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Blood: The Last Vampire
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
n/a
WHAT'D I THINK?
Blood: The Last Vampire is an excellent example of "good, but not great". It's very difficult to challenge any individual aspect of the movie and say it ruins the experience, it's just so well made.
The opening sequence is nothing if not a perfect illustration of this. We witness an underground train car as it empties of people and progresses down a tunnel, during which the lights go out and a girl, one of the two remaining occupants, instantly rushes the other and cuts him down with a hidden katana.
That's all that happens. There's literally nothing else to this whole scene, but it's presented like it's the latest triple-A movie epic. The lighting is moody, the camera angles are dramatic, and the minimal music and choice sound design ramp up the tension right up until the final moment where the animation kicks into high gear and it happens.
It's so well done, for very little.
That's pretty much the whole movie. Really all that happens is we're introduced to "the last vampire", Saya as she hunts down some sort of lesser vampire relatives called Chiroptorin (or something) as part of secret organization for a period of time. That's it. It's no high point in her career, it's neither her first or last mission, it's just... one of them.
She shows up in some small town, and here I have to admit I have no idea where were supposed to be. First off I'll give credit to the movie for using both English and Japanese voice actors to legitimize interactions. The voice acting's not fantastic, but it's appropriate, which I appreciate. This however adds to the confusion of where this whole story is supposed to take place. Supposedly Saya needs a japanese sailor fuku because NOT FANSERVICE school does that kind of thing. Okay, so it's in Japan? But it seems literally everybody except Saya and the nurse are even part Japanese. There's this strange emphasis all throughout the movie on military occupation too. What's going on?
Wikipedia says that they're IN TOKYO, so whatever I guess Japanese high school principals usually speak in fluent English to their subordinates behind closed doors? The hell do I know?
Anyway, there's a Halloween party going on (appropriate I know), and Saya drops in to kill a few of these monsters disguised as humans. The sequence in which she finds and brutally attacks them is excellently contrasted with the pleasant upbeat saxophone playing at the party.
The human nurse gets involved and a race around town ensues. There's a lot of blood, a civilian casualty, Saya's sword breaks, she steals a new one, that's a fake, the organization catches up to her, gives her a new one, kill, kill, kill, and the movie's over with us just floating around the nurse as she... just goes back to her life. Just like the audience.
Well... THAT just happened.
It's cool, and it undoubtedly kept me engaged all throughout, but honestly in terms of what it did new or even taught us about it's world or it's characters? Practically nothing.
In fact, if you went into this movie and DIDN'T know what a vampire was? You still wouldn't know after leaving.
Saya's supposed to be the last one and all we see from her is that she's slightly stronger than she probably should be, she's got an unrealistically good sense of smell, and she's maybe lived for hundreds of years (if the really crap photographic evidence at the end is to be believed). The whole blood drinking thing doesn't factor into her character at all save a brief moment in which she feeds a dying Chiroptorin some of her blood, for reasons that are never explained.
The Chiroptorins aren't really vampires either according to the movie, and what their relationship to vampires is or why Saya is the last one is never ever EVER explained.
If this movie simply served as a character introduction, like a prologue to a bigger series of movies featuring her and/or the setting she lives in, maybe it would be... not terrible, but it's just a standalone movie.
If it were ever adapted into any sort of series, there's virtually nothing to pass over other than the idea of Saya, a vampiric vampire hunter in a sailor fuku working for a covert organization out to kill rogue lesser vampires. THAT'S IT. The best parts of this movie are simply how well it was presented, so if the same story was told by a lesser animation studio or a less talented director, the whole thing would collapse.
Well... it did get adapted into Blood+, and while it isn't the triple-A movie quality we get here, it certainly manages to tell an actual story with actual characters and actual arcs. So there's that.
It also got adapted into Blood-C, but I haven't seen that yet, so I have no comment on it.
