Blood-C: The Last Dark

Ah, Blood. To put it basically it was animes equivalent of Buffy the vampire slayer. Starting off from the fairly decent Blood: The Last Vampire movie and then moving on to the mediocre but well received Blood+ series. And then our dear old Clamp decided to try a hand at giving the blood series a new look. Enter Blood-c, a name which gave me a bad feeling from the get go. A series which suffered from abysmal storytelling, over-exaggerated gore which looked more comical than disturbing, characters with little likability and it says a lot when you can say that half the series can be ... skipped without anything significant being lost.

Now we have Blood-c The Last Dark, a title which still makes no sense even after having seen the film. So let me answer the first question you have. Is it better than the tv anime series? Honestly, yes it is. But considering the quality of the tv series that isn't really something hard to accomplish. Despite that it still remains a poor film. Starting with story. Much like the tv series, a large amount of the film feels like padding. We are treated to a familiar vampire fight on a train which in turn causes Saya to meet the members of a a group called "Surat" which happen to be teenagers.(Naturally) From this moment on the plot progression comes to a complete halt. For well over forty minutes we are shown mainly the overly out of place comical characters of Surat. But then plot kicks in gear again and remembers what it's supposed to be focusing on and we are treated to an action scene and really that's about it. This supposedly inspires one of the members of Surat to get their ass in gear and direct Saya to the end boss. (Which apparently is a building that nobody can find despite it being clearly viewable from the coast of the city.) From that point on all the characters of Surat are rendered completely worthless. They don't appear again except for the epilogue and they don't effect the plot in any way. The finale is rather disappointing and anti-climatic. I had hoped that the writer would have learned from the tv series that twists that come out of nowhere for shock value is not good storytelling. Apparently they didn't. It really says a lot when they take the time to create a giant monster which in turn is defeated in a single strike within moments. Overall a large amount of the story feels unnecessary and plot points such as the curfew placed on minors are dropped with little explanation or exploration.

I cannot say the art was bad. However I can say I was underwhelmed by it. If you were keeping an eye on anime news then you would know that this movie received a grant from the government so there was no reason they couldn't go all out with the animation. Still I didn't see anything truly impressive. Honestly the quality was similar to that our the currently ongoing psycho pass in my opinion. This is just speculation but either all that cash went into the characters exaggerated reactions and cg or it might be the reason Production I.G has seen a sudden increase of productivity with anime series.

Sounds is something I can't comment on as I didn't take much notice of it. Though if I had to derive an opinion based on my watch I would deem it forgettable.

Characters are something of an oddity. Saya has traded her annoying bubbly carefree personality from the tv series for a more stereotypical broody cold type. There really is not much to say about it. Our main antagonist is a jumbled mess. Mainly because he has little to no focus in the film at all. He appears briefly at the beginning, briefly at the middle and then at the end. So his motivations remain confusing and nonsensical. The rest of our characters is where the movie spends most of it's time with which to me is rather odd way of using your limited time. This is because of the pointlessness of these characters to the main story. The members of Surat hold no purpose in the story besides two instances of telling her "Go here to find Fumito" and justifying a silly twist at the end. In retrospect that time spent developing them could have been better used to develop our two main characters seeing as they are the ones effecting the actual story and most need fleshing out. Also I really need to point out again just how out of place these Surat members are. They act much like characters in a sitcom and clash greatly with the atmosphere of the story itself. You can't exactly show us Saya killing a monster brutally and expect us to brush that off and enjoy comic relief. On that note, a loli learning to type on a keyboard with her feet is the most ridiculous thing I have seen. I mean even someone who isn't that into computers can tell you that not many computers allow you to use two keyboards at the same time, also no computer lets you type into two windows simultaneously. So that really makes typing with your feet a pointless skill.

Really I feel sad for the blood series. If only a competent writer was hired then maybe something great or at least fairly enjoyable could have came out of Blood-C. But here I am watching an hour and forty minute film with a bored look on my face

IG and CLAMP definitely had the potential to turn this trainwreck of a series around for the better. The finished product? Nothing but bitter disappointment about how a great piece, Blood: The Last Vampire, could be turned into this.

The issues definitely begin in the characterisation. Nobody is interesting. There is no emotional attachment to any of the struggles they go through, and we 'care' because the movie tells us to. Fumito definitely had the potential to be a remotely decent villain, but even there we are let down.

