Blood: The Last Vampire

So one day I am in the foreign film section of the only physical store I know that sells anime and found this on the shelve for a small amount of change which I had to spare.

I never really thought of watching anime that goes back earlier than 2005 unless its something others tell me I have to watch or must watch. I made this choosing on my own and got my moneys worth but I have some slight complaints maybe because I don't know much about the blood series itself.

The story in this film starts off good like a proper action film then the ... twenty minutes that follow are the setup for the main conflict in the film. The finally of it all was pretty good where we got some nice action scenes and a bit of tension as the demons where clearly dangerous. My problem with film was that I liked it and wished there was more in terms of length. The film was forty five minutes I wish it was sixty or seventy where a bit of backstory to the characters and an extra fight with another demon. Sadly did not get that but overall I did enjoy the film more then I thought I would.

[This review is spoiler free!] TL;DR: Blood: The Last Vampire feels almost like a promotional movie/OVA to the Blood+ series. It lays the groundwork and carries loads of potential to be something grand. I recommend this if you are familiar with the Blood+ series OR looking for a new series to completely binge.

Blood: The Last Vampire leaves a lot to be desired. In 45 minutes, the directors of this "movie" introduce a concept to us and leave it at there. The story is none-existent, character development is severely undercooked, and I watched the credits roll with more questions than answers.

However, Blood: The Last Vampire ... does a good job at setting up the character and world that we now know and love as Blood+.

This "movie" (or long anime episode imo) is not a stand-alone piece and should not be seen as one. Instead, it is more of a promotional movie to get the people hyped for Blood+. With the beautiful artwork that continues to stand the test of time (although it can be somewhat jarring at times_, good fight scenes and a lot of potential, B:tLV is definitely unique.

If you are unfamiliar with the Blood+ series, Blood: The Last Vampire may be a good introductory on what to expect. Blood: The Last Vampire is a skeleton of potential. Thankfully though, it is not the year 2000 and you may happily binge watch the entire series, which is most likely fair more enjoyable than waiting years to have it released. Now is the prime time to sit down and binge the entire series, and I would definitely recommend doing so.

If you like blood, and a cute Japanese girl with a katana slicing things up, you'll definitely enjoy Blood: The Last Vampire.

Another one I haven't watched in many years, but I was curious to revisit it after seeing Blood-C. Back in 2001, Manga Entertainment were hyping this up as their next big movie. It's certainly big in terms of production values. But a movie? It stretches that definition to the limit by being just over the 40 minute mark when the credits roll. OAVs of that length are nothing unusual, but this one noticeably strains at the seams of its runtime. Frankly, it's like walking in halfway through an 80s Hollywood B-movie. The dialogue in the opening scene feels ... like gibberish that's never explained, and there's a general lack of context throughout. Plot is minimal, and characterisation is non-existent.

It also suffers from being a bilingual production. The American characters have that awkward patter to their voices that suggests Production IG just grabbed some random gaijin off the street and shoved them in the recording booth, as is often the case for live-action Japanese movies. Saya and the school nurse (the fact she's never named, despite being the de facto main character, tells you how little they cared about the characters) are clearly Japanese VAs speaking English at times, and while their pronunciation is fine, they just can't act in English.

So what works? Well damn, this thing still looks good. As a tech demo and artistic showcase for Production IG's skills, it's first rate. The art, animation, and lighting are all astounding, and especially impressive when you consider what most digital anime looked like circa 2000. The music is atmospheric too. And...that's about it. The action scenes are well directed, but you may be disappointed at how grounded they are. Again, this feels like something that could have been shot as an 80s Hollywood B-movie. It aims for realistic weight rather than anything flashy, and is perhaps too reserved as a result. The 'fight' against the final monster is especially underwhelming in that regard. Lastly, this was an early DVD release from Manga, and it hasn't aged well. It has that aliased 360i look of an early Youtube video.

If the visuals were as mediocre as the rest of it, I'd give this a 5, but they are still truly spectacular, so that drags it up a notch.

