User Reviews

When I picked up the DVD, it said on the back 80 minutes, so that's what I expected. Instead, I ended up with a 45 minute film. The other 35 minutes has been reserved for the "Making Of" and the trailer (Actually, the "Making Of" was only 20 minutes. Where did the other 10+ minutes go?). That said, "Blood: The Last Vampire" is very much like a roller coaster: Very fast, a lot of fun, but over before you know it.

The first three minutes drew me into the whole story very quickly. It has an impressive beginning, a moderately slow-paced lead up, but once the action starts, it becomes very, very cool. I guess that's why after the last battle, I was expecting more, and when it started rolling credits a few minutes after "officially" revealing Saya's history, I was expecting this new (but obvious) information to start adding into the story and her character. In the age of 2-3 hour epics, the abruptness caught me off guard.

But enough harping about the short film aspect. This is an enjoyable film to watch for its pacing, visuals and sound. The music was very dark and atmospheric, and I thought the voice acting for Saya was good. The CG in the film leads to some very cool effects, but as strange as this sounds, some of its realism (especially with the plane scenes) offsets the animated look. It was an unusual combination of "CG realism" and animation.

All in all, "Blood: The Last Vampire" is worth a watch. It has a lot of really good things going for it, and I'll definitely show it off to friends. Recommended

When you sit down to view Blood: the Last Vampire, the style and setting of this gothic noir anime grabs you instantly. Using a mixture of animation cells and computer-generated backgrounds, this is an effortlessly stylized visual breakthrough that hopefully will launch future endeavors in the style.

The problem with this particular film, though, is that it is far, far too short. At just over forty minutes filmed length, the story of a strange girl called Saya that seems to be some sort of vampire slayer barely gets the ball rolling on the enigmas behind this girl, the organization she works for, and the beasts she vows to slay before fading into the end credits. This makes you sit back, blinking at all the dazzling visual beauty that went into this well-crafted film, and wonder, 'what next?' Hopefully, there will be further adventures of Saya and the dingy, grimy world she lives in, each as well-designed as this one was, though with much more payoff.

All in all, worth looking at if only to see what the future of animation might look like.

This movie is wonderful. Even though it is short, it didn't really need anything else. Mamarou Oshii and his team did a wonderful job at simplifying a potentially aspiring story into great characters and great animation. At first i wondered why the film was so short but the more i thought about it the more it made sense. The film didn't really need any extra story to it. It fits nicely into the package it comes in. They paced it so well that it didn't seem like it needed anything more. The animation was very good as well, Oshii really knows how to use his animation to relate to people. His characters look like normal people, they (for the most part) act like normal people and they have a great deal of time and emotion put into them. His characters were also developed well. Some argue that there was not enough background story in the film but there really didn't need to be. It seems that, Oshii likes to put mystery around his characters. He doesn't give you every little bit of information on them he lets you wonder and examine them so that you can draw your own conclusions about who they are. I highly recommend this movie.

What can I say, but I really loved this anime film. All 48 fricking minutes of its short, well made, coolness. The story of what I was able to peace together, involves Saiya some sort of immortal vampire hunter who might just be a vampire herself, even though thats left to the audiences imagination since the bulk of the story involves suspense with well done action sequences. At the start of the film shes sent off by her boss and his cronie to American Air Force base where there seems to be an infiltration from three confirmed vampires. She then sets off to exterminate them while trying to save a school nurse who seems to be the target of the vampires attention. What follows is then is one long sequence that makes up the rest of the film as Saiya and her boss battle the three vampires while trying to save the life of the nurse. Then its over. Just like that. No resolution to little plot details, like the origins of Saiya, or how she came to work for the orginization that she works for. You never really understand the point of the vampires beyond the fact that they're the villians and they bite peoples necks to kill them. Or for that matter why Saiya acts the way she does at the end of the film. Looking back at what I liked about this film, I think I would have to rank this as another digitally animated film from this year, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Unlike that film though, which left the intrigued viewer wanting more from the story. This film just leaves you wanting more story period. The direction, the animation are all top notch high grade stuff. Its just at the end, you leave yourself feeling as this has been nothing more than a well made tech demo. Well I hope its not, since I'm praying for a longer sequel to be made soon.

AARRRGGHH!!! CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE TURN THIS INTO A FULLY FLEDGED SERIES OR MOVIE!!!!!!!

I love a story to be fleshed out. I like to know about origins, motivations and characters. And Blood offers just enough to be thoroughly intriguing yet little enough to frustrate the absolute crap out of me. The 'pure' vampire thing is a pretty good angle. I want to know more!

That just about sums up Blood for me. Everything it does it does well. Great concept, animation (especially CG) and voice work. There just isnt enough of any of it. At about 48 mins it just barely scratches the surface. You expect another chapter in Saya's mission to directly follow. But you get the credits instead.

