After a long trail of school transfers, Kohei Hasekura is about to make what will hopefully be his final one, to the prestigious Shuchikan Academy. It's a private boarding school, which should give him the opportunity to finally settle down and make some lasting friends. The first person he meets there is Erika Sendo, the Student Council Vice-President, who's on hand to give him a warm welcome - and who makes an immediate impression on Kohei. Kohei makes a rather unusual impression on Endo, too, which leaves her in quite a state. There's something unusual about Kohei, it seems, and she's not about to let him have his own way. The school also seems to hold a dark secret - vampires... First thing that caught my eye on reading about Fortune Arterial was the setting - it's a boarding school show, and having spent a few years in boarding school myself (before being ::cough::asked to leave::cough::), there's a whole heap of nostalgia there - apart from the time spent working off demerits, they were the most enjoyable years of my school life. Give me a show that can accurately recreate that feeling, and personally we'd be onto a winner. So far, though, Fortune Arterial is concentrating more on introducing its characters than its setting, and for now at least they're a fairly forgettable bunch that don't stray far enough from the archetypes that you expect from a series loaded with bishoujo to really make it stand out. That left me expecting it to sink into the Sea of Mediocrity. Until the final scene, that is, where vampires were suddenly added into the mix. Is this a dose of gothic horror that we're about to be given (good), or are we going more the Twilight route here (please God no)? One scene isn't enough to say, but suddenly my curiosity has been piqued. And hey, I might get more of that boarding school ambience yet. The Good: The setting, and vampires - although those both comes with caveats at the moment, it'll depend a lot on what they do with both of them as the series progresses. The Bad: Characters are a forgettable bunch who are really going to need some work to make them appealing. While I have my doubts - and fairly big ones at that - I'm marking this as a keeper for now. But it really does need to show that there's something different under the surface.
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