Blood-C 8 ~ I saw the blood

Saya takes a bath.

Episode 8 of Blood-C takes us from the moments after the last fight, until the moment the next battle begins. In between, there is enough unexplained (or just plain wrong) that it will have you clutching at your head and collapsing like Saya. My suspicions are running wild, so this will be a speculation heavy post.

Yes, that is what we are all wondering.

Tokizane isn't surprised to find Saya kneeling in a pool of blood, but thinks her word usage is odd.

This episode was our big chance to see how a classmate reacted to seeing Saya’s other personality. The results were a bit perplexing. Tokizane is relieved to see that Saya isn’t hurt, although he can see (as we can, clearly, in the screenshot above) that she is covered with wounds. After some persuading, Saya confesses that she fights the Elder Bairns (Furukimono) to protect the village. Tokizane says he believes he saw the monster (bakemono) with his own eyes. Saya (angrily?) denies that it is a monster, it is an Elder Bairn, and Tokizane expresses that he thinks her distinction is odd.

I’m willing to accept that Tokizane likes Saya, and was, therefore relieved that she was well enough to walk away from the fight, but he seems to be accepting the whole situation a bit too easily. At this point, I’m suspicious that he knew about the monsters, and possibly Saya, before this. We also saw again that Saya is clueless about adult relationships; I’ll have more to say about this below.

Fumito (AKA the Creeper) strokes his creepy cage.

This was weird enough to require a head-clamp. What the hell is Fumito doing stroking an empty bird cage? He certainly is a creeper.

Saya finds Tadayoshi unconscious on the temple floor. She doesn't notice, but he already had the blood on his cheek when she turned him over.

Tadayoshi enters the café, and Fumito asks him if he would like some coffee, when he declines, Fumito says, “You’d prefer something else, right”? The next time we see him, Tadayoshi is collapsed, unconscious on the shrine floor. After arousing him, Saya fusses because she thinks she got blood on him, but you can clearly see, in the screenshot above, that the blood was already there. Did Fumito give him blood to drink? WTH? He could be anemic ~ was something drinking HIS blood?

The dog's tail was wagging like crazy during this scene.

Then we come to the bath scene. Fair enough: she was covered in blood, now she needs to wash it all off. The odd thing is, her wounds (visible earlier in the episode) are conspicuously absent. Her wounds closed before she had a chance to wash the blood off of her body. And we know this because she is bathing, and therefore has no clothes on, and has tied her hair up. Trust me. We get a good look at her backside.

Another point here: the dog is surprised that she isn’t upset that he sees her naked. This could be because she sees him as a dog, not as a person who is in a dog form, but I think it might be another example of her not understanding “adult relationships”. There have been many comments that Saya is dense, particularly about “affairs of the heart”. I think it might go far beyond that. She acts like she has been raised inside a bubble, completely cut off from society. Recall that in earlier episodes it was made clear that she was just getting to know her High School classmates. In a small town, she should be familiar with them from earlier grades. Did she not attend Grade and Middle school? At the very least we can say that she demonstrates the social skills of a grade schooler. One might say she gives every impression (besides physical development) of having been hatched shortly before the first episode.

The dog-like creature (AKA Inu-san) freaks when Saya starts to pass out.

The dog-like creature continues probing with questions until he gets a reaction. Saya almost blacks out, and has a painful memory of having her hands bound, and being asked what should be the prize if she wins, and what punishment she should suffer if she loses. Some folks in the Aniblogiverse say that Saya is stupid, but I give her good marks for keeping the talking dog a secret from her father.

Saya in Miko garb. She does her chores, but seems to be thinking about the dog's questions.

Saya, a little bit sad.

Saya a moment later ~ ready to receive the katana.

I really like Saya’s design. A lot of thought went into making it expressive without relying on goofiness or graphic shortcuts like sweat drops and super-deformations.

Itsuki, the class rep, seems to have a genuine look of terror or surprise on his face.

A couple days later a monster Elder Bairn attacks the school. Several students die horribly before Saya even draws her sword. Itsuki acts as best you could imagine a High School class rep to act under the circumstances. He tells everyone to run, but the monster blocks their exit. Again I have been waiting to see how the students react to the monster, and it didn’t seem like he knew what was going on any better than an uninformed bystander. This lowers my suspicion levels about him.

Saya prepares to attack. Behind her (on our right) is Yuuka Amino.

Yuuka, on the other hand, was the first to notice the sword, and was asking Saya what it was when the Elder Bairn attacked. That could just mean she is smart, or it could mean she is suspiciously pumping Saya for information.

Now some people have made a lot of the many students that died before Saya chose to act. I don’t know why Saya didn’t act sooner. Was it naiveté in thinking that when she told them to get away from the window, that they wouldn’t head back to take a look (and end up skewered as a result)? Was it a little bit of her mother’s blood-line coming through ~ perhaps she doesn’t really care what happens to humans after all? Maybe it was just poor directing, in which the episode director finally had a chance to show some action, and didn’t think through the impression he was making, beyond, “let’s make one that gets splattered all over a desk”!

Anyways, this episode managed to feed the speculation, and I’m looking forward to the remaining few episodes. BTW, if you haven’t seen it, check out the interview with Blood-C’s director, Tsutomu Mizushima, and screenwriter, Junichi Fujusaku (hat tip: Psgels).