ANIME REVIEW: Holy Knight (OVA, 2012)

I still have fond memories of watching the 2005 anime series Trinity Blood — a story about a vampire Superman posing as a bumbling priest — and the title for Holy Knight looked similar. The opening scene and intro were really eye-catching, and I was looking forward to an amazing journey with Lilith Kishimoto, last of the Strigoi Clan. When I looked at the episode count, there were only…two episodes, each ~30 minutes long. Either it was really good to cover everything they needed to in a half hour or something else was up. Indeed something WAS up, because this was hot garbage.

Based on what I saw, the Strigoi Clan are vampires called Moroi. They come from a dimension they share with vampires, shapeshifters and werewolves. They also live with humans who decided to fight back with holy warriors and hunters. Lilith Kishimoto was spared dying in the village massacre by her father — she survived and went on to live with the other vampires. Believe it or not, the story does not follow her exclusively; this is an anime, after all. Instead, we shift to our own world to a bland male protagonist named Shinta who’s always late for school. When he gets there he meets Lilith. By this point, Lilith is grown and sexy has a mission: to have sex with Shinta.

Shinta (L) watches over an unconscious Lilith. See that brand on Lilith’s chest? That was burned into her flesh as a curse that burns her until she kills Shinta. We never see it in action. I HATE THIS ANIME SO MUCH.

Earlier in the episode, a fight scene started but they cut away to show us this well-lit and well-drawn scene of semi-nude Lilith for hentai. I HATE THIS ANIME SO MUCH.

Other elements are in motion around Lilith and Shinta:

• Shinta’s heterochromatic black cat is a shapeshifter moe catgirl named Cammot, who has watched over Shinta since his mother and grandfather died.
• Shinta has a childhood friend named Chizuru, who’s incredibly STACKED but Shinta seems to ignore. Chizuru does everything to get Shinta’s attentions away from Lilith, even working out to become hotter than Lilith whom she sees as a rival.
• Lilith’s purple dog is a shapeshifter named Plum, a lecherous and lazy warrior who incredible strength only comes into play when he is focused.
• Lilith’s parental guardian is Camilla, an actual vampire that feeds on the local men. She’s disguised as a virologist at the local hospital when she’s not moonlighting as a dominatrix. She’s sassy and barely in the show.
• Speaking of female characters, there’s another girl classmate named Sakamoto — quiet, unassuming, and nearly invisible until she wishes to be seen. She shows up in the intro, and only has speaking lines in episode 2. Who is she; what is she? We never learn anything else.
• Some of the holy warriors have followed Lilith to this dimension because Shinta is the heir to the throne of their world, and some of his relatives fled to our world. These men are masquerading as teachers at Shinta’s school and they have a mission: to awaken the hidden power within Shinta’s bloodline so he can slay the last of the Strigoi clan. The speech habits created in the English dub force them into making inane acronyms out of sentences.

It’s a good thing that the holy warriors are there, because Lilith’s plan to have sex with Shinta has an additional element. She not only plans on having sex with him, but also bearing his child…then killing Shinta AND his child and bathing in their blood. It’s the only way to avenge the massacre of the Strigoi, and she’s brought a massive runesword for the job. But will Lilith be able to kill Shinta when the time is right? Will Shinta be able to accept that he is but a mere sacrifice to vampires from another dimension? Will Chizuru be able to lose her virginity in time to the only man she’s ever loved — her best friend Shinta?

THE ANSWER IS NO. I watched both episodes and it ended on a nothing, not even a cliffhanger for the next episode. This anime SUCKS — not because it’s short and bad, but it was all to trick us into watching hentai.

Where is Cammot’s tail coming from? This is how you get furries, folks. I HATE THIS ANIME SO MUCH.

CHOICE CUTS:

• For added problematic storytelling, Cammot is being stalked by a perverted photographer that loves to take upskirt shots. Lilith is sexually assaulted in the shower by Camilla, Plum sexually assaults Chizuru, and so on.
• Chizuru, Shinta, and Lilith are all virgins. The show wants us to be aware of this particular fact.
• We only ever see the runesword used twice: once in the intro, and once in episode 1 as a portal key.
• The Black person in Chizuru’s videos has 10-pack abs.
• The holy warriors’ habit of making bad acronyms in the English dub REALLY made both episodes a bad time.
• This OVA anime had barely any action sequences, and cut away when one would start. They only did it once, but it was weird that they’d do it when the action starts. I suppose it’s a cost saving measure, but that doesn’t explain the amount of detail and money spent on the hentai.
• While the hentai aspect in this OVA is softcore, I was deeply disappointed about being misled: I came here for fantastic vampire fight scenes and weird occult magic. Instead I got endorsement of underage sexualization, virginity scenes, and sexual assault — not to mention the non-consensual nipple play and rape-play on the part of the holy warriors.

I HATE THIS ANIME SO MUCH.