 "Vampric Anime" | 2008-12-21 |
| - Reviewed By User: A36FT889NQD12 |
There's some pretty bad vampire anime out there and there's some very good...and then there's this movie.
The original voice acting is good, the animation is fine, the look of the characters is....different. I liked it, but I realize that not everyone does. I love how uh, BAMF, the main character Saya is. She kicks vampire-butt and takes names. She has a super cool sword. She is emotionless and jaded.
This movie is not the best, in terms of anime, vampire anime, or the "series." I _love_ the TV series and the different mangas are at least interesting. I do think I would have been jaded and not liked this movie as much if I had seen the it after the TV series. But it is a good movie and I certainly don't feel like I wasted my time. |
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| "Short but sweet..." | 2008-08-03 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2HVL790PBWYTU |
BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE tells of the horrific events which took place in a U.S. military base in Japan, just before the Vietnam War. It seems that the populace of Yokota Air Base is unknowingly suffering from a series of vampire attacks. Unknowingly, because the victims then show up as suicide casualties. So in comes the mysterious Saya, who works in concert with a covert government agency in hunting down these vampires, which are actually blood-sucking demons called the Chiropterans. Posing as a high school girl, Saya begins to nose around the base's high school, even as everyone else prepares for the big Halloween bash. More the lethal slayer type than a detective, it still doesn't take too long before she and her samurai sword stumble into something...
BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE is a wicked cool anime, running at 48 minutes, which I like to pop in the player whenever I've got a dull hour to kill. This film, which came out in 2000, has a couple of things going for it. First off, the film looks amazing. The animation is absolutely state-of-the-art and about as seamless a marriage I have seen of 2D and 3D graphics. The film right away establishes an ominous mood, which it then refuses to relinquish, much credit to the brooding soundtrack. The action sequences are dynamite stuff, excitingly presented. From the moment the lights dimmed on the subway train and Saya exploded into action, I was friggin' wowwed. The shaky cam technique used at times during these action sequences is pretty effective. It doesn't hurt that the Chiropterans are imposing, scary looking things. To see a tiny high school looking girl tackle these beasties (and then relentlessly dispose of them) simply adds to the cool factor.
Her handler claims that Saya is the "only remaining original," and I guess he means she's the last vampire. But then the story doesn't delve into that very intriguing tidbit. I guess there just wasn't time for the film to drop some background 411 on Saya. What we do learn is that she's sullen and stoic and very determined. She's aggresively anti-religious. She's disdainful of people. But she carries out her missions with a grim relentlessness and a no-nonsense air. And, when she springs into action, she makes you forget that her character is pretty one-dimensional.
There's really not much of a set-up. The film plants the viewer smack dab in the thick of the plot, which I kind of like since it lends a more pronounced sense of immediacy. The movie being only 48 minutes long doesn't really bother me, although, yes, that doesn't really give the movie a chance to develop the story or its characters, who do come off as shallow. The main characters seem to be Saya, the agent David, and a plump, good-hearted school nurse in peril. It's kind of refreshing that our surly heroine refuses to be solicitous of the very frightened nurse; instead, Saya gets extremely annoyed with her. That's our Saya!
The brevity of the running time makes it seem more of an expanded episode to a series than an actual film. Then there are the unaswered questions. Just what exactly is the deal with Saya? We are clueless regarding her motivations, how she hooked up with the agency, why she can't kill humans...When she offs the last demon at the airfield, what was up with what she did afterwards? An old photograph near the end does flesh out her background some...And I don't really understand the relevance of the pre-Vietnam War backdrop (is it some kind of metaphor?). Not having all these questions answered doesn't bug me too much, but I can dig that it frustrates folks.
There's a decent amount of gore and blood splatter here, a tiny lacing of profanity, and even a brief nude shot of a suicide victim in a bathtub. So, no, this isn't for the really young 'uns. Concerning special features, the 21-minute-long "Making Of" segment is pretty dry, because it's so technically driven, focusing as it does on the CG effects. But, hey, if you're a CG freak, this might be right up your alley. There's also the theatrical trailer and a photo gallery.
