Blood: The Last Vampire
Blood: The Last Vampire | |
Genre | Action, horror[1] |
---|---|
Anime film | |
Directed by | Hiroyuki Kitakubo |
Produced by | Ryuji Mitsumoto Yukio Nagasaki |
Written by | Kenji Kamiyama |
Music by | Yoshihiro Ike |
Studio | Production I.G |
Licensed by | |
Released |
|
Runtime | 45 minutes |
Manga | |
Blood the Last Vampire 2002 | |
Written by | Benkyo Tamaoki |
Published by | Kadokawa Shoten |
English publisher | |
Magazine | Monthly Ace Next |
Demographic | Shōnen |
Published | April 2001 |
Light novel | |
Night of the Beasts | |
Written by | Dark Horse Press |
Published | November 2000 |
Light novel | |
The Blood Which Invites the Darkness | |
Written by | Junichi Fujisaku |
Published by | Kadokawa |
Published | January 2001 |
Light novel | |
A Tragic Dream in Shanghai | |
Written by | Junichi Fujisaku |
Published by | Kadokawa |
Published | December 2005 |
Game | |
Sony Computer Entertainment Japan | |
Genre | Horror, Adventure |
Platform | PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable |
Released | December 21, 2000 January 26, 2006 (PSP) |
Related | |
|
Blood: The Last Vampire is a 2000 Japanese animated action horror film directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo, written by Kenji Kamiyama and produced by Production I.G. The film premiered in theaters in Japan on November 18, 2000.
A single-volume
Plot
The story is set in 1966. Its main protagonist is a girl named Saya, who hunts
Saya's next mission begins at the American Yokota Air Base, which is active in the buildup to the Vietnam War. At least one Chiropteran has managed to infiltrate the air base, and it is only a matter of time before they feed again, go into hibernation, and become untraceable. Saya is to pose as a school girl, infiltrate the high school adjacent to the base, and then track and kill the Chiropterans.
At the school, Saya runs into a meek nurse, Amino Makiho, on the eve of the school's annual Halloween party. Two of Saya's classmates, Sharon and Linda, make a visit to Makiho at the nurse's office. Suddenly, Saya bursts into the room, killing Linda and wounding Sharon, breaking her sword in the process. Both girls are revealed to be Chiropterans. Makiho goes into shock at the revelation. Meanwhile, a third Chiropteran reveals itself and begins making its way to the base. Back at the school, Makiho regains her nerve and pursues Sharon into a room full of dancing Americans in costume, where she finds Sharon transformed. Saya saves her and both flee into a nearby motor pool. The Chiropterans trap them inside and attack.
David delivers a new sword, and Saya uses it to kill Sharon. The final Chiropteran then decides to flee, attempting to stow away on a departing cargo plane. David and Saya give chase and she manages to strike the Chiropteran and mortally wound it. She then stands over the dying creature and lets some of her blood trickles into its mouth. Louis arrives and recovers Makiho before the local police reach her.
Afterward, Makiho is seen in an interview with government officials who question her about the night's events. However, it's revealed that all evidence of the battle between Saya and the Chiropterans has been covered up and both David and Saya have disappeared, leaving Makiho with nothing to prove the veracity of her story. Her interviewer then asks her to identify Saya in a picture which has a girl that looks identical to her, except the picture was taken in 1892. The only other description of the picture is the word "VAMPIRE". Makiho then returns to the school, where she narrates that she never really discovered the full truth behind Saya and the Chiropterans, and wonders if she's still out there fighting them.
Characters
- Saya (小夜, Saya) hunts chiropterans using a katana. It is implied that she is the last remaining vampire and called "the only remaining original". Saya has no weakness to sunlight, although it is unknown if she has any of the other vulnerabilities often attributed to vampires. However, she does, become distressed when she encounters religious paraphernalia and angry when people mention God in her presence. Saya displays superhuman senses and strength, as well as cunning, resourcefulness, and skill. The manga series suggests that she was a human-vampire hybrid. Her age is unknown, but a picture of her with nine other people is shown in the film with the date 1892 and the word "vampire" attached to it. Though she holds most humans in contempt, she seems to have some sort of respect for David. Voiced by Youki Kudoh.[2]
- David is a man working for the U.S. government organization called the Red Shield. He relays missions to Saya and helps her at various points in the film. He is a Korean War veteran. Voiced by Joe Romersa.[2]
- Amino Makiho, a stout, soft-spoken, middle-aged nurse working at the High School. Initially a target of the Chiropterans posing as students, she manages herself well despite her abject terror, pursuing the monster Sharon and even being the one to save herself and Saya from the burning jeep hangar.