If this ever fulfilled its potential I think the producers could have an anime milestone on their hands. As it stands Blood is great and frustrating in totally equal parts. >

In Japan, the vampire-hunter Saya, who is a powerful original, is sent by her liaison with the government, David, posed as a teenage student to the Yokota High School on the eve of Halloween to hunt down vampires. Saya asks David to give a new katana to her. Soon she saves the school nurse Makiho Amano from two vampires disguised of classmates and Makiho witnesses her fight against the powerful demons.

"Blood: The Last Vampire" is an animation of 48 minutes running time with the tormented and skilled samurai Saya. The story is too short and has a poor development of Saya, especially for those that do not know the character. I saw the movie "Blood: The Last Vampire" (2009) a couple of years ago and the character Saya is better developed. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

A quick bite, digestible, but not completely fulfilling. "Blood: The Last Vampire" is situational storytelling that doesn't really delve too deep into the background of its characters, or plights other than what's happening right in front of you. It's a slight premise, light-weight script - so maybe it could've used an extra 5-10 minutes to flesh out things further more. But I guess in doing so the enigma of the protagonist would lose out, as the script doesn't completely come out with her infliction in other than one word, or minor visual hints.

Saya, a half-human, half-vampire samurai is all edge, and it looks like it doesn't take much to tick her off. She works for a shadowy society known as the council dispatching demons infesting the earth. Her next assignment sees her at an American military base, where there have been some strange, grisly deaths possibly the work of vampires and the bases' school nurse finds herself stuck in the middle of it all.

This is just another chapter to the story's universe, as the investigative build-up eventually breaks out the gushing blood and precise blade-work of Saya going to work (slaying) when she uncovers the suspect/s. It didn't take much in the way of clues to get to that point. Once the horror erupts the vampires go on the rampage, where the imagery becomes mildly hallucinogenic, pace quickens up and sudden violence is unforgiving. These vampires are monsters; feral in their actions and fearsome in sight when they reveal their true nature. The connection between the vampires and Saya might be all business, but the last shot we see of her is a touching moment of compassion that shared enough light on her character than a bloated exposition dump could ever do. As for the animation, it had creative flashes, but more often I thought it was ulgy and grim in the details. While I wasn't particularly fond of its style, no way did it get in the way of my enjoyment and it probably suited the cold and foreboding temperament. In saying that, the opening sequence with the credits is beautifully framed and edited, so are the beastly encounters.

Japanese animation films aren't usually the kind of thing I watch - I think some bozo at my rental firm must have confused this with the 2009 live-action version - but I decided to give it a go anyway. While I can't say I was pleasantly surprised by this film, I had no problem sitting through its brief running time.

Apparently, this film was intended to be the second in a trilogy. Why they made the second film first God only knows, but presumably shortage of funds was the reason why this is the only film out of the three to be made. Because of this the film starts a little abruptly because it's assumed the audience are familiar with the central characters. Apparently Saya, a schoolgirl, is a one-of-a-kind demon hunter who is having a few issues with her taskmasters and rather reluctantly chases demons to a school on an American military airbase.

The animation is a strange hybrid of CGI and hand-drawn that doesn't really work, although having said that, some scenes stand out for their impact, and there are some decent attempts at making this more than just another animation. The direction is quite imaginative - if derivative - but the basic weakness of the plot ultimately lets the film down.

"Blood: The Last Vampire" is impressive and not impressive for a number of reasons. The reasons it is impressive is...well, quite obviously the animation is worthy of mention. Taking digital animation much further than in "Ghost in the Shell," this film is probably as state-of-the-art as animation can get these days. They even made alternate takes and angles for use in the trailer, giving it a more live action feel. The visuals are intense, the music is effective, it should be a massive hit, right? Wrong, and for the reasons it's not impressive, which are unfortunately too much to save it. The first problem...it's too short, not even lasting a full hour. Obvious not meant to be a full-on movie, but it should've been. The story is weak, but only because it's not developed beyond a concept, as opposed to a drawn out plot. The concept is Saya is "the only remaining original" vampire, and the government contracts her to hunt down vampiric demons. We have little or no back story, no explanation of how Saya is the only original, no explanation of the people she works for, or why she seems to hunt her own kind...or even if they are her own kind. There's so much missing from the story, that one wonders if the workload was really worth it. Bottom line, the plot could've been simple, but it should've been drawn out. MORE, give us MORE! Now, on the other hand, if this were a pilot episode to a series, it might be more tolerable, but with the expenses and effort put into just this one 50-minute feature, it seems unlikely. "Blood: The Last Vampire" WANTED to be better than it was, and SHOULD'VE been better than it was. Alas, somebody forgot that what makes a good anime is not just the animation but the story as well, the main thing that distinguishes anime from most other forms of animation.

Since Oshii has made Ghost in the Shell, he's a become a hero. I guess that is why this mediocre title gets quite a lot of attention. Yet, the story of Blood is far from impressive and does not compare to GITS, which is a masterpiece. In Blood, too many ideas are left too vague. The viewer can only guess after motivations. There is an intriguing and prominent reference to the Vietnam war and the Americans stationed in Japan, with interesting political implications. Unfortunately - for non-Japanese public - all this does not make sense.