The animation is mixed, but overall it is fairly negative. Much similar to the series Blood-C, the ... majority of art enjoyment comes from the monster design - and while a lot of what appeared is clearly rehashed from Blood+ and the entire Blood series (if you dare group them together), it is still the high point. For the remainder of the scenes, the animation is carefully guised to look pretty with that distinct I.G. style, but with some inspection the flaws are gaping. The CGI scene? Lets not go there.

The plot itself made no real sense. The concept was clear, but the whys and hows of it were significantly lacking. There is no resolution, or even understanding, of the events that transpire and why we should be interested in them. Watanuki appears simply as CLAMP fanservice, in a drawn-out sequence which was really unnecessary.

Blood-C has concluded to be a trainwreck of a project. With I.G. having input, one would have hoped for a return to the glory days of Blood: The Last Vampire. However the final project is nothing short of ridiculous, and while it is a definite improvement from the series it is still not cutting remotely close to average.

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This review was for the Blood – C: The Last Dark movie and had nothing to do with the TV series and not even trying to make a comparison between the two pieces, but I’ve recreated it as a sort of an introduction here before I actually dissect the overall film.
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STORY/PLOT AND CHARACTERS
A continuation from its mother anime TV series Blood - C, an extensive creative collaboration between the all female manga artists group CLAMP and from the studios that run its power down to the core of merging CG(computer graphics) and cel animation in the most flawless way possible, Production IG. Here comes ... the conclusive chapter which is presented in this feature film Blood: The Last Dark, following its trail down to the overly hailed as Japan’s first fully digitally animated film Blood: The Last Vampire and as one of IGs flagship titles over the years.
Following the under explained incidents and horrifying events from the experimental environment that was set on Ukishima Province. Saya now comes to Tokyo to hunt down her prey under the name of Nanahara Fumito, a person armed with too much political and economic intervention capable of setting laws that take juveniles in following time curfews and making the use of internet somehow censored and being regulated. Behind him, was the secret organization named “TOWER” which engages inhumane experimentation that involves certain undistinguished life forms, known as “The Old Ones”. Under the dystopian Tokyo, resistances were born, taking on the lead is the group called “SIRRUT” whose intention was to throw Fumito out of the picture teaming up with a girl who wears a black sailor uniform with a Japanese sword in her grasp.
As the first eight minutes of the film being stream on the internet one week before the official screening in Japan, I would honestly say that it urges me to fly to the “Nation where the Cherry Blossoms bloom at its Fullest” in no time, better that I haven’t done such thing or I’ll regret it. Those eight minutes that serve as a prologue somehow, was really good. Having nice angle shots on the opening action scenes, over the top animation quality with some innovative technology on the side which makes us anticipate that something unexpected might happen on the screen on the next few scenes. But just after the movie’s logo is being shown the whole show just drop and continue to descend to the bottom of nowhere.
As the show was regressing the same thing also happens to its plot. Imagine a ball being release from a certain height from the ground; you can observe that the ball bounces up and down but it will never reach or return on its original position/height because of certain rules that regards gravity or any other forces affecting it. Okay, enough physics lessons for today. I just want to put emphasis that as we delve in deeper into its plot, as more characters are being introduce coupled with their past, the more holes are opening up. Not just plot holes but also includes characters’ personality defect or something you may tied up as flaws. Starting from the main protagonist down to the least supporting cast, they seem unnatural and don’t contribute to make a big development to push the story over certain boundaries. These also include some plot twists but those twists are very uninteresting or maybe I should say unnecessary, in a way that evidences of them are explicitly shown that you could simply infer what will happen next. The”Yuri Flavor” in the plotline was also a thing that was not worth including since they eat up some screen time to just add a pointless romance that even Yuri fans wouldn’t bother to buy a copy of it. You could also see some scenes being parallel on the original “Last Vampire Material” and some crossover universe theme from CLAMP’s previous work (you could see some Watanuki appearances on the trailers) which is an absolute a kind of fan service to boost some numbers of sales. Maybe the only good word that I could say is “CONSISTENCY”, but I don’t think this consistency (thing) was really good or not. Good because they stick to the original storyline, bad because they were attached on the worst anime prologue ever produced.
