Blood: The Last Vampire (2000) September 22, 2006
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: Hiroyuki Kitakubo
There’s more to say about the history, creation, and subsequent popular following of this anime feature, than the actual film itself. And while it’s not without its merits, I’m surprised that such an incomplete piece of work has gone on to spawn both a TV show, manga sequels and an upcoming live-action feature. It has though, and all from less than 45-minutes of animation.
The story takes place in Japan just before the Vietnam war. Saya is a mysterious girl who works for a government agency, employed for the sole reason of hunting down and killing vampire demons. She is placed undercover at an air base during Halloween where she discovers two demons disguising themselves as students in the school. As everyone celebrates Halloween night, Saya is once again fighting for her life against the vampires.
It’s worth noting right away that the story is extremely simple and short because this is only the middle story of three, that together were supposed to make up an OAV series called ‘Blood’. As expected it’s therefore slightly disjointed, with an especially blunt ending that leaves you wondering “so what now?”. Reportedly it was a lack of time and money that lead to the other parts never being made, but rather oddly this 43 minutes was still released. It has gained much popularity since, although for some reason the creators have never gone back to complete the story.
The use of blended 2D and 3D animation techniques is one of this films big pulling points, and it is done very effectively (much better than in the previously reviewed [link] Titan A.E.). The 3D models are designed to fit the anime world extremely well, although there are some moments where they stand out a bit. The backgrounds are especially good though, and completely in-tone with the traditional anime characters. Voice work is adequate, but unlike many other anime titles it mixes English & Japanese voice talent together. I’d say the movie is about 70% English and 30% Japanese (subtitled).
Now, with the Blood+ TV series airing in Japan, and Ronny Yu attached to direct a live-action version of the story (hopefully the whole story, not just this section), it is easy to class this anime experiment as a success. I wasn’t overly impressed, but if a full-length version with all three parts was released, I’d be very interested to see it. Some of the animation work looks fantastic, and that’s the real highlight here, but this on it’s own isn’t quite enough to satisfy my desire for the story.
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