When seventeen year old Yui Komoris father has to go overseas for work her church convinces her to temporarily move into a large house shared by six teenage boys Because thats totally something a church would do And transfer into the night school that they all attend. What they dont tell her is that the six boys are all vampires and like any boys their age they are only interested in one thing. They make no bones about the fact that she now belongs to them even branding her with the demeaning nickname Bitchuchan which roughly translates to Little Bitch. With no hope of escape and hungry fangs awaiting her at every turn will Yuis new living arrangement turn out to be a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare? 660http://2.bp.blogspot.com/rO8HMh1x4dc/UqYuFrIMNYI/AAAAAAAAB54/JdRvEKNjIQ/s1600/DiabolikLoversOP11.png Before I sink my own fangs into the meat of the story I guess I should talk about the artwork and animation. Thankfully I really dont have anything negative to say about it. Diabolik Lovers has a very strong very consistent sense of visual style blending the flowery watercolor aesthetic that youd expect from a shoujo series with a dark gothic edge to a very beautiful result. The backgrounds are rich and highly detailed with a lot of obvious love and care going into every frame. The character designs are inspired and memorable if not a little on the rough side. The animation is low budget but its well managed so it still looks passable. Its a very pretty looking show but unfortunately that beauty is only skin deep and this anime has a wealth of problems below the surface. To start the dialogue may have a few clever moments but its mostly stilted expositional and sophomoric. Were told a lot of things that the characters say should be obvious but thats rarely ever the case as the logic behind it all is spotty at best. The six brothers have unique traits to them but at the end of the day they all have one thing in common: Theyre all heavily unlikeable douchebags who dont care about our heroine for any reason other than the bright red juice flowing through her veins. In fact theyre so voracious about it that the only thing the writers have to do to endear one of them to Yui is to have them stop drinking her out of boredom. Nothing about them ever changes from first episode to last. Even the flashback episode which tries very hard to humanize them and explain their adult attitudes just comes off as hollow for the effort. But as badly as our male cast is characterized they have absolutely nothing on Little Miss Little Bitch. Even though she clearly doesnt like being feasted on she is submissive down to her very last drop rarely ever putting up a fight against them aside from a halfhearted no please stop request. Shes not clever shes not smart Painfully so on both counts. No matter how much pain her frail little neck endures it doesnt even compare to how sore my throat is from yelling at her to stop making so many stupid decisions. Yes I know this anime was adapted from a Visual Novel and the people doing the adapting thought it would be just fine to leave her as the blank slate she was when they found her. Its not uncommon for the main character in this type of adaptation to be a selfinsert wishfulfillment character but who the hell would want to insert themselves into a role that could basically be described as human livestock? Well lets examine that idea for a moment. If you havent caught onto this just yet Diabolik Lovers has developed a reputation for being incredibly rapey. This is a reputation it wholeheartedly deserves on numerous different levels from the vampires lack of concern with Yuis emotional status to the genuine affection she develops for them as a result. But Id like to take it one step further I dont think this show is rapey by accident. I think it was intended in every conceivable way to be a rape fantasy with actual rape being replaced with fangrape. And I can prove it with one simple observation. See the icing on this cake Is the fact that the vampire brothers all eat cake Yes thats a bad joke but Im not really kidding either. The vampires are shown eating human food on several occasions and its suggested that they do so on a fairly regular basis. They like the taste as well. Its not hard to draw the conclusion that it sustains them just as well as it would sustain any other human since no information either for or against this idea is ever brought up in story. Why is this a problem you ask? Well in most vampire stories the nocturnal neerdowells need blood for sustenance which makes their plight all the more sympathetic and understandable. They can survive on substitutes like the animal blood in Twilight and the synthetic blood in True Blood but its a poor substitute for the real thing. In Diabolik Lovers however the brothers dont actually need Yuis blood They can survive on human food which eliminates the sustenance argument completely. They dont physically need it which narrows their desire down to two possible explanations Its either a psychological compulsionaddiction or a sexual desire. Since they express their desire for her blood right off the bat and immediately start the process of domesticating her Its fair to say this isnt just an addiction. If that were the case theyd be actively farming humans to drink from. Which wouldnt be difficult because they go to school and are surrounded by human females on a nightly basis. At least I assume so We only see them in school once and no other human characters are shown. They want her specifically because shes in their territory and she belongs to them. Once that sense of male entitlement enters the picture It doesnt get any more clearcut than that. They want her blood not for the nutrition but for the thrill of it For the sense of power it gives them over her as they know in their cold hearts that she wants it just as much as they do whether she realizes it or not. In other words the thirst for blood in this show is entirely sexual and never consensual. For that Diabolik Lovers isnt just specifically designed to be a rape fantasy It is hands down the rapiest anime I have ever seen. Oh and the fact that Yui is basically roofied in episode five doesnt help either. And even if youre able to forgive all the moral problems with this show youre still left with a terrible story. For ten straight episodes we follow this helpless little damsel in faux distress as she gets bounced from vamp to vamp having her seemingly endless supply of blood drained as inappropriate music plays in the background ranging from romantic to borderline pornographic a musical tone thats not at all helped by the way a lot of these attack are staged and framed. Her wounds then magically heal faster than you can say Wolverine and shes on to her next pitiful display of self defense. Even in the rare moments when she escapes she never takes advantage of it. Shell run to a church instead of to a police station and even though the crucifix approach failed her in the first episode shell be surprised when church doesnt work as they just effortlessly teleport to wherever she is. She doesnt try to ask anybody for help and at one point even consciously decides to stay for some forced senseless reason that never actually gets followed up on. Theres an actual plot in the last few episodes but the writers clearly had no interest in it as it has little impact on the story and gets swept away with little finesse despite the admittedly impressive setup that went into it. The episodes are mercifully only fifteen minutes in length but the pacing is so awful that I didnt even notice it until episode ten. Theres no development no logic no consistency and seemingly no thought beyond the desires of its immature target audience. And heres the most annoying part With a sweetsguzzling stuffed animalwielding immature character like Kanato floating around theres a very distinct possibility that this entire franchise might have been conceived as a terrible Ouran High School Host Club fanfic with Haruhi replaced by the authors own blank slate self insert character. Seriously think about it The eldest brother is a lazy blonde who pushes all of his work and responsibilities onto a glassesclad second in command and if that doesnt prove it nothing will. This show is intended specifically as a metaphorical rape fantasy for teenaged girls who cant decide between 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight and hey if thats what youre looking for then look no further this is the perfect show for you. For fans of dark vampire romances who DONT want all of their precious bishies to be detestable douchebag rapists then I highly recommend checking out the first season And I cant stress this enough ONLY the first season Of Vampire Knight. Its not a great show but its still leagues better than this piece of garbage. 660http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/35700000/DiabolikLoversdiaboliklovers357170901280720.jpg For the rest of us Diabolik Lovers is an uncomfortable and often infuriating experience. There are some things I kind of like about it It looks great and I thought having the episode numbers represented by a ticking clock was kind of cool But overall It just doesnt have any qualities that are good enough to justify all of the things that are glaringly wrong with it. For that I cant think of any good reason to give it anything higher than a 2/10.