Episode 1 - Blue Invitation

In an old church building, we have a light-blue haired girl with an eye-patch on her left hand, wielding a revolver. She quickly disposes of the strange black swirls appearing out of thin air. Outside, there’s a short-haired girl waiting for her. The gun-slinging girl unloads her empty shells, and the two pull out daggers and engage in fight.

Well, I have no idea what’s going on, but at first sight, the girl with the eye patch kills ghosts and spirits that linger in the world. As for her relation to the other girl, they could be enemies. But, it doesn’t quite seem to be the case as the opening credits begin.

The credits show the two girls at the beginning, along with the supporting cast along with the bad guys. Then we see the eye-patch is covering a different colored eye and the other girl possesses a darker side to her that I believe turns her into a dangerous foe. Why not, right? On first impressions alone, they seem to be friends, if not even friendlier; if you know what I mean.

At a school, we soon find out the short-haired red head is named Sumire. She also has a secret admirer, who has a sister, and the three of them know each other. Though not identified well, the boy is most likely Riku and his sister is Nene. Sumire hurries off in a rush out of the school at the time.

Here we’re introduced to a few more characters who more or less pop in and out of the episodes. It’s all speculation right now for me, but from experience, I’m sure it’s going to be less of them, and more of the two main characters.

Underneath a train overpass, Sumire reaches her destination and apologizes to a person named Ruchia, who we quickly find out is the girl with the eye-patch. Ruchia tells Sumire that they have a client. This client, Risa Toudo, shows them a pamphlet called the Venus Vangard. In it advertises that Ruchia’s services (I’m assuming she runs the show at this mysterious place) can solve all problems. Ruchia explains that only a select few are able to read the wording on the pamphlet.

For some reason, this whole scenario reminds me of the TV drama Angel as people come looking for help against strange and dangerous phenomena. Anyway, from what I can tell, this organization that Ruchia runs is probably referred to as Venus. And it would seem the pamphlet is disguised as a jewelry catalog from what I can tell.

Risa explains that one day she discovered a shadow following her. Risa explains further that since then, her friends have gone missing. Ruchia accepts the case, calling the incident caused by a “Virus,” an evil spirit. They manifest when a human-like existence’s soul has been snatched. Therefore, they hunt for other souls. Only a select few can see the viruses.

At least I don’t have to do much work in guessing where Virus comes from in the title. On one end we have Venus and the other Virus, and hence the title. It’s quite a catchy title too. It’s simple, it’s explanatory, and it’s a quick three word alliteration.

Risa leads the two girls to where she’s seen the virus the most. Risa and Sumire are suddenly attacked by the enemy and left unconscious. Back at their headquarters, Ruchia takes off her eye-patch to find the truth from Risa. She falls to the floor moments later after using her eye.

Here’s where we see what Ruchia’s hiding beneath that eye-patch. It does seem like this theme echoes along the lines of Kakashi’s Sharingan eye and Allen Walker’s Akuma detecting eye, but I guess I can live with that. We are also shown some of the nightmares that Ruchia endures because of her eye.

Later that night, as Sumire is to stand watch over Risa as she sleeps, Sumire falls asleep as well. Then, Risa sits up and the shadow she casts on the bed takes on another form headed towards Sumire. Ruchia stops the advance, and explains that she found out that the virus was inside Risa the whole time. The virus jumps out of the room with Ruchia following suit. The two engage in battle. After a momentary victory by Ruchia, the virus comes back grabbing Sumire as a hostage.

I had a feeling that was going to happen considering the virus healed his wounds during the fight. It wouldn’t make any sense if suddenly he were to be defeated by a single bullet.

Ruchia fires a bullet into Sumire’s head, and suddenly Sumire becomes full of rage and attacks the virus. The old man who indirectly identified himself as Ruchia’s father, but also identified as Rola’s uncle (Rola being another character in the Venus organization), explains that Sumire turns into a living “anti-virus” when she comes into contact with the vaccine that they use to fight viruses. However, this form is dangerous as she becomes uncontrollable and attacks at random. As Sumire grabs Ruchia and is ready to lay in a powerful attack, the trance wears off and she faints.

Watching this whole fight is a winged eye beaming a visual back to a woman in a dungeon. Pretty safe to say she is part of the bad guys. Also, there are three shadows cast on the wall, which means there are two more villains.

After watching this pilot episode, it now makes sense why Sumire appears to have an evil side to her. Because she does! What doesn’t make sense is the very beginning of the episode because under the trance form, Sumire has starred pupils. However, she has regular eyes in the opening sequence. I’m going to guess it’s foreshadowing how this series is going to end.

So this series looks promising enough. Hopefully it doesn’t end in 13 episodes or less. I would like to see a full 26 if not a massive 52. At least the Bleach fillers are over.