Blood: The Last Vampire

This movie feels rushed at the end. On my DVD, I thought maybe something was wrong. Maybe it skipped a few scenes? But nope. The movie finishes on a note, like most anime's do, which leaves you hanging. But this leaves you hanging, really hanging, saying.... OK, so what is the point of this movie??

This movie had some awesome scenes, great animation, and lots of potential. I loved the vampires, I loved the girl main character (although the tough girl thing is overdone in anime). But it lacked a theme, feel, and.... well.... ending. Too bad, could've been spectacular.

This movie is wonderful. Even though it is short, it didn't really need anything else. Mamarou Oshii and his team did a wonderful job at simplifying a potentially aspiring story into great characters and great animation. At first i wondered why the film was so short but the more i thought about it the more it made sense. The film didn't really need any extra story to it. It fits nicely into the package it comes in. They paced it so well that it didn't seem like it needed anything more. The animation was very good as well, Oshii really knows how to use his animation to relate to people. His characters look like normal people, they (for the most part) act like normal people and they have a great deal of time and emotion put into them. His characters were also developed well. Some argue that there was not enough background story in the film but there really didn't need to be. It seems that, Oshii likes to put mystery around his characters. He doesn't give you every little bit of information on them he lets you wonder and examine them so that you can draw your own conclusions about who they are. I highly recommend this movie.

When I picked up the DVD, it said on the back 80 minutes, so that's what I expected. Instead, I ended up with a 45 minute film. The other 35 minutes has been reserved for the "Making Of" and the trailer (Actually, the "Making Of" was only 20 minutes. Where did the other 10+ minutes go?). That said, "Blood: The Last Vampire" is very much like a roller coaster: Very fast, a lot of fun, but over before you know it.

The first three minutes drew me into the whole story very quickly. It has an impressive beginning, a moderately slow-paced lead up, but once the action starts, it becomes very, very cool. I guess that's why after the last battle, I was expecting more, and when it started rolling credits a few minutes after "officially" revealing Saya's history, I was expecting this new (but obvious) information to start adding into the story and her character. In the age of 2-3 hour epics, the abruptness caught me off guard.

But enough harping about the short film aspect. This is an enjoyable film to watch for its pacing, visuals and sound. The music was very dark and atmospheric, and I thought the voice acting for Saya was good. The CG in the film leads to some very cool effects, but as strange as this sounds, some of its realism (especially with the plane scenes) offsets the animated look. It was an unusual combination of "CG realism" and animation.

All in all, "Blood: The Last Vampire" is worth a watch. It has a lot of really good things going for it, and I'll definitely show it off to friends. Recommended

What can I say, but I really loved this anime film. All 48 fricking minutes of its short, well made, coolness. The story of what I was able to peace together, involves Saiya some sort of immortal vampire hunter who might just be a vampire herself, even though thats left to the audiences imagination since the bulk of the story involves suspense with well done action sequences. At the start of the film shes sent off by her boss and his cronie to American Air Force base where there seems to be an infiltration from three confirmed vampires. She then sets off to exterminate them while trying to save a school nurse who seems to be the target of the vampires attention. What follows is then is one long sequence that makes up the rest of the film as Saiya and her boss battle the three vampires while trying to save the life of the nurse. Then its over. Just like that. No resolution to little plot details, like the origins of Saiya, or how she came to work for the orginization that she works for. You never really understand the point of the vampires beyond the fact that they're the villians and they bite peoples necks to kill them. Or for that matter why Saiya acts the way she does at the end of the film. Looking back at what I liked about this film, I think I would have to rank this as another digitally animated film from this year, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Unlike that film though, which left the intrigued viewer wanting more from the story. This film just leaves you wanting more story period. The direction, the animation are all top notch high grade stuff. Its just at the end, you leave yourself feeling as this has been nothing more than a well made tech demo. Well I hope its not, since I'm praying for a longer sequel to be made soon.

Blood is a great anime and it is great to see digital animation. The story is good aswell as the charcters but it is definitely too short and it ends just when you get into it. I also like the fact that it mixes english and japenese. I definitely recommend this to anyone and especially anime fans who haven't seen it.