Anime Week: Blood: The Last Vampire

Welcome back readers of mine for Day 2 of Anime Week.  As promised, I am sticking solely with animated films rather than anything that spawned a series, mini-series or continuation of any sorts.  That in mind, we look at a film based on the manga work of writer Benkyo Tamaoki (The Sex Philes, Tokyo Red Hood and Necromansque) whose work was intriguing enough for director/writer Mamoru Oshii (Urusei Yatsura, Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, The Animatrix and Assault Girls) a man of anime and live-action movies to push Tamaoki's creature into the medium of anime.  This is Blood: The Last Vampire.

I fight evil with my fishing rod!

David: You SPOILER! Don't ever piss her off again! As far as we know, she's the only remaining original!





Now some of you are probably a bit huffy and point out I have already done Blood: The Last Vampire from one of my many vampire weeks.  Well, simmer down and I would point out that the film previously was the live-action version directed by Ronny Yu (Bride of Chucky, Formula 51, Freddy vs. Jason and Fearless) and while the subject matter is the same, the story varies only slightly.   The year is 1966 in Japan.  A girl name of Saya that looks of all of sixteen takes the subway where she dispatches a man in a suit with a katana that she believes to be a bat creature known as chiropterans.  Because schoolgirls always carry a 300 time folded uchigatana blade in the event of pervs.  Her handler David arrives to deal with the mess and remove the body.  It is eluded to that they may be CIA but never confirmed out right so take a guess.
From Saya's predatory instincts and hunches she tells David that the chiropterans have most likely already evaded Yokota Air Base and with Vietnam on the rise, the airbase is already twitchy enough but they are way out of their depths with beings of this nature.  They will come out of hiding, feed and then sink back into the dark depths and Saya will never have another shot at them so she volunteers to go undercover as a schoolgirl to better patrol the base grounds.  Top that, Buffy.

Saya's just fitting in at school.

Running into the school nurse, Makiho Amano when two of Saya's fellow classmates Sharon and Linda complain about a headache.  Naturally Amano preps the ibuprofen when Saya bursts into the office slicing Linda in twine and wounding Sharon revealing they are chiropterans and of course freaking the ever-loving crap out of Amano.  Saya ends up snapping her sword in the process due to its constant wear and tear and must fight these beasties with a broken blade or whatever is available.  Trust me when I say I think a tire iron or poker from a fireplace would be deadly in this girl's hands is not an exaggeration.   Can Saya defeat these monsters before the SPs wake the bloody hell up or will Japan be shrouded in their eternal darkness for generations to come?

I just had a few fun facts about the film at this time.   Blood is the first completely digitally animated anime from Japan.  Due to a ridiculous time table and money not fully available this was supposed to be a 3 part story but instead got theater distribution instead as a full feature.  The interesting thing about this film is there is no English or Japanese version as at least 3 of the voice actor switch from Japanese to English depending on whom they are speaking to.  

This one manga spawned a series of light novels, a video game for the PSP, an animated series called Blood C to compliment our film of the day but that is another story and time.

Chiropterans secretly bomb Cambodia while maintaining plausible denability..