I don’t see any problems if it falls under the supernatural genre (mostly the BLOOD franchise was under sci-fi genre in some ways) if it was executed in a good way possible. But, this has been my problem since in the TV series, why hire CLAMP for such job, since their specialty lies on fantasy and not in supernatural things? Yes, XXXholic may find its way under that genre but I think that wasn’t the best in the field. I’m fine with making them take character design credits but leaving the script to them(though under some supervision from the original creators) is somehow amazingly ridiculous since the famous BLOOD Franchise was one of IG’s biggest contributions on the previous decade and on the industry in which we are in now. But, before the ending credits roll I could speculate that maybe in the near future another reincarnation of this franchise may appear, but I do hope they would hire the genius Gen Urobuchi to weave that plot because I do believe that he have the talent to make a good storyline that starred heroines (Madoka and Saber for example) combined with a dark beautifully twisted flawless plot.
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ART AND ANIMATION
Visuals were undertaken by Section 5 or simply Studio 5 of Production IG (This section’s works include XXXholic shows and movie, Sky Crawlers, Ghost Hound and PSYCHO – PASS). The extensive use of CG that provides the background was really evident. With IG’s latest innovation on CG that includes overly shining cars with their reflective coating, trains that travels like bullets, soaring chaser helicopters to add with and those beautifully random snowflakes descending (a perfect setting for the winter season of this movie). Towering night skyscrapers as a depiction of the city was in terms of nearing perfection on the aspect of technology. Flawless animation on intense action scenes as Saya tumbles, jumps, thrown and cut those monsters’ limbs while that crimson thick blood erupts from all over the screen. Overall lighting was commendable despite that this movie tackles about a dark concept, not a single scene was obscure by darkness that you would make you blind for a second instead they are well lit and lighted as properly as they seem. Obviously, CLAMP made new character (and monster?) designs, aesthetically well but they just ordinarily treated as CLAMP’s trademark and nothing visually new to report.
Despite of those credits on the previous paragraph, flaws still make their way to ascend in order attract my attention. These little(or big) bothering mistakes include almost deformed (or maybe ugly formless) close-up shots that are clearly or evidently made by amateur animators in which you can coupled it with lacking of some kind of quality control on the overall piece. Not drawing a line between the use of 2D and 3D graphics that made those climactic scenes suffer a lot which can also be attributed to the issue stated before. It’s kind of a little sad to say that IG (or maybe the main and only foundation of this movie) had these kind of errors compared to the fact they are the frontrunner in the terms of overwhelming advance technology on animation and having best people on their side. Still, this movie had art as its main strength and incomparable in terms of its advancement compared those lousy movie animation studios out there.
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SOUND AND VOICE ACTING
The pieces of music sound like a techno – tribal theme with some primitive instruments to add with which made those action scenes pulsating and alive. No problem on the proper application of musical scores and sound effects but they are not that powerful enough to set emotional attachments to certain scenes that are screaming for its necessity. The ending theme song “METRO BAROQUE” which is written and perform by Mizuki Nana have this nice mixture of jazz and blues coupled with Nana’s fantastically tuned interpretation.
On the voicing part, Mizuki Nana (voices Hyuuga Hinata from Naruto series and Alois Trancy from Black Butler 2) really deserves an award for her performance as Saya. Through her over the top voice acting skills she was able to recreate and mold the cold blooded femme fatale while adding those little sounds of pain as those monsters punctured her flesh, up to her extremely loud angry screams as her temper spills. She was able to give me some motivation to watch the entire film just to hear her voice (surprisingly that the main foundation of this movie was somehow diverted to auditory sense rather than the visual presentation that it offers). On the supporting roles Yuki Kaji (does he deserve to be the Best Actor in the 2013 Seiyuu Awards?) and Yuuichi Nakamura (character voice of Tsutugami Gai and Gray Fullbuster in Fairy Tail series) was able play their respective characters quite well. But, the biggest downside on the cast was Ai Kayano (voices Yuzuriha Inori from Guilty Crown and Mayaka Ibara from Hyouka), I know she wants to create diversity on her voice acting roles but her performance here was far more than worst, this is evident because she had the most number of lines on the entire cast. As she pull her act to scream which made her like a pig being wrestled because she will be slaughtered in her next few breaths, as for her normal speaking voice just “please cover your ears, “is the only advice that I could give, making her character overly dull, bland (or any word you can think that is synonymous to boring) which dragged her fellow voice actors especially Nana’s performance which carries the whole show.
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OVERALL PRESENTATION