- Chiroptera (chiropterans or, as spoken in the film, chiropterates), from the Greek for "hand wings" (翼手 (yokushu) in Japanese), are hematophagous bat-like creatures, comparable to humans in intelligence. They disguise themselves as people and can gradually transform, becoming large, monstrous, and long-limbed. In this form, a further transformation produces leathery wings that allow the creature to glide, but not fly freely. Chiroptera live by feeding on human blood. They possess extraordinary speed and strength. They heal almost instantly from any non-lethal wound. Because of this, the only way to easily kill them is to cause them to lose a sufficiently large amount of blood from one attack.
Production
Production I.G's president
After titling the work Blood: The Last Vampire, Kitakubo chose video game designer
In directing the film, Kitakubo notes that his having read
The resulting film is very short for a theatrical work, spanning only 45 minutes.[3] Kitakubo stated in a 2001 interview with Animerica that he had the remaining story of "Saya's past present and future [sic]" in his own mind, but that it was up to the others involved in its making as to whether there would be a sequel.[3] Production I.G noted that they deliberately intended for it to be a three part story, with the rest of Saya's story to be carried through in a light novel trilogy and a two-volume video game.[5][6]
Media
Film
Produced by
It first premiered at the 5th annual International Festival of Fantasy, Action and Genre Cinema, nicknamed Fantasia 2000, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada where it was screened for attendees on July 29, 2000.[4] The film aired in Australia on August 26, 2000 at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival.[7] It made its theatrical debut in its home country of Japan on November 16, 2000.[8]
Manga Entertainment released the film theatrically in North America in the summer of 2001, followed by VHS and DVD releases on August 26, 2001.[9]
Manga
Using a concept from Mamoru Oshii, Production I.G had Benkyo Tamaoki write a sequel to Blood: The Last Vampire to complete the story.[10] It brings Saya to the year 2002, with a new generation of handlers and continuing her quest to destroy chiropterans.[11] Appropriately named Blood: The Last Vampire 2000 (ブラッド ザ・ラストヴァンパイア2000, Buraddo Za Rasuto Vanpaia 2000), the single-volume title was published in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten on May 1, 2001.[12] It was licensed and released in English in North America by Viz Media under the title Blood: The Last Vampire 2002 on November 5, 2002.[11] In the manga, David has retired and Saya has a new handler who makes it abundantly clear that he has no respect for her. He sends her to Jinkōsen Shūritsu Valley High School under the name of "Saya Otonashi". There, she learns that chiropterans co-existed with humans, until humans began experimenting on them in the 19th century to try to gain immortality. The experiments increased the chiropterans' killing instinct and removed their former regard for humanity. Scientists, in turn, developed twin anti-chiropteran weapons. Maya, a prototype, still required blood and could transform like other chiropteran. The second, Saya, did not need to drink blood and had no transformation abilities so she was considered the perfected weapon. Maya searches for Saya, desiring to have Saya eat her so they can become one pure-blood chiropteran. After this meeting, Maya's body cannot be found, but it is never shown if Saya granted her request. Saya kills her handler and walks off into the night.