Review:
Story/Plot: Narrative-wise, this short film doesn't go anywhere, and the plot is very miniscule as well. Instead of finishing off with a proper conclusion, it dwindles down and comes to a complete stop. This left me very confused at the end. What was up with that twist at the end? It ends up feeling largely unfinished. Nothing is really explained, thus we don't know what drives the characters to do what they do, like Saya, who just seems to be killing demons just because she can. Rather weak in this department.
Characters: It suffers from the same thing the story does: The duration of the film. ... We aren't given enough background information, or more information in general, about any of the characters. All of them are flat and one-dimensional, even Saya, who's the main character and the one we are given the most information about. This also means that there's no room for characters to develop or for the audience to care about the characters.
Visuals: Now we're getting into the real meat of this film! The art style is unique and stands out a lot amongst the average anime. It looks really damn nice! It utilizes rough lines as opposed to smooth ones, and combines them with other features, most notably the desaturated color palette and its low level of lighting. This creates some very pleasing shading, too. Not to mention the CGI in this film is mind-blowingly good. For something that came out in the 2000's, the CG holds up better than most anime today. The backgrounds and the movement of CG objects look fantastic! The animation, dear lord the animation! It's of exceptional quality, as expected from Production I.G! Tons of astonishing sakuga, very expressive character features, graciously smooth character movements and action sequences, and stupendous visual effects like the motion blur make this a true feast for the eyes! Definitely the highlight of this film!
Audio: The dubbing, to my surprise, was really damn good! English has never sounded this good in an anime's original audio! The sound effects, like the animation, are top-notch. The music is also a treat. Mmm, exquisite.

Overall: Blood: The Last Vampire is a film that although lacking in depth, is an anime that you definitely shouldn't miss out on. It along with other anime like FLCL, helped anime take a step forward in animation quality. Those looking for a short, action-packed, high production quality film that doesn't require deep thought will love this wonderful film; while those looking for something with more meat and less sweets probably won't enjoy it as much. 6.69/10, rounded to 7/10 for MAL score!

Blood is an interesting movie. Not a particular great one, but hey, it's not half bad. It has some problems, but it also has a lot of bright points. I don't usually structure my reviews on here, but for this I decided to, so here's a list of pros and cons.

PROS:
-Beautiful animation. Seriously, for a anime movie from 2001, the art in this is gorgeous. It was like candy for my eyeballs, really.

-The sound design and music are both excellent. Honestly, this could pass as an art film, it looks and sounds artsy enough and it's vague enough to appeal to people who ... like their movies to be a little out there. If this were to come out today, people would eat it up just like they are Isle of Dogs, I guarantee it.

-Really awesome fight scenes. Saya proved herself to be a really capable fighter in the hour or so that we got to know her, and I was glued whenever she was fighting a Chiropteran (which for those who havent seen the movie are what the vampiric monsters she fights are called)

-Really interesting choices in script. See, instead of writing/filming the whole script in Japanese, they wrote it in English and made the main character bilingual, and even worked it into the story. The basic premise is that Saya is a vampire hunter, and she's assigned to investigate some murders at a high school located at an American military base in Japan where the teachers and staff are Japanese and the students are all American. Saya's handler, David, is also American, is so is pretty much every character other than Saya and the school nurse. It makes for a very interesting movie, and it definitely stands out from a lot of other anime films I've seen.

CONS:
-Way too short. Seriously, it kinda just feels like a really long short film. As a result, we don't get any sort of character development or anything of the like, and it's mostly just fight scene after fight scene with exposition dumps here and there. And even then, we really dont know much about the backstory. This movie raises way more questions than it answers, and this was made way before sequel-baiting was a thing.

-The plot is extremely thin. Seriously, it feels kinda like a short film or some kind of proof of concept someone would make to convince an executive to greenlight a full movie or tv show. It doesn't drag or anything, but that's the problem-the pacing is way too fast in my opinion, and the movie feels like its ramping up to something that we never really get to see.

