English Dub Review: The Vampire Dies in No Time “Draluc’s Family”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

A vampire named Adam has been trying to live normally and make a life for himself among humans, but he’s got a problem. There’s a college student named Maremi Gekkoin who’s obsessed with him—and he’s not obsessed with her. Until she puts her life on the life for him and he realizes that he’s actually in love with her.

Later, Draluc brings Ronaldo along to his family’s New Year’s Eve party, where he tells everyone that Ronaldo is a pole dancer named Po. It’s embarrassing, but fine—until Draluc’s grandfather arrives with a board game and prizes that include a copy of Ronaldo’s book. In order to prevent anyone else from winning it and learning about Ronaldo’s true identity and how Draluc’s castle burned to the ground, Ronaldo and Draluc are forced to compete to win.

Our Take:

Funimation’s new dub of The Vampire Dies in No Time is out today. It’s the sixth episode of the season, which means we’re over halfway done at this point with Ronaldo, Draluc, and their cohorts. We’ve seen a lot of weirdness out of this show over the past half season, but Draluc’s Family is one of the wildest ones to date.

The main segment sees Ronaldo at a New Years eve party with Draluc’s family, but that’s not where the strangeness starts. The first act introduces us to a new character, a vampire named Adam who just wanted to live in peace among the humans. However, when he tried to flirt with a cute girl he attracted the attention of a different girl named Maremi, and she’s not exactly what he had in mind. The show paints her in a very unflattering light throughout most of the segment. I’m not a big fan of the stalker girlfriend storyline, but I did like the creepy vibes that came along with Ronaldo and Adam trying to sneak out of the house without her noticing.

Then everything takes a 180 when Adam gets out and is running from her, but gets hit by a passing truck. Or rather, he would have been hit had she not pushed him out of the way. Instead, Maremi takes the damage and as she’s dying Adam finally bites her like she always wanted and the two of them turn into a happy vampire couple. I think it’s supposed to be so unexpected that it’s funny, but really it’s just way too out of left field to make me do anything but scratch my head. At least Maremi went from creepy stalker girlfriend to have happy ending as a vampire empress?

From there, things get a little less fresh but just as weird when Ronaldo visits Draluc’s family New Year party. Draluc has apparently informed everyone that Ronaldo is a pole dancer, since he can’t exactly tell his family that he hangs out with a vampire hunter. (What are the ethics of that now that the two of them are basically best friends now, anyway?) That’s all well and good until Draluc’s grandfather arrives to shake up the evening. He’s feared by his family because he always insists they do wacky things. In this case, he’s created a life-size board game that he wants them to play, and Ronaldo and Draluc have to compete because one of the prizes is the Ronaldo Chronicles book. From getting eaten by vampire plants to having to wear a bunny suit and finish every sentence with ‘meow’, it’s definitely the craziest game Ronaldo has ever taken part in—and even though he wins the game, his true identity if uncovered anyhow.

This episode may be called Draluc’s Family, but I think the real standout that sticks in my mind is the Vampire Empress storyline, and not necessarily in a good way. The way the show portrayed Maremi was kind of fetish-y and gross, plus the weird twist at the end involving her death and Adam’s sudden realization didn’t make sense. That combined with the absurdity of Draluc’s grandfather’s game (why did he bring a cow as a prize?) made this week’s episode a memorable one for sure at the very least.