Rosario + Vampire Episode 2- And Then There Were Two

Know your place

This week’s episode covers chapter 2 in the manga, the introduction of the second member of Tsukune’s harem, Kurumu, the boob girl. It stuck pretty close to the manga once again this week, just adding some extra boob effects on top of the smushing Kurumu usually takes part in . Oh and for those of you that are panty averse there are only a handful of panty shots for you to freak out about. Summary included this week as well as the normal impressions after the jump.

After the OP Tsukune is walking to school when Moka notices him and runs up for a glomp, to the ire of the other male students nearby. They are watched nearby by a female student with blue hair. Moka has a bit of breakfast a la drinking Tsukune’s blood, and he runs off into the eerie woods in a panic. There he sees the blue haired girl Kurumu on the ground in a weakened state, and she asks for his help getting to the infirmary after she pleasantly assaults him with her huge breasts. On the way there she stops him and glomps him a bit more, and then asks him to look into her eyes using her “charm” ability to, you guessed it, charm him, in a way only a proper succubus can. As a result of her spell, when Moka appears he walks off with Kurumu saying that he won’t wait for Moka because she only wants him for her breakfast. In class, before he can apologize to Moka, she leaves the classroom and is confronted by Kurumu. She announces to Moka that she is a succubus that is planning on turning the entire male population of the school into her love slaves but that Moka is interfering with her plans. As a result she plans on stealing Tsukune from Moka to accomplish her goals.

Kurumu and Tsukune go to the infirmary and while Kurumu gloats over stealing Tsukune away from Moka, outside Moka’s rosary speaks to her (in the voice of the sealed Moka) telling her that Kurumu is controlling Tsukune with her charm ability and that if Kurumu kisses him he will be permanently under her control. Back inside the infirmary Tsukune is struggling to resist Kurumu’s charm as she comes onto him and tries to kiss him. At the last moment he fights it off and in the process sets Kurumu off. She gets so angry she says she will destroy everything related to Moka, and assumes her succubus form and assaults him. Moka arrives just in time and knocks her out the window, but Kurumu pulls them both out with her. Moka asks Tsukune to pull her Rosary off to fight Kurumu but he is unable to initially and they desperately try to evade her attacks. After Moka declares that she spends time with Tsukune because he is her friend and not just food, Tsukune grows some balls and realizes that he is not a burden to Moka and wants to protect her. As a result he is finally able to pull the Rosary off, and ass-kicking Moka is unsealed. She proceeds to throughly whoop Kurumu’s ass and moves in for the kill. However, Tsukune steps in front of her and says that he doesn’t want her to kill Kurumu because she didn’t have any malicious intentions and he just wants to be friends with everyone. Moka spares her life as a result, and the next morning Kurumu catches up to Moka and Tsukune walking to class and declares that Tsukune is her destined one and the harem begins.

Next Episode:
Next week looks to be the introduction of harem member #3, the loli witch Yukari. I’m sure Impz is already excited.

Impressions:

Kurumu is one of my favorite characters in the series and probably my favorite girl in the harem, so I definitely enjoyed this episode. It’s no surprise that she is a succubus, I’m sure even to those that haven’t read the manga, due to her devious behavior in the first half of the episode. She is really not a malicious person as we find out, and just really doesn’t know any better. I like her character because she is upbeat and says whats on her mind, but she also has a devious side. She has a natural conflict with Moka over Tsukune, although at this point it doesn’t appear that Moka sees anything in Tsukune aside from a friend and source of tasty meals. Kurumu is definitely head over heels for him now though since he saved her life by standing up to the unsealed Moka who was about to kill her.

The animation quality was solid this week from what I can tell, this show in 1280×720 resolution looks great and I really like the color scheme. Some may dislike all the bright colors and the school uniforms but I like them, I don’t watch that many shows that look like this (perhaps because they are mostly in shows not aimed at males heh =/). The lovey-dovey and harem imagination scenes were done with really bright pink and served to emphasize the exaggerated comedic nature of the show.

For those of you who were disturbed by the multi-tude of panties last week there were few this time around. Instead we are treated to the well-endowed Kurumu’s antics. It’s fairly similar to how it was handled in the manga, but with the added jiggles that is only available in the animated format. The show overall is not shy about it’s over-the-top fanservicey nature, and that’s part of what makes this a guilty pleasure for me. You really can’t even take the drama seriously in this show due to the setup and comedic nature of most of the show, and that’s fine with me as well.

They seem to be following the manga pretty close so far, but there is one more member of the harem to introduce and in the manga she doesn’t really appear until chapter 18. And at this pace with one chapter per week I assume they are going to pull hers ahead of that, but it shouldn’t create too much of a story gap. We shall see how they handle it, since the show is only slated for 13 episodes and she is listed in the voice credits (Rie Kugimiya) and appears in the promotional poster.

As expected, this episode shows several improvements from episode one and one of them is the change of the fanservice. There is way less panty flashes from Moka but instead you have boob rubs from Kurumu. Maybe it’s a result from the critics surrounding the 1st episode or just the exploiting of Kurumu’s natural qualities (this is a euphemism to say she has huge knockers) but whatever the reason, it means the producers are keeping in touch with the community. We have several moe moments worth to be mentioned, from the blushing of Kurumu and her boob bouncing to the lovely-dovey stare of Tsukuna and Moka.

This episode also introduces the show’s OP and ED (the 1st episode had a temporary Ed with the real OP’s song. “Cosmic Love”~and “Dancing in the Velvet Moon” are sung by Mizuki Nana, who is the current seiyuu of Moka and has made other famous roles such as Fate in the Nanoha animes and Hinata in Naruto. Both songs depict well her powerful voice and fulfill their roles perfectly; too bad the animations paired with them aren’t the best, specially the op animation who recycles several scenes of the anime, including the dreaded 3d stairs…The ED animation is more pleasant, with neon design depictions of the main girls but overall it’s too simple.

As Calawain said, they seem to be following the manga very close with great retouching skills to adapt the scenes to anime. But the biggest issue is Mizore, the 4th girl that shows on the promotional posters (there is a 5th girl, Rubi, who will supposely appear on the last eps of this season).
Mizore apears really late in the manga and her intro arc is long compared to the other girls arc, which mainly last only one episode. The 5th girl arc is the ideal to be the season’s end but Mizore’s manga arc only appears after. How will she interact and affect the anime plot during the parts she isn’t supposed to be there according to the manga?

Anyway, next episode we have a flat chest loli with odd tastes…won’t reveal more to not spoil the episode’s surprising ending.