Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Ok there’s no more cosplay here. This post is inspired by episode 34 of Blood+, where Saya shows up with a new hairdo and arsenal of fanboy-wetting facial expressions. I realised that she looked like crap before, and went through the Blood movie, first few episodes, middle eps to get some picture samples.

I haven’t slept for about two days so I can barely type at the moment.

I shall start with the out-of-control berserker Saya in the intro of episode 1. Here she looks bloodied, scary and demonised, with long Sadako-ish black hair, sharp eyes, pink pupils and a very pointed face. Ugly. I don’t dig m4d chickz.

This was Saya back in her infancy, prior to awakening. With slightly wavy long hair, shorter eyebrows and rounder eyes, Saya looks innocently ojou-style cute here. Her nose and mouth are quite small too. Bishoujo stage. Did they pluck eyebrows back in those days? Cos she really needs to.

The movie version of Saya is just amazing. Amazingly ugly, that is. With a pair of hideous pig tails and black man lips, not to mention beady (for anime at least) eyes and a foul temper, it’s no wonder the movie crashed and burned. This was the original Saya though.

Find me an uglier female lead.

Hey, the spawn of Shaman King’s Chocolove and Ayano from Girls’ High

This picture’s a good one. Innocent eyes combo well with wicked blades.

This is where we start seeing Saya lose her roundedness for a sharper look. Great.

Slowly, we see Saya growing into a stronger and less child-like character as the series progresses. But the damn eyebrows still stuck. It wasn’t until the ship explosion and after Riku’s death that she finally decided to pluck the damn caterpillars. Took you long enough. The current Saya now has a really cool hairstyle, longer than her old one and a floppy lop-sided fringe. I like her new hair a lot more. One of the old girlfriends used to have this exact same hair!

Saya’s eyes are a lot sharper now especially at the edges and she looks a lot more intelligent because of that. No more the clueless confused school kid, she’s now a full fledged vampire slayer. An angsty one too.

Blood+ just got a hell lot more enjoyable now that I don’t have to fidget and avert my eyes just to not be disturbed by a pair of black hairy butterfly babies stuck on the main lead’s head.

Barely recognisable from the designs of the earlier episodes.

Her tough demeanor is in stark constrast with the really adorable sleep appearance.

Back to the old days of Blood the Last Vampire.

This is where the old her would’ve had round eyes. Here, Saya still has sharp ones.

The pissed-off look is quite cute.

Here, the overpowered dominator silent evil mode wins.