Blade

Story's set in Asia


My lack of knowledge in Marvel universe is little to nothing, aside from the mainstream live-action movies that's been made, I don't know anything else. And then I stumbled into western comics made into anime. It piqued my interest to the fullest. I didn't had the chance to watch Wesley Snipes when the live-action was made(I was too young for it; I'll watch it in the near future). So I decided to watch the animation to know a little about Blade's history. I'm not sure if it's as accurate as the comics that were published. But some parts were right, googled a ... thing or two about it.



Story - 7
Being that Blade is originally western, of course the animation will be western-esque. But it's really fun seeing Blade use Ruroni Kenshin's techniques(jk, obviously). In this animation, Blade's fighting an organization called Existence, led by Deacon Frost. An organization chuck full of vampire hybrids. He stumbles with a hot chick named Makoto, who's a vampire hunter, too. She was traveling with his father and got caught up in an event which turned his father into 'one of them'. Eric Brooks, also known as Blade, who has no choice ended Makoto's father's life. Angered by Blade's actions, Makoto tries to avenge his father's death by ending Blade's life. But of course, we all know they'd end up as partners, and yes they did. They team up against Deacon Frost's vampire-hybrids in Asia. They even get to team up with the most popular mutant ever... * drumrolls * Wolverine! Yep, a sexy, Japanese-speaking Wolverine(comes with his usual crazy overgrown sideburns). Too bad its just for one episode, but, meh, who cares? It's effin' Logan! Back to the story, it's a bit different from the comics you've read about Blade. Which I find refreshing.


Art : 8
Great art. Like I've mentioned before, the animation's pretty western-esque. Details on the fight scenes were awesome.



Characters : 7
The addition of Makoto and other characters blended well with Blade. Wolverine's cameo, Kikyo(regenerative Kenshin Himura, lol). And the hybrid vampires are cool, too.


Music : 5
Not much to mention in music. Opening and ending themes were just instrumentals, still cool, though.


Enjoyment : 7
Probably enjoyed it less than what I was hoping for. Still, it was still entertaining. It's a pretty decent show. But I think hardcore Marvel fans won't go gaga over the show. Well, as far as I know, Blade's not that mainstream unlike Wolverine or the Avengers, so nobody would mind even if the animation's not that 'great'.


Overall : 7
7 is the perfect score Blade can get from me. It's not that good, yet it's not bad. The series is entertaining. Good rivals, decent storyboard, decent progressing of the story, and one epic twist. I could say that Blade is a good watch, not if you're a hardcore comic Marvel fan. The show's kinda R-13, so don't expect some gory shites out of it. With this, I end my review, have fun watching Blade slash some vamps!

(I try to keep my reviews short and sweet and straight to the point without giving away spoilers with that said lets get this show on the road)

Marvel dipping their hand in the anime field. This anime is mediocre with no real jaw dropping moments. We all no the Blade story he hunts vampires end of story. I feel like they should have added a little more extremeness to make more then someone just slashing a sword a vampires for their own personal reason.

1. Blood Shed their is a lot of blood to go around for every.
2. Action a good amount of fighting (gotta ... work out some how right)
3. No Romance (who got time for love when their vamps taking over the world)
4. Predictable (um some what)
5. Supernatural yes vampires duh and different kind of species to who new.



Overall 15+ should watch this anime. Not really a main anime to spend a whole lot of time. BASICS OF THE BASICS

Blade was the fourth Marvel attempt to get a piece of the anime fans into the MCU and once again it wasted its money on a lame adaptation. The OST is by far the best thing in it; those rock pieces are nice to listen to lots of times. The rest of it are terrible. Just 3 minutes into the show you are greeted with dumb cannon fodder vampires attacking innocent civilians and getting vaporized by the hero. They don’t even fight in an interesting way; they are just brainlessly attacking with claws and get owned in less than a second because Blade moves faster ... than light or something (lol at the after image he leaves as bait; what is this, early Dragonball episodes?).

What is even worse is their dying animation. They don’t burn and turn to ash with a few bones remaining to fizzle away in the wind. It’s how it was done in the live action trilogy and From Dusk Till Dawn and why it was so cool to look at. Here they just go poof and disappear like it’s a Digimon being defeated.

What is even worse than even that is how they look. In an attempt to flavor their appearances, they have all sorts of weird hybrid combinations. Just imagine a vampire catfishman who uses vampire cats and water as hindrance. Weird? How about vampire chicken? Vampire imps? Vampire ninjas? This is plain ridiculous, especially when it is pointless. No matter how they look, they are equally weak and use the exact same dumb technique of “running towards the opponent with no plan at all”. Shouldn’t a story full of dark areas and vampires be scary or unsettling? Well this one here isn’t in the slightest. How can you be afraid with such piss poor weak adversaries? They look stupid too.

There are also human collaborators of the vampires, called familiars. Not only they are even easier to beat than vampires yet they have the nerve to attack Blade in hopes of defeating him with simple clubs. They are also idiots enough to have tattoos on their wrists showing the vampire insignia of the guy they are working for. Amazing secrecy people, do you have the map to his lair drawn on your ass too?

And then there is the Big Bad of the show, whose actions make no sense. He is clearly ten times stronger than Blade, constantly defeats him easily and then lets him escape, despite the more than obvious fact that he needs his blood to complete an experiment. Instead of capturing him single-handedly, he keeps sending his troops to be massacred by Blade and then walks away when he has him cornered. Yeah, that makes sense. It’s called the “We can’t have a showdown before the last episode” strategy.

There is zero investment in the action, in what is supposed to be an action show. The animators are using random slashes and gunshots, most of which are done with still frames and a cheap fire effect covering the monsters. And all vampires are defeated in less than a second with a simple punch or kick before they are set on fire; as if they are made of paper. They are not even shown suffering before they die. Hell, they are not even shown being damaged much before dying. Hell, there isn’t even ash remaining as proof a battle took place there. Furthermore only vampires are killed in this show, while normal people always survive or just fall unconscious. This is of course done because the show is aimed at children and thus can’t be too brutal. And for some reason vampires don’t count as people who turned into monsters, but as Digimon, so it’s ok to kill them. Hypocrisy, anyone?

As for the story? Aside from Blade chasing after the Big Bad it is practically random travels around the world, fighting mooks and listening to the overblown dramatic tales of unimportant people you will never see outside the episode they appear in. So practically THERE IS NO PLOT AND STORY THAT EXCEEDS TWO LINES OF TEXT.

TL;DR: It was a subpar work like all Marvel derived anime, and thank goodness it was the last one.