Light novels
A
The second novel, Blood: The Last Vampire: The Blood Which Invites the Darkness (ブラッド・ザ・ラストバンパイヤ 闇を誘う血, Yami o Izanau Chi) was written by Junichi Fujisaku, who also directed the spin-off Blood+ anime series. This was published in January 2001.[13][14]
The third novel, also written by Fujisaku, is Blood: The Last Vampire: A Tragic Dream in Shanghai (ブラッド・ザ・ラストバンパイヤ 上海哀儚, Shanhai Aibyō) and was published in July 2001.[13]
Video games
In 2000, Production I.G and
In 2006, Production I.G and Sony re-released the game. Both volumes were combined into a single game for the
Live action film
In May 2006,
Kong and Yu originally planned to finance the project themselves, but in November 2006, Production I.G officially consented to the film and began offering financial support.[24][25] Through ties to Manga Entertainment, the French company Pathé became the film's production company.[25] Yu was retained as its producer, but Chris Nahon took over as the film's director.[26][27] Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun, who adopted her English screen name Gianna Jun for the release, plays the role of Saya.[28] Rather than being paid a straight license, Production I.G will receive a percentage of all revenues generated by the film.[25]
Originally slated to be released worldwide in spring 2008,[25] the film premiered in Japan on May 29, 2009 under the title Last Blood (ラスト・ブラッド, Rasuto Buraddo).[29] The film was released in the United Kingdom on June 26, 2009.[30] Sony Pictures licensed the film for release in North America, where it was released to theaters by Samuel Goldwyn Films on July 10, 2009.[31][32]
Spin-offs
In 2005, Sony and Production I.G announced the creation of
In 2011,
Reception
Blood: The Last Vampire received multiple awards at various film festivals around the world. In 2000, it was selected as "Public's Prize Best Asia Feature Film" at the Montreal Fantasia Film Festival where it debuted,[41] it won the Grand Prize in the animation category at the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs' Media Arts Festival,[42] and it won the Ofuji Noburo Award at the Mainichi Film Competition.[41] In 2001, it won Special Prize at the akasaki Film Festival[41] and it was selected as the Best Theatrical Feature Film at the World Animation Celebration.[43] Director Hiroyuki Kitakubo won an award for his work on the film at 6th Animation Kobe.[41] It received the Grand Prize for animation at the 2000 Japan Media Arts Festival.[44]
In the first week of its North American release, more than 70,000 DVD and 30,000 VHS copies of Blood: The Last Vampire had been sold.[45] Within the first month after its release, it became Manga Entertainment's top selling title in the company's history.[46] The film also appeared on both the Video Business, Billboard, Video Store Magazine and Entertainment Weekly lists of top DVD sales.[46] The company attributes this success to their use of two unconventional marketing methods: a limited theatrical release before the DVD release to market the title and offering the entire film for free on the day the DVD was released through a streaming video broadcast on Sputnik7.com where it was downloaded by more than 61,000 viewers.[45][46] Marvin Gleicher, then president of Manga Entertainment, stated that the film's "success has proven to be a landmark time in the history of Manga Entertainment."[46]
Michael Stroud of Wired News praised the film's blend of
According to Electronic Gaming Monthly, Blood: The Last Vampire was one influence behind the "striking visuals" of the video game Crackdown.[49] Cinefantastique listed the anime as one of the "10 Essential Animations".[50]
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 50% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 5.03/10.[51] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 44 out of 100 based on 6 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[52]
See also
References
- ^ Bustard, Jason. "Blood: The Last Vampire". THEM Anime Reviews. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
- ^ a b c "Staff & Cast". Production I.G. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ OCLC 27130932.
- ^ a b c d "Fantasia 2000 Holds Press Conference". Anime News Network. 2000-07-04. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ OCLC 47255331.
- ^ "Details on Blood Project". Anime News Network. 2000-09-26. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ "More Sydney Olympics Arts Festival". Anime News Network. 2000-07-05. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ "Blood: The Last Vampire Overview". Production I.G. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ "Blood PR: Theatrical, Web, and DVD info". Anime News Network. 2001-06-07. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ Macdonald, Christopher (2000-08-01). "Interview: Production I.G." Anime News Network. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
- ^ a b "Blood: The Last Vampire". Viz Media. Archived from the original on 2009-07-06. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- ^ "Blood: The Last Vampire books". Production I.G. Archived from the original on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- ^ a b c "Blood the Last Vampire manga and novel releases" (in Japanese). Production I.G. Archived from the original on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- ^ "Blood+ Staff and Cast". Production I.G. Retrieved 2007-12-16.
- ^ "Blood: The Last Vampire (Game Edition)". Production I.G. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ IGN Staff (2000-10-13). "Blood: The Last Vampire: Obscure, unusual, and never coming to the states, but perhaps of interest to Production I.G. fans". IGN. Archived from the original on 2011-06-29. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
- ^ プレイステーション2 - Blood: The Last Vampire 上巻. Weekly Famitsu, no. 915, pt. 2, p. 59. 30 June 2006.
- OCLC 27130932.
