I still love the characters. Julius is amazing. Blood is amazing. Elliot and Ace are great. Alice isn't bad. I hate Peter and the rest of them are throwaways, but hey, you can't have everything.My problem is that the plot continues the repetitive formula. Alice starts at Point A, and moves to Point B with one of the guys. At Point B they meet another guy, who starts an argument with her escort. The two guys fight over Alice for a while until she tells them to stop it. Then she storms off, either going back to Point A or advancing to Point C, probably with one of the guys alongside. Then everything repeats.
It's not that there's no plot advancement - it's just that that cycle has to repeat about three times before anything new happens, which drags the plot down to a crawl. The cycle is also not great for character development, since the only thing the guys ever do is argue with each other about who Alice belongs to.
If I were Alice, I'd tell them all to shut up and go away. (Except Julius.) She's not a great character, but she's not just a prize to be won, either.
And the disturbing lack of eyes for the main characters continues.
I also wish there were more female characters. All the interaction Alice ever gets are with guys who "love" her. Vivaldi has only appeared once or twice, and so briefly that she really hasn't had a lot of time to show her personality.
But I did find out that Cheshire - excuse me, Boris - does have two eyes. I think he only keeps his hair swept over the one eye so he can look like Jun Mochizuki's Cheshire, and for the record, it doesn't work. Boris isn't nearly as adorable or creepy as Jun's Cheshire, even though he does try really hard to be. I almost feel sorry for him, he was outshone even before he was created. And Boris' fashion sense is abominable, whereas Cheshire always looks awesome.
I'm going to read the next volumes, of course, because even though I have problems with this, I do actually like it. I'm not sure why, since there doesn't seem to be much likable about it, but hey. Julius is so awesome, I'd read the volumes just for him. And for Blood, I think...maybe.