Meeting Saya in BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE is like briefly spending time with a stranger. You learn some stuff about the person, but not too much. You're made privy to the surface gloss, the public face, but that's all. For a span of forty-eight minutes, Saya lets us into her chaotic, violent life. But then she goes away, leaving us with the same impression we had when we first saw her - that of a sword-slinging enigma. In a weird way, that's kind of neat. |
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 "Style Over Substance" | 2008-06-21 |
| - Reviewed By elyon |
| Though visually arresting, this short feature offers more style than substance, and like much anime, is limited in terms of character and narrative development. Fun for tweens and teens only. |
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| "Blood: the great disappointment" | 2008-03-03 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3W108YKC3P5DE |
As a fan of the anime episodic, and anime in general, I was really looking forward to seeing this film, however I was sorely disappointed. Not because Saya, David, and Louis are portrayed differently than in the show -- I expected that, and I enjoyed seeing these characters in a different light. As mentioned by others, the promotional materials on-line and the box both promise a run time of 83 minutes, but that's a lie... they appear to be counting all the bonus material, including trailers. Also I found the animation quite distasteful, the story to be completely lacking, and all of the secondary characters to be uninteresting or even annoying. A lot of people gave this movie great reviews, and I really wanted to, but after watching I couldn't help but feel a bit like I'd been robbed. After finishing the film after barely twice the length of a single episode of the show (with all the commercials removed), I literally went back and watched the whole thing again on fast forward and checked the menus thoroughly to see if I had somehow missed some of it. Sadly I hadn't, but I still feel like I did...
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 "She's the last original" | 2008-02-28 |
| - Reviewed By la_solinas |
Your basic vampire is perfectly suited to anime -- beautiful, seductive, and opulant.
Well, most of them, anyway. Things are a bit different in "Blood: The Last Vampire," an anime movie that bravely throws out most of the vampire preconceptions, as well as plot exposition. It's not a total success storywise, but it's an effectively dark, moody piece of bloody action.
As the movie opens, we see a mysterious young girl, Saya, on a train. When the lights go out, she savagely attacks a man at the other end of the train with a sword.
It turns out the man was a Chiropteran -- a sort of bat-vampire. When her coworkers arrive to clean up the mess, Saya learns that the Chiropterans have infiltrated the general public -- and she has to go undercover at a girls' high school near an American military base. She isn't happy about it, but goes anyway.
Saya begins snooping around for evidence of Chiropterans, and finds it -- a pair are disguised as ordinary high school girls. But when she corners them, a timid nurse accidentally gets involved in the bloodbath that ensues -- and a deadly cat-and-mouse game between the mysterious Saya and her monstrous prey.
"Blood: The Last Vampire" is one of those movies where the plot isn't the overwhelming force. In fact, the actual story isn't much -- it feels like tuning into an episode of a weekly TV show, without much explanation for who Saya is and what is going on. And after the first third, the movie is pretty much entirely devoted to "Saya hacks and slashes her way through the school while the nurse screams a lot."
But the visual presentation is stunning -- every scenes is saturated with shadows and vague, pale light. And while many scenes are quiet and almost motionless, the action scenes explode with kinetic energy, splashes of gore, and occasionally a raging fire. And when Saya jumps into action, the entire world seems to speed up into a blur of violence and splattered blood.
One thing you have to say -- there are no stereotypically pretty, European vampires here. There's only Saya -- a cold-eyed girl who looks like Angelina Jolie's gothy baby sister -- and a lot of grotesque bat creatures, with huge muzzles and big claws. The most "human" person here is probably the timid nurse, but we never really get to know her until the end.
"Blood: The Last Vampire" isn't too worried about having a plot, but for splattery action and fast-moving vampire battles, it's a dark diversion. |
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| "Why don't you get ti?" | 2008-01-24 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3TSO6HJKCJZF |
| All right. This movie should not be viewed as a stand alone movie, but as the prequel for the anime ,Blood+, which uses the same charachters and plotlines but takes place in modern times. Hope that helps explain the "underdone" look of the film. |
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