The first four episodes of Black Blood Brothers call attention to the differences between these two, but they don't explain them—but they do pile on the tantalizing hints about their past even as they lay out a present-day story. Ten years ago, Hong Kong was abruptly devastated by an army of vampires called Kowloon Children, creatures so virulent that they infect and convert any human they bite, and any vampire as well. Jiro was there, fighting the children and encountering old memories, as well as what appears to be an old ally. In the present, he and his cheery little brother Kotoro have returned to their Japanese homeland to enter the "Special Zone," an area where humans and the weaker vampires live together peaceably, behind a barrier that keeps out the Kowloon Children. But Jiro himself can sense the barrier, and there's a question of what bloodline he personally descends from.

Meanwhile, the Order Coffin Company, a human organization that started and polices the Special Zone, seems to be wiping out vampires (or Black Bloods, as they're called) outside the zone, supposedly in an attempt to keep the Kowloon Children down. But the persecuted vampires—some of "broken bloodlines," with no house affiliation to prove their families—see this as indiscriminate murder, especially since they seem to be the targets. Caught in the middle is squeaky Mimiko Katsuragi, a professional Company "Compromiser" who wants everyone to just get along without all the bloodshed. Though shortly after she meets Jiro, she realizes she's more than a little willing to shed some blood for him.

Hopping vampires, zipping story

Black Blood Brothers is a 12-episode series, which comes through pretty clearly in its breakneck pace—it does takes some time for character development, rather than making its characters into types and ciphers, but it wastes no time in getting to the action, and generally it keeps its characters hopping. (Sometimes literally, in the case of the Kowloon Children, who seem a bit like traditional Chinese vampires in modern dress.) It throws out some typical anime teases, in the form of flashbacks that hint at a larger story, but it lingers on them at length, purposely piecing together a plot out of chronological order, rather than just hinting vaguely at a past that might be revealed someday.

And while the action isn't groundbreaking, it's nicely stylish, with plenty of grin-inducing visual effects, like the wall of hovering bullets that form in front of a vampire who's using a force field to keep an army from gunning him down. Vampires fight each other and humans with swords, with guns, with helicopter-mounted sunlamps, with illusions and telekinesis and fury, and it all becomes huge and dynamic. And there's comedy action as well, as Jiro casually punishes Kotoro's disobediences by telekinetically smashing him face-first into walls and floors, leaving behind gigantic craters. Black Blood Brothers isn't predominantly (or even significantly) a comedy series, but this one aspect of the story is pretty goofy—and relatively harmless, since Kotoro generally gets up saddened but unharmed.

Black Blood Brothers seems a bit crowded, with Jiro's personal drama, vampire-family drama, distant past, recent past and present all jockeying for position in the storyline, but the fast pace helps it gloss over some aspects that might seem too familiar from other series, from Mimiko's Hellsing-like relationship with Jiro to any number of other series about a renegade [vampire, demon, or crossbreed] whose vast powers overwhelm the others of his type. By pushing in so much story, the series manages a quick sense of depth, and of a world more complicated and competitive than some anime series establish over 26 episodes.