One of my favorite discoveries a few years ago was the short film Blood: The Last Vampire, a sixty minute, (possibly) direct-to-video from the makers of Ghost in the Shell. The movie was pure eye candy, and featured a fun romp as vampire slayer Saya kicked all sorts of vampire ass, in a great anime that really succeeded with its atmosphere.
As much as I liked the movie, my girlfriend found herself loving it. Therefore, I was really happy when I stumbled upon a manga at my comic shop that appeared to be a sequel to the movie. Jumping the gun, I pick up the book, don't even bother leafing through it, and buy it for my girl for Christmas. We were both a little shocked to read the book later and discover it's written by 'the most acclaimed erotic manga artist of the 1990s'.
The novel moves away from the movie quite a bit. There's much more sex, the story doesn't follow Saya as much, and because it's a published book, the computer animated backgrounds (so vital to the movie) have disappeared. It's suffers from the same problem as Hannibal; you just don't really register that the heroine is indeed the one from the previous story.
The book does manage to solve on problem of the movie, it gives us more information about Saya's past. While she was really cool being mysterious in the anime, you did feel the need to want to know her more. Well, the graphic novel divulges her past, and it feels much like a cheat. It's obvious it's someone else taking another person's property, and just creating his own mythology for it.
As for the story, it revolves around this teenage girl who just doesn't feel that she fits in at all, until she meets her friend Maya, a lesbian vampire who looks just like Saya. Meanwhile, Saya is ordered to track down a gang of biker vampires, and her battle with them leads her to Maya, and the discovery of her past. It's a fairly simple story, just like the movie, but the problem is that it just feels too loud. Saya is a very reserved, quiet person in the movie, but here she displays some attituted that just comes off as inappropriate for the charater. A cell phone carrying Saya just doesn't feel quite right, or menacing for that matter.
Overall, the book is an fine, quick read. Fans of the movie will enjoy finally getting a bit more of Saya. Many will be turned off by the attempts to pornolize the comic, however. The sex oozing from this thing is a complete slap in the face to the anime movie, which unlike many anime flicks, wasn't all about sex and extreme fights.
<a href="http://series.viz.com/blood/" target="_blank">Here's</a> a link to the company Viz, and their website for the book.
As much as I liked the movie, my girlfriend found herself loving it. Therefore, I was really happy when I stumbled upon a manga at my comic shop that appeared to be a sequel to the movie. Jumping the gun, I pick up the book, don't even bother leafing through it, and buy it for my girl for Christmas. We were both a little shocked to read the book later and discover it's written by 'the most acclaimed erotic manga artist of the 1990s'.
The novel moves away from the movie quite a bit. There's much more sex, the story doesn't follow Saya as much, and because it's a published book, the computer animated backgrounds (so vital to the movie) have disappeared. It's suffers from the same problem as Hannibal; you just don't really register that the heroine is indeed the one from the previous story.
The book does manage to solve on problem of the movie, it gives us more information about Saya's past. While she was really cool being mysterious in the anime, you did feel the need to want to know her more. Well, the graphic novel divulges her past, and it feels much like a cheat. It's obvious it's someone else taking another person's property, and just creating his own mythology for it.
As for the story, it revolves around this teenage girl who just doesn't feel that she fits in at all, until she meets her friend Maya, a lesbian vampire who looks just like Saya. Meanwhile, Saya is ordered to track down a gang of biker vampires, and her battle with them leads her to Maya, and the discovery of her past. It's a fairly simple story, just like the movie, but the problem is that it just feels too loud. Saya is a very reserved, quiet person in the movie, but here she displays some attituted that just comes off as inappropriate for the charater. A cell phone carrying Saya just doesn't feel quite right, or menacing for that matter.
Overall, the book is an fine, quick read. Fans of the movie will enjoy finally getting a bit more of Saya. Many will be turned off by the attempts to pornolize the comic, however. The sex oozing from this thing is a complete slap in the face to the anime movie, which unlike many anime flicks, wasn't all about sex and extreme fights.
<a href="http://series.viz.com/blood/" target="_blank">Here's</a> a link to the company Viz, and their website for the book.
