Delico's Nursery: Vampire Childcare & Mystery (2024 Anime Review)

Delico's Nursery

How often do you stop for a second and consider things from your parents’ shoes? Whether they are still with you or not, it’s a truly different angle to consider, even more so if you love and appreciate them. They may have gone through countless sacrifices for us and never showed any weakness for the betterment of their children, and these efforts often go thankless because they seldom seek that validation or praise. Even going to work could have been a challenge to us after having us, but they found some wraparound that worked out with minimum losses and never forsaking what’s truly important: their presence around their child. So if anime were to tackle this from a fictional angle involving not-normal parents, what would we end up with….

“Delico's Nursery” is a 13-episode TV anime series that aired from the 8th of August till the 28th of November in Summer 2024. It was produced by Aniplex, Magic Capsule, Tokyo MX, BS11, Contents Seed, and Watanabe Entertainment, and brought to life by Studio J.C.Staff. The main staff behind it include Oowada Tomoyuki, Matsukura Yuuji, Nagamine Rieko, and Matsuo Kousuke as producer. This stretch of 23-minute episodes features the genres of fantasy and mystery, alongside the themes of childcare and vampires, earning a rating of PG-13 for teenagers 13 years or older. A summary of the series was released in the form of a TV special titled “Delico's Nursery: Ikuji Nisshi” (“Delico's Nursery Recap” or “Delico's Nursery Episode 6.5”), which featured the pages of Dali's child-rearing journal, as reported on by Henrique, providing a summary of the first six episodes of the anime. This single episode aired on the 10th of October 2024 and was handled by the same studio. It featured the additional theme of organized crime and ran for 23 minutes, earning a rating of PG-13 as well.

The story is set within a vampiric society, where a new scourge has descended forth in the form of serial murders. Despite the seemingly unrelated nature of these rampant killings, every crime scene shares a common element: a peculiar card bearing the words "True of Vamp," a reference to the legendary progenitor of vampire-kind. Thus the light falls onto Vlad Agency, which is a top-secret intelligence operation that summons the infamous aristocrat and series protagonist Dali Delico to solve this mystery. Delico is to lead the task force to investigate these murders, but he refuses the role as he has chosen to focus on raising his children instead. At this point, his old colleagues Gerhard Fra, Henrique Lorca, and Dino Classico intervene, pleading with him to reconcile his child-rearing responsibilities with his agency duties. At the end, he agrees, but with one condition: his three friends must watch their children during the investigation! This is how Dali's luxurious estate transforms into a vampiric nursery as well as the base of operations for these four noble vampire fathers. Meanwhile, a criminal organization, familiar to Dali, lurks in the shadows, harboring only evil intentions, a group whose goals threaten to bring down the entire vampire society.

Regardless of your initial impressions, this anime largely adheres to its genres and themes; it revolves around conspiracies, mysteries, child-rearing, and vampires. From the very first episode itself, they set up all the plotlines yet to unfold in a neat manner, and you pretty much know exactly what you’re going to get by around Episode 5. That said, these are not the most compelling storylines I’ve seen, but you can bet the childcare part is very realistic and enjoyable. I’m generally not a fan of kids in real life, but I’ve got to say the children here are just adorable and they are all dealing with their own unique problems in life, an aspect that’s a staple even in real-life childcare. Meanwhile, the adults primarily manage the worldbuilding, dealing with the antagonist group in a variety of situations. But the best thing about this anime, in my opinion, is watching all these handsome, aristocratic, grown vampire men trying to take proper care of their toddlers within the makeshift nursery! Dealing with the mass murder mysteries outside doesn't make their parenting any easier, and their struggle is truly engaging.

This is definitely not a premise you see often and is inherently interesting, but I wish they had stuck to the child-rearing theme because that is where the story worth telling is, because the whole situation with the antagonists felt like it was thrown in haphazardly for the action. On that note, the antagonists are a real bore here; they exist just because, are severely underdeveloped, and their “evil master plan” is as superficial as it gets. Did anyone even think this plan through? I doubt it. The main antagonist possessed a single, flawed plan and a second, equally flawed plan, both of which he foolishly divulged before they could be implemented. Both of the plans are royal fails and that’s it; literally all the struggles the main cast had resolving this mess, only to find out that there was hardly any threat. This part was honestly frustrating; all that buildup for nothing and an unsatisfactory ending that leaves most questions unanswered.

In the character department, let it be known that the main cast and their children received a lot of development, and this is exactly why they should’ve just focused on them for the entire run. Meanwhile, the antagonists weren’t developed at all and I need not say further about their “genius evil intellect.”. This is such a shame because all the characters look amazing, but only half of them have substance behind appearances. It’s not so hard to execute such units in a world where vampires run rampant and are engaged in a myriad of malicious acts, because the remaining cast of detectives and hunters acts as the perfect foil.

As you could tell from the synopsis, Delico is VERY determined to raise his kids right and eventually finds himself in a detective headquarters turned nursery. But as stupid as it sounds, this part of his character is super entertaining, which leads me to the next problem: the good characters are split between the two different plotlines. The same characters dealing with the government and conspiracies are also dealing with childcare, and the prior really harms the latter. The balancing of the two sides is done horrendously and there’s hardly any connection between the two, even though they are the same cast. When viewed from the mystery plotline, the kids are annoying, but when viewed from the childcare plotline, they’re sweet and lovable…. You see the problem here.

The Art and Animation department exhibits a varied quality, yet the art remains distinctive, captivating, and strikingly beautiful. While the artwork is highly mature and detailed, the animation occasionally struggles to keep pace with it. This is why there were moments where the characters lost all the details that made them so beautiful and were even lacking facial expressions! The backgrounds are poorly done as well, which are super messy on occasion. At the same time, the overall visuals just don’t fit the childcare theme all too well, being more suited for the mystery plotline that becomes very stale eventually. The background is way too messy, so even the stunning character designs are held down by the lacking animation.

The Sounds and Music department is just messy on occasion. While it doesn't always ruin the moment, it can be distracting at times. For example, the background OSTs are so loud sometimes I could hardly hear the dialogue. Meanwhile, during the final episode, all of the audio was straight-up buzzy, with overall terrible sound quality. The opening theme is “UNFAIR” by Mika Nakashima and the ending theme is “Prayer” by Anonymouz, both of which are decent but aren’t noteworthy at all. The voice acting is pretty good on both the original and the English dub for once, so kudos to the voice actors for bringing these troubled parents and chaotic children to life with as much bad parenting energy (in a good way) as possible!

Overall, Delico’s Nursery is not a show I would recommend to everyone. Despite its occasional merits, the overall experience is stale, leaving you with a sense of unfulfilled potential. It’s like the show itself wasn’t sure of what it wanted to achieve and ended up ruining what could have been a nice vampire series about childcare. If you are looking for a series with good and realistic childcare elements while being an entertaining show, I would recommend “Buddy Daddies” over this. If you are willing to go into this show just for the gorgeous vampire men, focus on their time dealing with the children over anything else, and you’d have a decent watch at best.