Blood - The Last Vampire

Rating:
Summary: It's the biggest lie you can watch
Review: The reason why this movie got to be quite popular in the U.S. is mainly because of its extreme marketing and promotion. This movie won some kind of award in animation for its new 3d animation technique and that seemed to be their "argument to be the best next movie to come out", the so called awesome technique is some kind of use of 3d+anime graphics on backgrounds, a technique i've seen already in some videogames.
The characters are 3d drawn in a realistic style which gives them a different appeal but reduces the personality and action movements characteristic of anime.
The main character, a vampire hunter is some kind of serious, agresive and annoying girl which is not the kind of hero you'd like to watch.
truely the action scenes and the plot is nothing more than crap, in fact it doesn't explain a...about what is going on with the movie, is like one of those x-files chapters that you find a little interesting but nothing special. ít's only 48 minutes long, i guess this movie was some kind of experiment they decided to sell.

If you want to see a real vampire hunter anime movie, go get vampire hunter d:bloodlust, it also has some new 3d effects that are amazing and the characters are perfectly styled,and its full of action, that movie is truly a new clasic, just like the first vampire hunter d movie.

Rating:
Summary: Nice movie.... Severely overpriced movie....
Review: I won this DVD in a sweepstakes and it was a nice view. The digital animations, which is not CGI but drawings scanned into computers, gives it a really, REALLY cool effect to all the animation. The main character a little girl named Saya has become one of my more favorite characters in anime already. She's as mean a "good guy" as I have ever seen in any film. I think this film borrows a lot from american live action, the opening sequence reminded me a lot of Se7en, other parts made me think of Pumpkinhead and Alien. This film is pretty short coming in at just over 46 minutes. This is a SHORT FILM and that's why it is _short_ but I felt it was quite enjoyable.

As for the DVD, not much to it, typical anime DVD; a couple featurettes, a "The Making Of" feature, and of course like all other DVDs, a ton of propaganda by the releasing company about other movies that they have released.

All in all I can't say I would have payed the amount of money it's listed for but I do find this to be a very entertaining movie.

Rating:
Summary: This movie eats monkey wang.
Review: Don't bother with this [terrible] movie. I don't know why it got so many good reviews. Seriously, this movie was the biggest waste of time in my life. Thank god it was ONLY 45 MINUTES LONG!!!!!

Now, as much as I'd like to just blurt out profanities in an effort to convince you how badly this movie [was bad], I understand that will just make this look like a less serious review than it actually is. So I shall refrain. OK, first off they seem so proud of themselves for using so much computer 3D graphics - too bad it all came out looking cheesy at best. In one scene that was supposed to show a school dance, all of the students looked like freaking puppets. Also, the (nearly nonexistant) plot was the most worthless peice of recycled crap that I've ever subjected my brain to. At about 35 minutes into the movie I was thinking "the graphics are a little funky, but if they keep developing the characters and the plot, this could be an OK movie." Ten minutes later the credits appeared. Please, do not buy/rent/steal this movie. Ever.

Rating:
Summary: a wonderous anime short film.
Review: I was suprised by the freshness and overall quality of this film. It has a certain tension that keeps your interest and captures your imagination. The demon fight scenes were some of the most dramatic and intense I've yet to see in an anime. The CG animation and angles were all well thought out and descriptive and put you in the action. The english dubbing was average and the ending was great. This is a wonderful short film and even those not into anime will be sure to enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME but...
Review: When I first saw this movie, I was both blown away and annoyed. The movie is stunning! The visuals are very good so is the music. But the movie is just too short. When it ends, it feels like it has only just begun. Because it is so short, there is very little character development so you never really get to know the main character that well. Because of its length, I reccommend Blood as a rental rather than a purchase.

Rating:
Summary: Top notch animation in an excellent DVD, but....
Review: Ok, right. Are you into Japanese Animation (aka Anime)? Well, then..you can't miss Blood - the Last Vampire! This is by far the best animation short film I have ever seen (I AM JUST TALKING ABOUT ANIMATION HERE). The quality of the drawings and the colours are superb! Full digital animation shows its potential: it perfectly blends CGI and manual artwork as you have never seen before. The DVD luckily lives up to the expectations and supports the great artistic content in an amazing way: the video quality is stunning (no digital artifacts, sorry!)and the audio will make you jump off your seats! As regards the extra materials well, this is not Episode I but the long making of documentary is nevertheless interesting.
If you want me to talk about the story, I have to admit that just in 47 minutes you can't have time to develop a complex plot or portrait deep carachters...the overall judgement is positive but it looks more like a showcase of the potential of animation rather than a movie wich can stand on its own for a rivetting and intriguing plot. I repeat: if we talk about animation you got to have Blood and if you are hoping for a good DVD edition well here it is! But the story itself is not as good as the technical references (due to the short lenght of the movie)so think twice before buying it if you are not an animation fan.

