In 2000, Production IG went out on a limb and produced an anime original story about a vampire who fights and kills insane, frenetic, bloodthirsty beasts called Teropterids. Nearly invulnerable, impervious to bullets, crushing, and concussive forces, the Teropterids are a formidable foe that can only be killed by one means: the blood of a vampire. The story takes place on halloween, 1966, in a US Air Force base in Japan and the high school for the kids living there. What happens on this night is something they'll never forget... unless they're told to, that is.
The animation for this movie is near exceptional. Easily one of the better animations of the late 90s and early 00s, rivaling FLCL in quality- and as an original, did not benefit from the budgets that many contemporaries had. It has some of the best usage of 3D CGI Production IG's ever done, even better than in the Ghost in the Shell series, and the characters move with great fluidity and detail. Everything is very crisp and smooth, and the dark, subdued palette of blacks, grays, and red give it a sort of neo-noir feel.
What's even more fascinating about this incarnation of Blood is the audio.
This movie is unique in several ways- definitely a first out of many anime I've ever seen- in that it has dual audio. This movie was never originally fully in Japanese, nor an English dubbed original. It was something of an experiment to feature both Japanese and American characters who spoke their respective languages (and for a handful, both)- and an experiment that works to great success. The voice acting is handled very well, and it's not just Japanese VA phoning in some bad engrish, nor is it American VA taking a stab at Japanese phonology.
It's a true dual effort- with Japanese people voicing their language, and Americans doing theirs. As an anime watcher, I've long wanted to see a show where the voices were handled this way. It's utterly silly to think that an anime can take place in a country like Germany or England and every NON ethnic Japanese speak perfectly inflected Japanese. Blood: The Last Vampire takes a very sophisticated approach to this issue, and benefits greatly from it, while making it a rare and unusual example of the medium.
The story and characterization are sadly lacking in this, though. Where Blood+ had 50 episodes to build up characters and motives, in Blood: The Last Vampire, we're thrown immediately into the action. The movie is only 45 minutes long, but there's some real tension in the story, and some great action with the appropriate gore to match the crimson tone it sets for itself. At the same time, the motives and origins are muddled, and there's a distinct lack of a central antagonist. The characters themselves names' are recycled in Blood+, but this story has no bearing on either it, nor Blood C.
(The reader may be aware of the series Blood+ or Blood C- which are related, but this was the original version before the manga was written, which would then be adapted into the popular Blood+). It serves best as a standalone bloody action romp involving some familiar but different characters.
Blood: The Last Vampire has a lot to offer in a little package- excellent animation that's held up very well, a mindless but fun action plot, and some very unusual, but well executed, voice acting. For anyone that's seen Blood+ and wants a little more, one can't go wrong with this.