-It's a little too light on the horror elements. We get a brief scene of some MP officer getting dragged up into a tree and eaten by one of the monsters, but other than that the movie never really gets all that scary. The only other unsettling scene in the movie is when Saya kills one the monsters in the nurse's office before she can transform, and that's just because at first you don't really realize what's going on and it looks like Saya just butchered this sick girl who didnt do anything wrong. Don't get me wrong, I like that scene because it establishes the monsters as calculating and cunning and it makes for a good shock factor, but I wish they had gone all in with the horror. This would honestly make an awesome horror movie.

Do I reccomend this movie? Definitely. It's got some problems, sure, but there's nothing in it that I would consider godawful, and it had me pretty much hooked for the entirety of its extremely brief runtime. It's a shame they never made a sequel, I would've LOVED to see a second movie that explores Saya's past. (I'm aware there are two anime based on the movie, Blood+ and Blood-C, but those are both spinoffs that take place in alternate universe. They're both really good-particularly the first one-but neither one really seemed to enrapture me like the movie did. They also did a really crappy live action version of the movie around 2011 or so, and I DEFINITELY don't reccomend it. I don't reccomend ANY live action anime movie, actually. They all suck.)

Τhe blood franchise is either hated or loved by the anime community. And while some of it's titles are not so strong like the Blood C anime and it's movie that came after, ''Blood the Last vampire'' is probably the movie that even non fans of the franchise liked. The story is indeed interesting and because is the first entry of the series you don't need to watch any of the other anime of the series in order to watch this. It introduces you to Blood universe resembling more on Blood plus's though than Blood C's. The concept is the same a girl named ... Saya is fighting a non-friendly to humans species named chiroptera. The movie is mostly a fight between her and those creatures so you expect only to see action, action and action. Which is exactly what this anime gives. So don't expect any deep story but an awesome fighting anime. The only thing I didn't like was the ending which was kinda rushed and the length of the movie which was too short, not even one hour long. The art was simply flawless it reminds us why Production IG is considered one of the best animation studios in Japan. With it's dim drawings the anime gets you right into the dark world of Blood and with it's flawless animation it delivers amazing action scenes and fights. The sound section was remarkable. This anime is mostly voiced in English because some of the heroes are supposed to be Americans. And while the Japanese voice actors have a terrible history about terribly spoken English in this anime the results are wonderful. The voice actors are speaking English so fluently that initially I thought that I was watching the English dub of the anime. From the protagonists to the sideshows, either in English or Japanese language all of the voice actors were amazing. This proves how professionally this anime was made in all of its sections. About the characters I can't say much because due to the anime's short length the characters have no time for development and whatsoever. But you won't watch this anime for it's characters anyway (we have blood+ for that) but for it's awesome fights, so I don't believe any serious damage was done there. And also David from Blood+ one of my favorite characters in anime was playing a big role there so I believe this was a really good reason to give in the character section an 8. Summarizing, ''Blood the Last Vampire'' was a really well-made anime, with a rather interesting story and amazing fights. Due to its really short length it's watched really easily and I don't believe that you will have a bad time watching it.

Unknown to the world their are demons that prey on people.a mysterious girl who work for a US organization is responsible to slay them.she get an assignment to go to a US base because the body count has been pileing up .this is a descent anime nothing special.there are no great characters or great moments,which is not due to it being so short because i'v seen many 45 minutes anime that are great.firstly even though i watched the dub it still contained a mixture of english and japanese language between scenes,which although wasn't awful did prevent me from getting a full feel for some scenes.the ... characters are dull and unimpresive.the only thing worth while for this movie was the fairly good drawing of the monster design.needless to say there are better short anime movie out there {psycho diver,twilight of the dark master}.this is an anime just to pass the time.

Rate a 5
English dubbed (note: English dubbed version contains some Japanese audio. It is embedded into the story that is why.)

Story
Bland. Does not build on tension. Only found one or two scenes to have light scares. Action focused not as focused on character build.

Art
animation/art fine. The dark touch applied to the art works well with the light horror concept.

