English Dub Review: Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond “Branchial Blues”

Like a breath of fresh water.

Overview (Spoiling Your Endings)

Everybody, stop what you’re doing. Leo has an announcement. He managed to book the most exclusive venue in town for Libra’s New Year’s bash. This place is so swank, it doesn’t even exist in the same dimension, and changes its entrance every day to a new door somewhere in the city. He runs around passing out the flyers. He goes into Zed’s room, and we get to see the fish-man’s living conditions. He lives in a giant aquarium, and Zapp isn’t happy about it. Apparently, the cost of the tank’s operation comes from the shared budget for personnel. If Libra is paying for that and giving him a paycheck, that means that everyone’s paychecks are considerably less. However, as Zapp whines about it to Steven, Zed overhears it. Concerned for all his compatriots, he decides to make his living expenses by getting a second job (like Leo does). Unfortunately, nobody will hire a fish man. He’s just too weird, even for the eldritch mutant freaks in Hellsalem’s Lot. As he trudges back to HQ, he has a nasty run-in with a rich girl in a limo. She spots his oxygen pods, which resemble an exclusive pair of high-end headphones. She decides she wants them and has her hit-goons take them from him. ‘Course, he needs those to breathe so, there’s a bit of a complication there. The gang find his flopping hide on the pavement and bring him back home. It will be at least a month until a new set of pods can be ordered, and Zed would have to stay in the water until they arrive. Moved to his friend’s plight, and not wanting him to miss the New Years Party, Leo takes the case. He uses his All-Seeing Eyes to track down the baddies. Apparently, Miss Richie-rich runs an arms company that specializes in anti-tank warfare cybernetics. Yes, but we have a Chain and a Zapp, so… your move. While Zapp lays waste to the mooks and rent-a-cops outside, Chain acquires the goods from the top floor. She then phases through the CEO’s chest and lifts her into the air by her own lungs, muttering a very malicious threat as she does. When they return to the car, they find Zed, standing in the open air like it ain’t no thang. A bubble of water is wrapped around his head, held in place with a special blood technique. If only they had asked, instead of running off half-cocked, he would have told them he could do this. Oh, well. He can still make it to the party, and it was epic!

Courtesy: Funimation

Oh, and while he was unconscious, Zed goes through his life story. He was genetically engineered by an enigmatic Count and kept in a tank for conversation. After the count died, Zed was left alone. He was found by Raju Jugei Shizuyoshi, and taught the Big Dipper Blood Technique. From there, his story gets picked up when he first arrived in season one.

Our Take

As always, this episode was a shot in the arm, loaded with 10 ccs of fun and action. The writing is easy enough to follow, with a quick Sam Spade opening as the hook. The background for Zed was chopped up throughout the episode, acting like scene transitions. The episode highlights just how much Zed was inspired by Abe Sapien from Hellboy. Not only does he look like him, but he seems to have the same kind of social problems. It’s lonely in a fishbowl. I’m not sure how I feel about his character being almost ripped straight from another story. At least Deldro and Dog are a bit more removed from their inspiration of Carnage from Marvel Comics. They are separate entities that talk individually. Also, it looks like their combined form doesn’t do all the shapeshifting carnage can do. Zed just swapped psychic powers for blood manipulation. With so many other characters that feel so unique, Zed stands out a bit.

The animation and art style is as punchy as ever, with extreme angles for the camera angles during dialogue to add to the drama. They played heavily with Chain’s appearing ability. At one point, she enters the room by coming to stand on Zapp’s lower eyelids. In the middle of him talking, his lids start drooping, and she fades into place. When we get to the big action sequence, there was a slight bit of jitter to the animation as we got close to Zapp carrying Leo while fighting, but otherwise, it was high-quality stuff. The voice acting was kinda one-note from all the cast, but at least each character’s note was interesting. Particularly Zapp and Leo, as played by Ian Sinclair and Aaron Dismuke. They have a ton of energy, which balanced well against Chain’s chill tone.

Score

Summary

Well, I'm still a massive fan of this show. I like that they are building up their characters a bit, and I'm hoping we see a bit of an overarching story here. Until then, I give this episode eight giant tanks of water out of ten.

8.0/10