Visual Prison

Visual Prison is my most awaited seasonal title of Fall 2021. It’s all about musical Visual Kei bands battles with ikemens vampires (Visual Kei is a muscial rock-punk-gothic genre really easy to the eyes). Not gonna lie to you, there is a lot of fanservice, but I really was over-enjoying over this Visually and Soundly great title, and here let me explain why : • Story : 7/10 • We mainly follow the debuts of « OZ » bands, where our main character, Ange cross path with other Vkei groups Lost Eden and Eclipse during one of their shows in Harajuku. He will then stumble across his favorite singer,Guiltia, here and so began the debuts of Ange’s wonderful voice which will be able to gather talents around him.
The main goal of these bands are to win the favor of the Scarlet moon and participating in the Visual Prison’s event to gather scarlet tears. If you reunite at least 10 tears, you will be able to make a miracle. Dramas event happening, OZ’s band sure need these tears for them. • Art : 9/10 • Ikumi Katagiri takes charge of the original character designs, and even if you’re not enjoying the story, you can at least see how beautiful the fashion and characters are. 
There is unfortunately some CGI used during performance and battles, but aside Visual Prison is visually pleasing. • Characters : 8/10 • The character development is in the center of the story, we get to see the main band but also other bands backstories, and why they’re all fighting for these scarlet tears.
Their relationships and interaction are also evolving through episodes. • Sound : 10/10 • As a Visual kei listener, I really loved all the band’s songs, Elements Garden composed the music for this anime and with a really good Voice Actors selection, we can fully enjoy the music and voices through the opening, stage performance, practices and ending. • Enjoyment : 9/10 • 
I was waiting for Friday to come quite excitedly, I was thrown back in my old teenage day, fangirling on Vkei bands and looks.
This series is not a BL, there is no explicit gay interactions, but ambiguous and bromance vibe was part of the charm and enjoyment of the series in my side. • In brief : 9/10 • Overall, I know the score will most likely never be high, the male fanservices moment might frighten most of you (if you’re not a fujoshi, that’s it) but at least you can give a try to this visually and soundly pleasing title.
The story with the Scarlet Moon doesn’t make a lot of sense, but if you enjoy Visual Kei songs and beautiful characters, it’s not gonna be that bad.

Of all the mixed-media musical features that are attached to Aniplex and A-1 Pictures within the recent times, they'd largely come off as being overly ambitious or just to fuel the fire by showcasing a certain demographic with a weird premise. The kinda Yuri-bait and depressing 22/7 was surprisingly good, the sci-fi action Fujoshi-bait Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle was even better, and this season, yet another Fujoshi-bait show pops up: the supernatural vampire-based Visual Prison. And going back on my review of HypMic and testifying that you should stop watching anime from the lens of seriousness, I'm sad to say that I've tried thesame for this one, and it just didn't click whatsoever. And as someone whom still has HypMic pretty fresh in the mind, the glaring similarities between both shows aren't that hard to compare to. The story itself is largely similar, only in Visual Prison's case that you switch the genre and themes around to create a Visual Kei sinister setting where vampires rule the world, and that the strongest band/group is reigned supreme. Also, add in the peculiar MC which is an outcast and intertwines with the plot just by being there and receiving unwanted attention, only to then build his "career" of being an idol of sorts as a cry out to the cruelties of the world. Pretty typical stuff. The characters all have that classic badass feel of WWE-esque "No Mercy" trait symptoms to degrade each other when conflicts arise, even something as simple as the stereotypical staring, it's standard business practice of the trade. Music is just as important in this trade of a battle royale showdown, and it largely served as fodder to show off the magnifique voices of VA Bishounens, so female fans you can rest easy because of the banger sound material and thought that's went to creating songs of repetitions within a very limited functional subset of an OST. And need I say of the A-1 Pictures *chef's kiss* quality when you the viewer, know it best? Shows like these are hit and miss, and for once, I have hit a roadblock with Visual Prison. You can love the J-rock pumpin' music and the dark "vampire of the night" visuals which is the actual content of the show, but everything else is just forgettable. Not so much a trainwreck, but it could be far worse.

Honestly I can't explain it, but this was not as bad as I expected :) I looked at it and instantly though Diabolik Lovers and Dance with Devils but this is way better then those in my book. This ain't a weird supernatural wonderland written by a masochist (most likely), it actually didn't have romance!!! I honestly wish more shows took the direction this took with a big identity reveal that wraps up a mystery of the main character and impacted ___ amount of other characters due to relation with this answer. All I am saying is it could've went down hill real fast but didn't :)