Sound: a small annoyance with language change out but once you understand the plot it has to be that way.
...
character: limited to all players. The only player that i felt had a good character profile is the witness. The witness mind you was a semi minor character.

Ending remark: Light based horror flick on vampires. Blood portrayal was not realistic which kind of destroyed the mood. Characters decisions made in the film were somewhat perplexing. If you don't care as much on plot and want a cheap thrill check it out.

It's not that I didn't like it,
It's that I didn't care about it.

I appreciated the animation (even thoght I didn't like the artstyle that much). It's all fine.
I just don't think I'll even remeber having watched this.

Maybe if I cared more about the characters.

Also, there's a lot of english voice acting in this movie, and it's not great, to say the least. It's not even "engrish", they sound like english speakers, but their voice performances are jus really not good.

At least it was short. I don't know wheter a longer runtime would have helped to flesh out the story and characters, but as it is, ... I'm fine with it being this short.

Despite not being a fan of the vampire-movies genre itself, I must admit this movie is an awesome work of art and a great instance rearding that genre. Apropos of the plot, Mamoru Oshii did a great work (good story in spite of being told in just 45 minutes), but the main strength of the film lays in its execution and direction.

-- [This may contain minor spoilers about the ending] --

About the plot, while pretty concise, the main idea behind it an the way it get developed according to the film's length is at least nice and ensures the idea that short doesn't mean incomplete ... or bad at all. There're of course a lot of questions and doubts that remain in the air, like how and when did all this stuff begin, why Saya has her own restrictions with respect to her nature, or what about the relationship between Saya and the US forces she is cooperating with; but in spite of those unanswered issues the film itself is capable to tell what is needed to be told and it shows it in an amazing visual way.
But those kind of "plotholes" are not plotholes at all indeed; they're just there in order to increase all the uncertainty and left the viewer imagination fill it as it happens with the nurse, which in a certain way is a ground wire in all this chaos whose point of view remains with the viewer til the very end.

And respecting to the audiovisual part of the work, this is just outstanding. There could be tons of details to praise about it but the only thing I'll mention is the huge visual quality of every frame and special effects and lighting. It must be considered that, despite being a not so long feature film, made in year 2000, it was not shot in film at all. It's the entire film drawn digitaly and it still has better quality, visual details, effects and camera movements than any animated movie made on these days.
Beyond that, the direction is superb, sublime. It's cinema. Nothing much different from one could expect for a Production IG feature film.

The main issue i found is the voice acting. While it's pretty well done in the japanese dialogues (at least it sounds as always), the english ones are mostly really poor. There're some great line interpretations from David's VA during the climax eventually, but others scenes really sounds cringey. Sharon for example, she sounds as her VA was an 8 yo girl while reading a fancy book in her literature class at primary school (something I usually feel every time I hear an english dub version of every anime, which is why I cannot see any dubbed anime, but here it is more than just exagereted), which really can break the seriousness and also the creepy atmoshpere developed along the movie. This occurs with most of english spoken lines unfortunately.

Anyways, as a whole this movie is an amazing piece of work. Could it be longer? Yes, and I'd really liked it be at least 15' longer, but for the plot and the stuff suppossed to must be shown it has a good length. Beyond it all it is a must-see if you desire to watch an action quick-paced horror film and high quality animation at it finest above all.

Vampires don't sparkle.

Alright, got that out of the way. Blood the Last Vampire is a subtle vampire story, if such things exist. No ancient Dracula, no Victorian fashion, in fact other than being one we learn nothing about Saya or how she gained this curse. Our only hint is the line, "She is the only remaining original."

Saya would have a greatly expanded backstory in later reboots but this classic keeps her mysterious. We know she is hunting people who are traditionally more monstrous vamps for the U.S. government. What agency is a guess, for what purpose ... is unknown. And the ending makes us wonder as to her intentions.

Well drawn and environmentally dark, just a school girl with a sword and the will to use it. Find this one while it's still out there, watch it again if you've got it.