#she gets to be dainty athletic and acrobatic

[bisque-firedvampire]

You know what would be a fun isekai setup?:

Ok, so a pre-hrt trans lady gets one of those “run over by truck, but gets their heart’s desire in a new world” deals. The new world is just like her favorite video game, which is a castlevaina esq rogue like, and she gets to be the beautiful heroine right from the start! She knows how the game works so she goes right off to the castle. Unfortunately the game is actually a lot harder in person. Every time she dies, she gets mocked by the bbeg vampire lord. She dies so often that she starts to notice that he’s actually quoting other bad guys from different real world media. eventually she fights her way all the way up to his lair to confront him … only to figure out he’s also a previously isekai-ed nerd, just like her! They hit it off once he figures out that she knows his secret. But unfortunately they find out pretty fast that they actually disagree on a lot of nerd stuff… so hilarity ensues.

That all happens in the first episode. But what’s even funnier, and wouldn’t be found out until later on in the season, is that he actually knew her in middle school, and even had a crush on her at the time ! But she doesn’t remember him, because he was just a little trans-masc egg and still presented as a girl when they were in school. Also she didn’t really know what to do with girls at the time, she was very convinced she might be gay (was also an egg at the time) so didn’t pursue any.

So do they still have chemistry? Can they get over their nerdy differences? Will someone please help the poor villagers understand what’s going on?

Call it: “oops, my villain is a fellow nerd?” Or something like that?

It would be comedy, romance, and tragedy (how do you think they both got isekaied? Plus, eventually a vampire has to do what vampires have to do…)

[pellicano-sanguino]

There’s a small movie theater in my parents’ home city that shows recordings of operas and ballets. Went to see a Dracula ballet there yesterday with my mother. It was...   an interesting experience.

This is the same ballet but the characters look different, so maybe this was a different casting than the one we saw.

Dracula isn’t an easy story to tell with just mute dancing. I should have sat next to my mother so I could have whispered to her plot explanations along the way. It was also a bit hard to tell all the male characters apart, they all dressed the same and looked equally bland and ugly (with the exception of Dracula and Renfield of course. They were ugly too, as they should be, but they were very recognizable). I was sad they left out Quincey (what do people have against him, he’s always left out). Come on, why would you miss an opportunity to have a ballet cowboy?

The dancing was very beautiful and imaginative. I was especially impressed with all the clever, athletic, almost acrobatic lifts. I wish I could see more lifts like these in zuka, instead of the same old pick-you-up-and-twirl-around lift, but I understand why they probably don’t want to try these. Despite many zuka actresses having history with ballet lessons, professional ballet takes the dancing to a whole new level and requires such extraordinary muscle work and precise skills, actresses in zuka simply can’t put that much time and energy to perfect their dancing when they also have to take care of acting and singing.

Which brings me to the unintentionally comical side of this ballet. The acting. Or more honestly, the lack of acting. The same problem I’ve had with the few operas I’ve seen. Opera singers are singers first and foremost, they are not actors. Ballet dancers put all their energy to perfect their dancing, they don’t do acting. The dancing was incredible and the body language was very expressive at times but if I happened to look at the dancers’ faces, they tended to have silly, exaggerated expressions or a dull, soulless, blank stare. Jonathan in particular was like a lifeless puppet all through his visit to Dracula’s castle, staring into space, very much Not There. The opposite of the soulless stare was the Temper Tantrum. Whenever a character was angry, scared, anxious etc. they twisted their faces into grotesque grimaces and wrung their hands like a toddler having temper tantrum. I know it was supposed to look dramatic but seeing an adult behave like an infant was just silly.

They had two separate guys performing the old-as-a-mummy Dracula and the rejuvenated-by-blood-drinking Dracula. The first one was impressive for his lively dancing. He jumped and leaped and climbed and crawled all around the floors, walls, furniture and Jonathan like a rabid squirrel. It was cool to see the scene where Dracula lizard-crawls down the castle wall, I’m always disappointed when the movies leave it out (which they do way too often). I suppose the latter must be sexy by het standards (I don’t see the appeal, but they make him remove his shirt quite often and I’m sure that’s for fanservice reasons). 

My favourite in this show has to be Lucy. She is an amazing dancer and gets some really cool numbers. In many adaptations Lucy becomes bedridden once infected by Dracula’s bite, but here she remains active while slowly transforming into a vampire. And that means her dance style changes. This version of the story has a rather sexist view of the curse of vampirism, that the proper, graceful and dainty ladies will be corrupted by it and become fierce, strong-willed and arrogant (god forbid women be anything but silent, sweet little decorations). Lucy’s new dancing causes quite a scandal in the ball room. Eventually she does calm down and fall ill, and the gentlemen try to save her by blood transfusions. I really like that they included Lucy’s blood transfusions, those get cut in many versions and it’s a shame because it shows the compassion Lucy’s suitors have for her (trying to save her even though she turned them down) and it makes Lucy’s death so much more sad and hopeless (they give her new blood again and again, getting their hopes up for her recovery, but the parasite preying on Lucy is insatiable). 

As usual they try to set up a romance between Dracula and Mina. I’m sorry but this just doesn’t work, ever. I mean, yes, you can definitely see some kind of chemistry between them, a fascinating relationship between a brave heroine and a heartless villain, but trying to make it romantic kinda doesn’t work when Dracula just murdered Mina’s best friend. Mina is just not the kind of person to overlook all the horrible shit Dracula has done, excusing everything just because he’s sexy. The only way for there to be a romance between them would be for two reasons - 1. Dracula brainwashes Mina by vampire hypnosis. Not very romantic. 2. Mina is actually a horrible person willing to throw all of her friends and loved ones and all of humanity under the bus just to bang a handsome vampire. 

This stupid romance feels especially wrong when they turn the scene where Dracula drinks Mina’s blood and then violently forcefeeds her his own into a consensual and sexy bedroom scene. In the book, it was a terrifying and disturbing scene, but every adaptation wants to make it romantic. I don’t mind them making it sexy, let’s face it, vampires today are sex symbols and blood drinking has been used as a sex metaphor for ages, so I don’t mind that, really. But why must there be romantic music playing while it’s happening, as if this is a “It’s a nightingale, Romeo, not a lark.” type of scene. The music used was actually the same music that plays in Lucifer’s Tears when Lucifer dances with Lilith (it’s some classical song, don’t remember its name) and that distracted me greatly. 

I was also disappointed that they made Mina suicide herself after Dracula has been killed. Mina’s recovery, the return of her humanity, should have ended the story with a hopeful note, that though some truly scary things exist in this world, it is worth to have courage and fight the monsters who seek to prey upon innocents. With Mina dead, it all feels hopeless and meaningless. Sure, they saved Dracula’s future victims by killing him, but the monster’s corruptive influence reached Mina even after his death, convincing her that she can’t live without the monster than killed her best friend. Dracula dies, but he still wins, taking both Lucy and Mina down with him.

Yes, vampires can be romantic heroes. I am a huge fan of romantic vampire stuff. But Dracula is not one of them. I’ve said it before and will say it again; Dracula does not aishiteiru.