This anime doesn't make sense and I'll prove it to you very clearly in this review. Starting with all characters and their respective groups: • Band 1 • OZ: Ange, Robin, Eve and Guil. This is the main group formed by Ange, all because he liked to sing but couldn't "could". Now a brief summary about all of them. Ange: The protagonist who doesn't consider himself a vampire, even though he felt the same things as a vampire and still talks in the anime that he didn't fit in the human world and that he was happy that he finally found his place... How come he doesn't isa vampire? Robin: The classical music stranger loves his twin even though they can't even be called twins anymore considering their external changes. Eve: he put in the anime that he thinks he's a monster just because he killed a nun (important), all because he hunted vampires and killed a good guy by mistake, if he had used Santa's method, I would never have been so paranoid in the work. Guil: He doesn't want to sing because his best friends died, he committed the biggest lunar crimes, biting a woman (they'll understand that yet) and on top of that taking away the right to choose a baby in its mother's womb yet. • Band 2 • LOST EDEN: Saga, Elizabeth, Mist and Jack. Rival anime group. In brief, they like red and black, speak subjective words of destruction, and everyone has some weird story, or almost. Saga: If you see that Saga is not normal when he realizes that his dream is to make the world a black Friday every day, the only difference is that you wouldn't take money, why money in a world where everyone is kings, right? Even better would be to receive a phrase like that from the store attendants "thanks for your preference, I hope you enjoyed your experience here at the totally free game store". Elizabeth: Beth is complicated, she doesn't have a story and if she does I lose it at some point, so I'll just mention the oddities. She uses a string wand to release her powers, Beth sings a song where at the beginning she says that beauty is everything, and then in the anime she says that beauty is not everything, of course that wouldn't be a problem, characters change their perspectives all the time, so what's the problem here? She just forgot to mention what she has in her life so reveal to change even her highest ideals. Mist: Played on those chart analysis sites and got rich, since he was going to die in thirty days, he decided to donate all his fortune to some big shot with a good cause, then he donates all his money to some weird guy who wants to extinguish the world's money basically... Normal. If he realizes that mist doesn't quite hit the head when in his moment of not living, he says that the reason he doesn't want to become a vampire is that he will only feel pain and suffering for not being able to have what he wants, and then what would it be this thing he would never get? Simple, the love of the guy from the totally free stores, what did I miss for in the end, he's saying that he's powerful and beautiful and he's all loving, it must have been a week since they met on the internet... that's it. This is wrong in so many ways that I'm even questioning if this really happens or is it just the person who is getting emotional too hastily. Jack: He hates his brother just because he sings gospel music better than him, so he reneged on his former self and is now Japanese rock and not questionable at all. He tried to kill the same brother twice for the same reason... Jack was supposed to be the character that puts fear in people's heads, but he only achieved this effect with his brother himself, a character so aimless that even Beth was glad she didn't have it. A story now. • Band 3 • ECLIPSE: Dimitri and Hyde. A group originally created by Guil, also had Saga after a certain point, it disbanded because of Guil who wanted to sing the songs of his new muse, after that Saga also left and only Hyde and Dimitri were left in the group. Dimitri: He likes to walk naked when he is comfortable with the environment, there is a beetle called Odin, together with Hyde they created one of the primordial rules of the world... did I mention that he likes to walk naked? Hyde: Whenever he has the opportunity to implicate Dimitri, he is Guil's vampire father's brother, the two call their followers lambs and seek to protect them by creating new rules for the world. • Band 4? • Carmilla: Best character in the anime, didn't even need to appear much to stand out. Story: A vampire nun who took care of possibly orphaned children, until one day a heartless human killed her... History is not her strong point. Why is she the best? Simple, sang one of the only good songs in the entire anime, just wants to make new friends while playing some good games with the guys, it's not bad animated, it's the only female character in the midst of so many men confusing you (this part doesn't seem right, see below), even "weakness" for mayonnaise she has, if that's not the best character, I'm sure I'm under the Dunning effect. • The world of Visual Prison • The anime is mostly set in Harajuku in a fictional Japan. In this world, vampires sing to the moon in a ritual called visual prison, whoever sang the most beautiful song would be the winner. From what I've noticed and heard from the characters, the visual prison only happens every new century. The prize for singing the most beautiful song is a red tear, joining 10 of these tears you can make a wish on the blood moon. NOTE: one of the wishes was requested by Dimitri and Hyde. Blood moon is the moon that only vampires can see, if you are the leader of your group you can start the "visual prisons", the leader or leaders will be chosen by the moon if she sees potential in you, only the leader can call diamonds members to the group, through a mini blood ritual. • Visual Prison Rules • The rules are enforced by the moon and must be obeyed by all vampires. Breaking the rules will result in punishment, vampires who break the rules more than once will return to the blood moon as punishment (death). The most important rule in the anime and made by Hyde and Dimetri as I wish the moon when gathering 10 bloody tears was that no vampire can feed on the blood of humans. • The Vampires of Visual Prison • You can become a vampire if bitten by one, but doing so will cause the vampire in question to suffer the moon's punishment for breaking a human's biting/feeding rule. Visual Prison's Vampires have few similarities compared to other works with the same vampire theme, such as: Not burning in the sun, having a reflection in the mirror, they don't need blood to survive (at no time did they complain about it, so I don't think they need it). There are also Dampiros, which are a rare variety of vampires, which occurs when a vampire has a child with a human, in the anime it is said that most of the time this will not result in a dampiro. • Visual Prison's music • Some are even listenable, like 5 out of 15 in the anime, but most of the time it's just a repeat of Ange singing the opening. In my opinion, this work fails as a musical product. • Things that don't make sense in Visual Prison • - There doesn't seem to be any other bands in the anime besides the three presented, neither vampires nor humans. - In the anime they use makeup to disguise that they are vampires, this would even work, if they didn't all have the same sword-microphones and red eyes with pointy teeth showing. - How can you have a vampire princess if women in this work can't become vampires if they are bitten? - Sometimes the songs that a character is singing alone echoes throughout the city and everyone can hear it, even if they don't have any capture equipment near them.

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