Summary: Hasekura Kouhei has transferred from school to school all his life due to his parent’s constantly changing jobs. Finally they decided to send him to a Christian boarding school where he expects to have a normal life, but he finds himself surrounded by an odd assortment of friends and supernatural creatures.

Review: Fortune Arterial is a show that seems to be attempting to hit every anime cliché in its first episode. It was almost at the point where the show was parodying itself. The main  love interest is the vice president of student council, the protagonist runs into long lost childhood friends; he manages to walk in on a girl in the bath. The clichés felt comforting, in a way, anime has been avoiding some of these elements in recent years because they were so blatantly overused in the medium, but that feeling is certainly no way to start a show. The show felt safe, if boring at times, and I found myself enjoying it for what it was: cheap, dumb romantic comedy trying to be a new Love Hina or Oh My Goddess.

Suddenly, Vampires.

It seems that the purposely generic vibe was buildup towards the surprise twist at the end; the school is  invested with Vampires. Extremely similar to an image from the first episode of Hellsing the main character stands at the door to a church while a vampire sucks the blood out of a young girl. Vampires are popular but simply tossing one into a generic anime romantic comedy isn’t the most effective use of the mythical creatures. This formula has been done before, romantic comedy PLUS, and the romantic comedy bit of Fortune Arterial isn’t enough to drive the show along.

The most annoying part is the way some of the characters are played. It constantly felt like Fortune Arterial could have done something more but just dropped the ball. The Vice president flips out when she first meets Hasekura and the show plays the reason as a serious mystery. But it is revealed that the reason was that she fell in love with him. Maybe there is more to what has been revealed in this first episode but the tired formula the first episode follows doesn’t leave much room innovation.

Verdict: There isn’t much to say about Fortune Arterial except that it was a formulaic, boring show that wanted to play with the romance genre by tossing in some supernatural elements. Even if there is  a decent supernatural subplot that might spice things up, the characters and events of the first episode are so bland that it leaves little hope for the rest of the series.

 

 

 

Fortune Arterial is being simulcast on Crunchyroll.com.

• First Impressions