- ^ Gantayat, Anoop (2005-12-05). "Sony Brings Blood to PSP: PS2 adventure title going portable with promise of single-handed play". IGN. Archived from the original on 2012-04-04. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
- ^ "やるドラ ポータブルシリーズ 〜Blood the Last Vampire" (in Japanese). Sony Computer Entertainment Japan. Archived from the original on 2010-01-29. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
- ^ "'Blood: The Last Vampire' Live Action". ICv2. 2006-05-19. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ "More Blood: The Last Vampire Images". BeyondHollywood.com. 2008-01-22. Archived from the original on 2008-02-27. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ "Live-Action Blood: The Last Vampire's New Clips Posted". Anime News Network. 2009-05-20. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ "Ronny Yu and Quint discuss Fearless, Jet Li's retirement and Blood: The Last Vampire!!". Ain't It Cool News. 2006-09-14. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ a b c d "Live Action Blood: The Last Vampire". Anime News Network. 2006-11-03. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ Leroy, Caroline (2007-10-15). "Blood : The Last Vampire : photo exclusive!". FilmsActu.com (in French). Mixicom. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ "1st Live-Action Blood: The Last Vampire Still Posted". Anime News Network. 2007-10-16. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ "Jun Ji-hyun Changes Name to Gianna Jun for Blood: The Last Vampire". BeyondHollywood.com. 2007-05-22. Archived from the original on 2009-11-13. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ "2 New Live-Action Blood: The Last Vampire Clips Posted". Anime News Network. 2009-06-25. Retrieved 2009-06-25.
- ^ "Sony Acquires Live-Action Blood: The Last Vampire's U.S. Rights (Update 3)". Anime News Network. 2009-05-01. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
- ^ "Ponyo to Open on 800 U.S. Screens, Blood on at Least 11". Anime News Network. 2009-06-04. Retrieved 2009-06-09.
- ^ "Production I.G Unveils Blood+". Anime News Network. 2005-05-11. Retrieved 2007-12-16.
- ^ "Japan's TBS Confirms Anime's Move from Saturday, 6 p.m." Anime News Network. 2008-02-05. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
- ^ "Blood+ Licensed". Anime News Network. 2006-01-23. Retrieved 2007-06-08.
- ^ Hanson, Brian (2008-02-09). "The Click: February 9th - 15th]". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2008-02-09.
- ^ "Blood+ Game, Comics, & Novel Information" (in Japanese). Production I.G, Aniplex. Archived from the original on 2013-07-12. Retrieved 2008-02-07.
- ^ "CLAMP, I.G to Collaborate on Blood-C Original Anime". Anime News Network. March 24, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
- ^ "CLAMP's Blood-C to be Made as Both TV and Film". Anime News Network. April 8, 2011. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ "Blood-C: The Last Dark Anime Film's New Trailer Posted". Anime News Network. April 2, 2012. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
- ^ a b c d "Recognitions". Production I.G. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ "Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs announces Award Winning Media Works". Anime News Network. 2000-12-23. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ "Blood Awarded First Prize at World Animation Festival". Anime News Network. 2001-08-24. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
- ^ "Award Winning Works". Japan Media Arts Festival. Archived from the original on October 13, 2007. Retrieved July 13, 2016.
- ^ a b "Streaming Blood Yields Sales". ICv2. 2001-09-04. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- ^ a b c d "Blood: The Last Vampire Sets Manga Record". ICv2. 2001-10-30. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
- Wired News. Archived from the originalon 2006-12-05. Retrieved 2016-10-16.
- ISSN 1067-0831.
- Ziff-Davis. p. 41.
- ^ Persons, Dan (February–March 2004). "The Americanization of Anime: 10 Essential Animations". Cinefantastique. 36 (1): 48. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
- ^ "Blood - The Last Vampire (2001)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
- CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2019-12-18.
Further reading
- Perper, T.; Cornog, M. (2007). "Lurkers at the Threshold: Saya and the Nature of Evil". S2CID 121975390.
- Looser, T. (2009). "Gothic Politics: Oshii, War, and Life without Death". Mechademia. 4: 55–73. S2CID 52230541.
- Bolton, C. (2007). "The Quick and the Undead: Visual and Political Dynamics in Blood: The Last Vampire". Mechademia. 2: 125–142. S2CID 119359495.
- Bolton, C. (2009). "Virtual Creation, Simulated Destruction, and Manufactured Memory at the Art Mecho Museum in Second Life". Mechademia. 4: 198–210. S2CID 123136351.
External links
- Official Production I.G Blood: The Last Vampire website (in Japanese)
- Official Aniplex Blood: The Last Vampire website (in Japanese)
- Official Production I.G Blood: The Last Vampire English website
- Blood: The Last Vampire (film) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
- Blood: The Last Vampire at IMDb
- Blood: The Last Vampire at Rotten Tomatoes