Kufa Vampir has been tasked with becoming the personal instructor for the noble girl Melida Angel. In a world largely overrun by the dark creatures called Lancanthropes, with humans living in an isolated environment, nobles can awaken to powers of mana, giving them the power to defend humanity. However, despite her desire to join a prestigious defense guild, Melida has shown no signs of a mana awakening, which not only makes her a target of bullying at school, but also makes some question whether she is actually an illegitimate child with a commoner parent. This is where Kufa comes in: he is actually an assassin, and upon determining that Melida is most likely a bastard child that will never awaken to mana, he decides to fulfill his true mission of killing her and putting her out of her misery. However, when he finds her being pursued by Lancanthropes, he might find himself to have second thoughts…
Based on a yet-to-be-licensed light novel, Assassins Pride (yes, the title officially has no apostrophe) is a pretty simple story with a lot of fancy dressing. To start, the show looks very crisp visually. As for the story, there’s a lot of extra story elements in play, such as the odd world and the presence of mysterious monsters, the conflict of nobles in the background, the other kids at the academy, and Melida’s cousin and her own instructor who’s almost certainly the random girl Kufa meets earlier in the episode. At the moment these elements all feel a bit too separate, so I hope they get integrated better in later episodes. All this made the first half of the episode a bit of a drag, but thankfully the second half is better as we get more into the core of this show: the relationship between Kufa and Melida. As we see what Kufa thinks of her and what he chooses to do with her, I find myself wanting to cheer these two on. If the show can focus on developing their relationship dynamics and integrating the other story elements in support of this core, I think it can be a pretty solid show.
Assassins Pride is streaming on Crunchyroll and HIDIVE.