Final Verdict: [Pretty Good]
Blood: The Last Vampire
Action Horror / 2000
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
n/a
WHAT'D I THINK?
Blood: The Last Vampire is an excellent example of "good, but not great". It's very difficult to challenge any individual aspect of the movie and say it ruins the experience, it's just so well made.
The opening sequence is nothing if not a perfect illustration of this. We witness an underground train car as it empties of people and progresses down a tunnel, during which the lights go out and a girl, one of the two remaining occupants, instantly rushes the other and cuts him down with a hidden katana.
That's all that happens. There's literally nothing else to this whole scene, but it's presented like it's the latest triple-A movie epic. The lighting is moody, the camera angles are dramatic, and the minimal music and choice sound design ramp up the tension right up until the final moment where the animation kicks into high gear and it happens.
It's so well done, for very little.
That's pretty much the whole movie. Really all that happens is we're introduced to "the last vampire", Saya as she hunts down some sort of lesser vampire relatives called Chiroptorin (or something) as part of secret organization for a period of time. That's it. It's no high point in her career, it's neither her first or last mission, it's just... one of them.
She shows up in some small town, and here I have to admit I have no idea where were supposed to be. First off I'll give credit to the movie for using both English and Japanese voice actors to legitimize interactions. The voice acting's not fantastic, but it's appropriate, which I appreciate. This however adds to the confusion of where this whole story is supposed to take place. Supposedly Saya needs a japanese sailor fuku because NOT FANSERVICE school does that kind of thing. Okay, so it's in Japan? But it seems literally everybody except Saya and the nurse are even part Japanese. There's this strange emphasis all throughout the movie on military occupation too. What's going on?
Wikipedia says that they're IN TOKYO, so whatever I guess Japanese high school principals usually speak in fluent English to their subordinates behind closed doors? The hell do I know?
Anyway, there's a Halloween party going on (appropriate I know), and Saya drops in to kill a few of these monsters disguised as humans. The sequence in which she finds and brutally attacks them is excellently contrasted with the pleasant upbeat saxophone playing at the party.
The human nurse gets involved and a race around town ensues. There's a lot of blood, a civilian casualty, Saya's sword breaks, she steals a new one, that's a fake, the organization catches up to her, gives her a new one, kill, kill, kill, and the movie's over with us just floating around the nurse as she... just goes back to her life. Just like the audience.
Well... THAT just happened.
It's cool, and it undoubtedly kept me engaged all throughout, but honestly in terms of what it did new or even taught us about it's world or it's characters? Practically nothing.
In fact, if you went into this movie and DIDN'T know what a vampire was? You still wouldn't know after leaving.
Saya's supposed to be the last one and all we see from her is that she's slightly stronger than she probably should be, she's got an unrealistically good sense of smell, and she's maybe lived for hundreds of years (if the really crap photographic evidence at the end is to be believed). The whole blood drinking thing doesn't factor into her character at all save a brief moment in which she feeds a dying Chiroptorin some of her blood, for reasons that are never explained.
The Chiroptorins aren't really vampires either according to the movie, and what their relationship to vampires is or why Saya is the last one is never ever EVER explained.
If this movie simply served as a character introduction, like a prologue to a bigger series of movies featuring her and/or the setting she lives in, maybe it would be... not terrible, but it's just a standalone movie.
If it were ever adapted into any sort of series, there's virtually nothing to pass over other than the idea of Saya, a vampiric vampire hunter in a sailor fuku working for a covert organization out to kill rogue lesser vampires. THAT'S IT. The best parts of this movie are simply how well it was presented, so if the same story was told by a lesser animation studio or a less talented director, the whole thing would collapse.
Well... it did get adapted into Blood+, and while it isn't the triple-A movie quality we get here, it certainly manages to tell an actual story with actual characters and actual arcs. So there's that.
It also got adapted into Blood-C, but I haven't seen that yet, so I have no comment on it.
Final Verdict: [Pretty Good]