“NOT BAD.”
This line is fairly generic in any comments, critiques and even reviews. So, I wonder why people always type this clichéd expression while in the back of their minds they are actually saying this, “It’s really bad but I want to sugarcoat things in order not to be hated or banned from this community.”(Now you know, when some random person will make such comment, he is meant to say that your work is bad.) Okay, enough psychology lessons for today, let’s be straightforward and say that this show is “NOT GOOD”. No sugarcoating and not even close to a clichéd. Not a good start and finishes it in a bad end. The main visual foundation was technologically advanced but not quality wise. Bad main and supporting characters with no good developments, in short A BAD SHOW, watch this if you’re tired of those good shows or you just want some disappointment. Not even recommended to be viewed even if you’re unsatisfied on the ending of the TV series. Maybe it could be recommended to some people who are curios to find out if my review was really true or not. (AHHHH! A lot of redundant words from this paragraph and even from the whole review which are so annoying. So let’s just end it here before I could commit more sins because redundancy, but here are the breakdown of the stats if you’re interested.)
Story: 1
Characters: 1
Art: 7
Animation: 5
Voice: 7
Music: 6
PROS:
+Mizuki Nana’s voice
CONS:
-Everything seems that they have defects except for Nana’s voice acting.
-I fairly accept that even this review should be place here. (I’m not being humble or hypocrite but just being defensive.)

I started watching this after finishing the, frankly, train wreck of a series Blood c that came before it. So I didn't really have very high expectations, that being said while the movie itself is a continuation of the series. I actually 'liked' the movie more than I did the series.

Honestly, the movie only received such a high score on my personal list because I enjoyed the animation and have a great deal of respect for Clamp.

The story left a lot to be desired. I'm all for a few ambiguous pieces of story, but the whole thing is a hot mess of unanswered questions. There is little connection to character, even if you watched the anime events that preceded this movie you find yourself completely disconnected from the protagonist when you should be right there with her wanting revenge. The other characters are borderline throw away despite clearly having backstories of their own. For ... those watching just for the action there are a few fight scenes, but they may not be worth the amount of sitting and talking that occurs.

Overall, very unsatisfying, and probably wouldn't recommend to anyone to watch.

Blood C is a good anime. Nevertheless, this movie, sequel of the anime, is not good at all.

In fact, the story of the movie is good, and well continue the anime (even it isn't as much worked as the anime's story). But the fight are really less animated than the anime, the secondary characters are totally secondary, the gore effects are failed compare to the anime.

However, this movie don't let you "wanted more". The studio just hasn't the money to create a whole second season, that's why you just feel that the job has been rushed : 12 episodes compressed in one movie.

The movie could ... be good (if it was a whole season) BUT, it's a fact and it's sad, he isn't.
If you watched the anime, I recommand you to watch the movie, even if he's bad. You'll at first not stay on "wanted more", and at second you'll have an idea of what the anime would be able to become.

A truly masterful simple story with a magical passion that drags the audience in both out of sympathy, and excitement for the main character through the anime alone, and yet the movie forced itself on that. The movie wrapped up the main story, tying all loose ends with a forced, cliche plot. Cliche wouldn't necessarily mean poorly done, but it was in bad taste with especially the ending. The budget that flew into this was phenomenal, even appraisal worthy of how beautiful the art direction led, outside of a lot of its cgi moments that stood out, and yet its a shame everything felt rushed, ... and almost just out of passion that the original anime had alone. Overall, cliche themes, weeby bait, and most of all, a flat story had me feeling disappointed for the most part watching this movie. I personally feel as if the main story could've been ended better instead of what seemed to be a harsh cash grab.

*spoiler warning*

So..this ended really wtf. It made no sense. I was thinking maybe it's just because I haven't watched blood-c in about a year? I still remember for the most part what happened in the series, but I'm totally lost. All that only for Fumito to basically just kill himself? I can see they were kind of going for a deeper meaning complex type of ending, but I just didn't really find the ending all that meaningful.

Now what's funny here is I first watched BTLV without knowing it was related to blood+ or blood-c. I didn't find this out until watching blood-c so I ... pretty much went backwards. Now my new question at this point is what happens after BTLV? I may as well watch blood+ now.

I only watched it out of spite of haven watched the actual show a while ago and was horribly disappointed with this movie. I must have paused it at least 4 times to go and do something else and pressed play hoping something out of the blue would happen, but, unfortunately it didn't. Really predictable outcome and very difficult to watch because nothing exceptional happened. Some of the characters have specific personalities that suit them well and are well executed in sound and feel, others, such as the main character, remain more or less mysterious, unless you have watched the series.

I think the voice ... actors did a great job and so did the artists and crew who worked on the project, however the story line needed more depth and dimension.

Aside from that, sorry for the bad review folks, I rarely ever give bad ones, but this...