Anime Reviews (2010-2019): Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King – The Complete Uncut Series (a Neo-Tokyo 2099 Anime on Blu-ray Review) (2018)

“Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King” is entertaining, action-packed and is a short 12-episode season and is perfect for those who prefer to watch a shorter anime series that will provide the viewer closure.

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TITLE: Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King – The Complete Uncut Series

YEAR OF FILM: 2018

DURATION: Episodes 1-12 (300 Minutes)

BLU-RAY INFORMATION: 1080p HD Dolby TrueHD English 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD Japanese 5.1, Subtitles: English

COMPANY: Funimation

RATED: TV 14

Release Date: September 10, 2019

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Director: Suganuma Eiji

Series Composition: Suzuki Masashi

Character Design: Kawamura Toshie

Music Theme Songs by May’n (opening) and JUNNA (ending)

Anime Production by asread, Tear Studio

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Featuring the following voice talent:

Fukuen Misato/Amber Lee Connors as Yuri Shiraki

Hino Satoshi/Justin Briner as Kotetsu Doumiyouji

Kaji Yuuki/Orion Pitts as Chihiro Kamina

Miki Shinichiro/Daman Mills as Kaburagi Kark

Inoue Sayuri/Dani Chambers as Dux

Morikawa Toshiyuki/Eric Vale as Inuki Akaya

Suwabe Junichi/Ian Sinclair as Jun Aoi

Kugimiya Rie/Jad Saxton as Tsubaki Manazuru

Kobayashi Yu/Katelyn Barr as Marie Kurokami

Kayano Ai/Lindsay Seidel as Shoko Hanashima

Satou Rina/Madeleine Morris as Akira Harabuki

Yuki Aoi/Monica Rial as Koume Sakiyama

Touchi Hiroki/Robert McCollum as Isshin Kakihara

Saito Chiwa/Sarah Wiedenheft as Chiyu

Terashima Takuma/Stephen Fu as Haru Minakami

Horie Yui/Tia Ballard as Julia Ichijou

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In the year 2030, a high-frequency resonance echoed throughout Tokyo, followed by a red mist. Anyone that heard the sound fell unconscious or vanished, and while Chihiro Kamina was asleep, something awakened within him. Now, people throughout the city are transforming into monsters, setting in motion a gruesome clash of fates, and potentially warping the foundations of both this world and the next.

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In Japan, “Lord of Vermilion” is an arcade fantasy collectible card game developed by Think Garage and distributed by Square Enix.

Popular since its release back in November 2008, the latest game is “Lord of Vermilion IV” which was released back in 2017.

In 2018, an anime adaptation by Asread and Tear Studio aired on Tokyo MX and now the anime series will be released on Blu-ray/DVD courtesy of Funimation.

The series begins with two individuals, Kamina Chihiro and Shiraki Yuri saying to each other that they can’t escape fate and they both kill each other.

The scene then changes as a young Kamina Chihiro moving into the home of his best friend.  Both Chihiro and his best friend Kotetsu Domyoji are college students and they train in kendo at the Domyoji Dojo.

As life is going well, a mysterious ringing sound starts to affect people around the city, knocking them out including Kamina and friends.  This would lead to a red fog overtaking the world.

Those who were comatose awakened a week after the incident known as “The Great Collapse” and giant plants started to appear out of nowhere trapping people into the red mist.

Before Chihiro passes out, he sees a woman with black hair.  Then later he sees a masked girl named Dux who calls him a Man of Vermillion who has heroic blood.  She tells him that this “heroic scene” has been repeated countless number of times and will be repeated far into the future.

For Kamina Chihiro, he awakened five months later and life as he knows it has changed forever.  The red fog has never disappeared, a giant plant has surrounded Tokyo and people are unable to leave.  The government is going so far to drop supplies to those trapped in the red mist.

As Kamina and Kotetsu head back to the dojo, a four-armed monster begins to attack them.  While Chihiro senses it may be Kotetsu’s father, the monster attacks him but the injury awakens Kamina Chihiro’s heroic blood and his eyes turn red and his blood transforms him into having armor and weapons and he kills and defeats the monster.

When Chihiro turns back to normal, he realizes he killed Kotetsu’s father and a girl naked Eiko puts Chihiro back to sleep.  What is going on with Chihiro and why did Kotetsu’s father turn into a monster?

We learn that the Church is the stronghold who fights against Chaos.  The Lineage’s leader is Dux (the being which Chihiro encountered during his dream) who tells them the world will be destroyed in 40 years, and the death of the old world will usher in a new one, led by the Lord of Vermillion.  If the Lord is not born (all Heroic Vassals are dead), there will be no new world and the Church must win.

According to a Van Drail, The Church will destroy the world in 40 years as Chaos will cause the Great Resonance which enables creatures from other worlds to enter their current world using living humans as gates, which they hope to kill the Lineage and prevent the world’s destruction.

Dux tells them that the Heroes need to survive and they must destroy Tokyo in order to close the gate and prevent monsters from coming.

Can Chihiro and the heroes save the world from despair and win against Chaos?

And what happens when Chihiro becomes close to Shiraki Yuki, a girl he played together as children (and she has a crush on him?).  To make matters complex, Shiraki is the daughter of AVAL Science Foundation leader, Grummen and she is an agent of Chaos.

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VIDEO:

“Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King” is presented in 1080p High definition. For the most part, asread and Tear Studio did a good job with the animation especially with the action sequences.

asread is an anime studio created by ex-Xebec members and they did the anime production for “Shuffle!”, “Ga-Rei: Zero”, “Future Diary”, to name a few.  While Tear Studio that was started in 2013 but “Lord of Vermillion: The Crimson King” is the company’s first major anime production.  And both companies did a good job!

AUDIO & SUBTITLES:

“Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King” presented in Japanese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and English DolbyTrue HD 5.1. The soundtrack features crystal clear dialogue, music and special effects during the action sequences. Also, the voice acting for both the Japanese and English soundtrack are well-done.

Subtitles are in English.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

“Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King”comes with the Japanese promotional videos, textless opening and closing songs.

EXTRAS:

“Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King”comes with a Funimation Digital Code.

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While I was watching “Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King”, I was struck was a feeling that I have experienced many times reviewing anime series and that with an action anime series which showcases so many characters, a 12-episode series is not enough.

While there is closure to this series, I felt that more time is needed for character development.

As the show does a great job establishing protagonist Kamina Chihiro and best friend Domyoji Kotetsu, and protagonist/antagonist Shiraki Yuri, the other characters are not given enough time for audiences to really care.

And with 12-episodes, I do believe the screenplay worked in the end, given with the amount of time was possible but I felt there was lost potential of not being given a full 24-episodes in order to introduce the other characters, may it be the Heroes or Agents of Chaos.

There are times when we see characters from both sides together, despite being enemies and you just can’t help but feel that certain character relationships should have had more time to be explored but, it is what it is.  These things happen a lot for short anime series, especially if you are enjoying the series.

In some ways, it almost reminded me a little of a classic CLAMP series known as “X” (which fans still haven’t received any closure as the series went on hiatus since 2003).

But overall, “Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King” is entertaining, action-packed and is a short 12-episode season and is perfect for those who prefer to watch a shorter anime series that will provide the viewer closure.

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