Rating:
Summary: A new kind of Anime with a new kind of story.
Review: From the makers of GHOST IN THE SHELL comes a new kind of anime movie. Based on the novel "Kemonotachi no Yoru" (NIGHT OF THE MONSTERS) by Mamoru Oshii (director of GHOST IN THE SHELL), the story is a lot like the U.S.'s BLADE (1998), with a human vampire fighting evil vampires, etc, etc, but set in a 1960's Yokota Japan, American military complex. The main "good guys" are these 3 secret agents, one of them is SAYA, a vampire killer who is not human or vampire (making her mysterious). she looks like she is 16 years old, but is said to bee 100 in the book. The other characters are agents David and Luis, the school nurse, and these things called Chirpterans that look like bats. so if you wath a good anime then get blood.

2000. Manga. 82 MINS.

Unrated. Contains Violence/gore and brief language.

Rating:
Summary: Vampire kid joins secret cop squad
Review: A little artsy for my taste, but plenty of action, gore, and splatter. Some scenes are so realistic you'd swear it was film, not Anime'. The plot was original, setting just the right amount of strange, and baddies you want to see get squashed. A definite buy for Anime' or Vampire fans.

Rating:
Summary: Good, But Not Great
Review: What struck me most about this film when I was watching it was how much better it _could_ have been. I found myself just enjoying the animation and the horror aspect of it, but disliking the lack of back-story and in-depth characterization. In short, this anime looks amazing at times, but it's rather shallow. It seems like the people who made this were more interested in making a good-looking anime rather than a well-written anime. For instance, most of the time the characters remain silent and do battle against each other. You'll find yourself wanting to know _why_ they're doing this, but they never tell you. Why is Saya fighting them? How did she get involved with this? What are her feelings about doing this? Just who are they? Since hardly any of the characters reveals his or her emotions about certain things, they'll start to resemble nothing more than cardboard cutout, static characters. They're only there to move the story along. This anime has too many questions and not enough answers.

Another negative point is the ending. I felt like they were trying to put some vague concept behind it... Something about war? What does vampires vs. demons have anything to do with the battles between men? It feels like the ending just got tacked on to make it seem like it's "deep" although it's actually not. You can't have a deep movie without knowing the characters, which we don't. It just doesn't work.

It's sad... If the makers of this anime would have just added, say, 20 more minutes and put in some back-story, characterization, anything that would have shown what made the characters tick, this film would be excellent instead of just merely good. Don't get me wrong, though, this is still an incredibly enjoyable film for anime and horror buffs. Like I said, the animation is incredible at certain times, and the demons look excellent. The way demons should look. The classic horror element is there too... Frightening monsters popping up out of nowhere to disembowel a hopeless victim. At the current price I can easily see buying this to add to your anime/horror movie collection. It's just that if you're looking for a well-done story, you're not going to find it here. If you're looking for eye candy and something to watch come Halloween, then by all means buy this.

Now, about the DVD extras: Like the amazon.com reviewer above said, the included making-of documentary just rambles on, and on... Why do we need a 20-minute documentary for a 45-minute short film? About halfway through the documentary, I started thinking to myself: "All right, I get it... They used COMPUTERS. Sheesh." That's the gist of the entire documentary. They used computers to animate the backgrounds. Big yawn. So, basically, the documentary isn't exciting... It's like a one time viewing thing. Although they do show the teaser trailer they did, which includes scenes that I guess were later cut... So that's pretty cool. The only other extras on the DVD is the official trailer, a rather short (why does everything have to be short except for the documentary?) image gallery, and a couple anime previews... Yawn. Nothing spectacular here.

Here's the quickie rundown:

Pros:

- Extremely well done animation in certain places.
- Very well done action scenes.
- It's a basically good horror flick.

Cons:

- Almost no back-story.
- Almost no characterization.
- Too short. They should have added at least another 20 minutes to flesh it out some more.
- The documentary doesn't have any major replay value, as with the other extras on the DVD.
- The ending just doesn't work in my opinion.

Overall:

Even with all the shortcomings, "Blood: The Last Vampire" is certainly worth buying. I just feel that's it's too shallow, but it's eye candy... Eye candy is fun. Hey, I like it. This anime is good, but not great. 3/5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: OVER RATED!
Review: My problems with this movie are(a. it's too short (b. there isn't any character development or much story(c.it's not as visually amazing as I'd heard. The environments and fight scenes are gorgeous and the character design is great but there are occasional flaws in the facial expressions of the characters and to an artistic eye it's evident,i would not reccomend paying full price,as a matter of fact just rent it or borrow it from a friend/family member you know who has it.);