(for screencaps, as usual, go to Omni’s post)
First off, the OP sequence takes , hands down, as the most fanservicing OP sequence this season, I can already imagine abq from lolitron’s post in my head ^_^. The song isn’t too bad too, fortunately. Most of the times, fanservice-cy OP’s are there to disguise the fact the song sucks. But still, they’re just playing up the nosebleed parts a bit too much for my liking. In the manga, really, Karin doesn’t go around with nosebleeds every chapter. Suddenly, it feels like they’re targeting the middle-aged men group now, XD.
Some changes from manga too, as the enjoukousai part is included here instead, albeit a bit messy, IMHO. Basically, they’ve managed to set up most of the basic settings of the series in this episode, with the introduction of Usui’s mom and Karin’s brother, Julian(their work place) and the “blood preferences” part of the vampires.
For a more detailed explanation, the “blood preference” refers to the characteristics of a person a vampire is most likely to be attracted too. Examples given are Maaka’s mom who wants blood from a liar, Maaka’s brother who wants blood from a stressed-out person and Karin herself, is attracted to people who are unfortunate, making Usui and his mom, prime targets for her.
On that note, Usui’s mom, Fumio, is my most favourite character in the series XD. Apart from being unfortunate, she’s also the type that “attracts older men”, gaining a lot of moé points. I have to give a lot of credit to the animation crew for casting Aya Hisakawa as her. She fits Fumio like a glove, playing both her “unfortunate” and *genki* parts pretty good.
As for other things, I’m pretty impressed with Sayuri Yahagi, Karin’s seiyuu. She’s playing Karin uncannily good, using the right voices for the right parts. If I’d didn’t know it beforehand, I’d say a more experienced seiyuu was doing her. Ah… the birth of a rising star,I guess.