English Dub Review: The Vampire Dies in No Time “Five Dumb Matches”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

When a dangerous lady vampire called Spiderleg comes to town and captures Draluc, it’s up to Ronaldo to save his frenemy before it’s too late! Later on, Ronaldo is upset to find that Draluc has scheduled a big Halloween party at his place—but is it really Draluc who did it? And finally, Draluc and Ronaldo get into a fight about buying a new game console when their old one breaks, and resort to a series of crazy competitions in order to choose who has to pay up.

Our Take:

The twelfth episode of The Vampire Dies in No Time dub has dropped on Funimation, and that means it’s time for our final round of sexy vampire silliness! This show isn’t the kind of anime that has any sort of obvious overarching theme, but if I had to pick one, the key to Five Dumb Matches is the dynamic between Ronaldo and Draluc and the bond the two of them have formed over the season.

That bond gets tested in the first segment, as a supposedly super-powerful vampire shows up in town with murder on her mind. She captures Draluc embarrassingly quickly, but when he says that Ronaldo will be coming to his rescue, she changes her mind and decides to use Draluc to lure the Hunters to her so she can snack on their blood instead. Of course, she’s a sexy spider lady with certain huge physical features, which means Ronaldo falls head over heels for her instantly. Seeing Ronaldo cozy up to Draluc’s kidnapper while Draluc gives his own running commentary wasn’t a bad start to the episode, and it got even better when Ronaldo reveals he knew who she was the whole time and was just luring her into a false sense of security. Draluc might not have believed in Ronaldo the whole time, but Ronaldo always had his best interests at heart, which was a sweet little way to wrap up the segment.

The middle part feels the most like a finale. There’s a huge Halloween gathering in Ronaldo’s tiny apartment and almost every single character who has ever been in the show makes an appearance. The convenience store boss, a slew of strange vampire creatures, even the scooter kid from the premiere episode is there for the fun. I use the term ‘fun’ in the least fun sense of the word, though, as almost all of the gags are repeats of things the show has done before, which means most of them are just sexual innuendos like everyone wanting Ronaldo to pole dance. There’s not even a real progression to the plot besides the fact that Draluc’s father was the one who secretly organized the festivities.

This week’s last segment, and the final one of the season, is a return to the basics, with Ronaldo and Draluc locked in deadly combat over an expensive video game console. Basically, they can’t decide who will pay for it, and resort to contests like impressions and contortions to decide who will have to pony up and pay for the upgraded device. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but I like going back to the core cast for the end point—and the decision to throw the dance battle in and reconnect it all back to the theme song was a nice touch.