice Tokyo to save.

Our Take:

This is it, folks, the third episode. The final trial of the infamous “Three episode” rule for anime: the grace period for a show to get its ass off the ground and get its shit together. By and large, if a show doesn’t get good by the third episode, it’s probably not going to be worth watching. (With some exceptions, of course)

For the last two episodes, I’ve been staring blankly at Lord of Vermillion just trying to make heads or tails of what’s going on. The show has been almost cryptic and just getting on with things and revealing its premise. Stiff and awkward dialogue doesn’t help, and the setting hasn’t exactly been well established by the “Function over form” art style that sets this show in the most copy-pastable environment possible: modern urban Japan. Things get a little less, dare I say it, “Foggy” this episode, but I don’t think it successfully passes the three episode exam. Yeah, this one’s a dud.

One major issue we have so far that really jumps at me this time around is the sheer amount of characters I’m expected to give a shit about. I am drowning in a sea of names attached to only semi-interesting characters. A good show takes its time to introduce characters slowly, or, in the case of masterpieces like “Baccano” or “Durarara”, has a visual style capable of juggling all these characters around. And yeah, “Baccano” this show is not. The worst part is, I don’t think this is even everyone since the first episode revealed to us an enormous cast of characters duking it out with their bloody powers.

But hey, you know, this could be forgiven if the show gave me what a show like this is supposed to give: good action. It’s the main course, right? You watch “Pokemon” for its exciting pet battles, “Yu Gi Oh” for its tactical (And sometimes absurd) card strategies, and you come to Lord of Vermillion to watch Japanese teenagers beat the crap out of each other with blood magic. So what’s the deal? What’s the hold-up? Your writing certainly is making me care about all these well-dressed mannequins you’ve got prancing around on screen, so why not give me some fun visuals to feast on? I guess it’s too much to ask.

Episode three is the third strike for this anime, and that’s not good, considering we’ve got probably another 20 episodes to go, at least. Avoid this show if you can, but if you decide to stick around for some reason, then get ready for the shit show that’s to come.