REVIEW: ‘Delico’s Nursery’ Episode 1 — “Welcome To The Nursery”

Right off the rip, Delico’s Nursery Episode 1, “Welcome To The Nursery” gives off Netflix’s Castlevania vibes. While not primarily English-dubbed, the gothic animation style is reminiscent of it. And of course, this anime series involves some good old vampires. Despite this series containing a lot of vamps, it is not as action-driven as Castlevania. Rather, this series seems to be a borderline shoujo anime with the main cast predominantly highly-attractive male characters mixed with some mystery. Officially, the manga is listed as a seinen.

Delico’s Nursery Episode 1 teases some plot points before the present time of the series while it sets up the world rules right away. It opens with a past battle at the Delico Estate, where the estate head vampire, Dali Delico (Masakazu Morita), witnessed the death of his wife, Frieda Delico, amidst the fighting. Then, it quickly jumps to the present time, introducing a peculiar string of murders targeting vampires.

The Blood Pact Council, the highest governing body of vampires, orders the Vlad Agency (sort of like the vampire version of the FBI or CIA) and Dali to solve this case. The Agency suspects that a group related to the TRUMP vampire, the original vampire, aka Dracula. Even though the matter directly threatens vampire society, Dali refuses, stating that he has more important issues. His boss, Lord Johannes, accepts Dali’s explanation, shocking other Agency members.

Having lost patience, Gerhard, Dino, and Henrique, who are also Council members serving the same term as Dali, rush to the house of Delico to persuade him. What they witness there is Dali taking care of an infant himself. It is quickly brought up that vampire aristocrats don’t typically raise their children themselves, having the house servants do it. Dali explains that it was Frieda’s wish for him to raise their kids with “as much love” as he could give them.

The story takes an interesting turn as the other male vampires devise a compromise for Dali to balance his duties to the Blood Pact Council and his newfound child-rearing duties. To make matters more interesting, Dali agrees only to the stipulation that his other male compatriots must help him with the nursery, which consists of his children and their own.

Based on Delico’s Nursery Episode 1, the show seems to be a mish-mash of seriousness and playfulness. The key element that makes this a more accessible anime series compared to something like Vampire Dormitory, Vampire Knight or Seraph of the End is that it presents a story that could appeal for viewers who value child-rearing as much as a good mystery. So far, this does not tend to be as intense as Hellsing either.

J.C. Staff have animated a lot of great anime series such as Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? and One Punch Man seasons 2 and 3. But out of all of these, Delico’s Nursery had a very distinct art style. It screamed ‘90s gothic anime, and something unique like with Wit Studio’s Ranking of Kings. Delico’s Nursery Episode 1 has a complex animation style because there are some objects 3D-animated on the rough hand-animated (almost hand-painted-looking) backgrounds. It is strangely pleasing for the eyes to focus on the characters in the foreground.

The OP highlights a big ensemble cast for the series, about half are introduced in the first episode. The music throughout Delico’s Nursery Episode 1 is stereotypical gothic vampire sounds—a whole lot of classic, spooky church organ. Hopefully, the outro song is just as good, and the other episodes have a good variety of gothic background music too. Regardless of whatever first impressions were made of this anime, it appears to subvert some of those expectations.

Overall, the different elements of mystery, vampire politics, and child-rearing tackle some unique perspectives in a world where vampires run all of society. Gerhard, Dino, and Henrique are great alternative personalities to Dali’s laid-back personality. However, Delico’s Nursery Episode 1 doesn’t contain anything that stands out yet other than the inspired art style. The cliffhanger at the end of the episode teases an introduction to a vampire professor who seems more carefree than his students, wandering the campus grounds and running into black cats.

Delico’s Nursery Episode 1 is out now on Crunchyroll.