Still, anime fans will be impressed by the technical beauty of the visuals, and the extra's are worth viewing, because they teach a lot about Oshii methodology. This anime title is short: 46 minutes for the feature movie, credits included. There's a 60 minutes of 'making of'.

Only worth buying if it is budget priced, if you ask me.

Standing at 48 minutes long, Blood: The Last Vampire is cornucopia of pure violence, bad a55 combat and suspenseful monster slaying action. It has exceedingly smooth animation combined with highly detailed artwork, appealing character designs(a far cry from the cutesy big eyed girls in most anime) and awesome fight choreography.

However, look beyond the "wow factor" and there is little else that this film offers.

In terms of plot, it is very straight forward and predictable with few story twists. The characters are typical action movie stereotypes with the main character of Saya being seriously under-developed. It is very difficult to emotionally connect to any of the characters at all. There is no sense of peril in the fights due to Saya being characterized as some unbeatable monster hunter extraordinaire. Although the actors do their best to bring out as much emotion from the characters, the flat dialogue falls squarely on the shoulders of the writers. I do, however, applaud the decision to record a mixed language dialogue(western characters speak English, Asian characters speak Japanese) as it enhances the realism of the setting.

To top it all off, The pacing of the movie in erratic and it shows in the more subdued scenes of conversation where things get really boring. Lump that together with a huge let-down of an ending and you have Blood: The Last Vampire.

Sure, this anime is famous. But we have to look at what made it famous and it definitely was not its half baked story or 1 dimensional characters. I bet It was only the animation.

An anime film with good animation only is not a good anime film. There has to be a balance and sadly, Blood: The Last Vampire does not have that balance. A bloody over hyped waste.

I'm a big fan of vampire movies in general and my husband of anime so we figured this might be a good compromise. The plot was really thin, but the animation and action was good. Overall I wouldn't say it was a bad movie, just not one of my top ten.

Blood is a great anime and it is great to see digital animation. The story is good aswell as the charcters but it is definitely too short and it ends just when you get into it. I also like the fact that it mixes english and japenese. I definitely recommend this to anyone and especially anime fans who haven't seen it.

BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE was very enjoyable but I expected it to be a lot longer than forty-eight minutes, that's for sure. But other than that, it was a fun ride. I even watched it three times in a row and it never got old. BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE is about a girl named Saya who is part of a demon slaying organisation. She disguises herself as a new school girl on Halloween night when a group of demons start go on their mayhem inside the school. And that's when the fun begins.

BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE is filled with animated gore and awesome action scenes. After watching it the first time, you might want to watch it again.

This was largely an experimental film from Production IG. I believe that this was the first feature by IG not to use cell animation at all, hence the short running time.

Great animation, let down by an average plotline & script, while the English language voices can be stilted at times. That said worth checking out if you are an anime fan 6/10

The animation of this movie is superb. It looks like a real movie! The movie was a bit short. But I think this was meant as sort of a pilot for a series. "Blood-The Last Vampire" is being connected to "Blood+" the series. "Saya",the main character looks like the "Saya" from the anime series (50 episodes). And David and Lewis show some similarities between the characters from "Blood+". Also "Saya" is fighting demons like in the series. But other than these elements this movie has nothing in common with "Blood+". The style of the movie is very different from the series. This "Saya" is much more darker and aware of who she is. She is not very likable here. I think the visuals of the series are much better than the movie. It is a shame that they didn't add more depth to the story and at least explain more about Saya. Like I said,this movie was maybe meant as a pilot to a series that has not been made. They made "Blood+" in stead! And I am glad they did,because "Blood+" is a beautiful and impressive anime! "Blood-The Last Vampire" is a different movie from the series and offers a different experience. In it's right is has high production values and is nice but try to forget this movie and go watch the series.

It's a movie about vampires, called Blood. This makes you assume you are not getting any original.

But the opposite is actually true, in some ways. The story involves the demon hunting girl by the name of Saya. She is is cute, scary, but with a lot of attitude. She carries a sword because to kill a demon you need to make them lose a lot of blood in one go (me I would have used either a mini-gun or a bazooka).

What makes her different is that she doesn't like dressing like a school girl and she doesn't act like the clichéd Japanese girl.

Then there is the animation. Combining CGI and conventional animation it creates a dark reality that has nothing to do with Manga style. I liked it in some ways, but I always felt that the artists never loved the characters they are animating, making them unnecessarily ugly. This may have been true of the story writers as well, they don't really like Saya and tried to make her too tough and cool and without understanding her basic humanity.

There is not much story, partly because it is supposed to part of a 3 part series, and so much of the story is missing.

This is a must for lovers of the vampire genre.

This movie has nice looking vampires and action but very little story, build-up and development in it

This is a 3D-CGI animated movie in which, the backgrounds and everything else is photo-realistic looking, while the characters are still obvious animated ones, done in a typical Japanese anime style. It's an interesting combination that not always works out too well though. The contrast between the drawn characters and the background is often too big, which makes it in parts work out distracting.

This originally was supposed to be the middle part of a 3 part series. But due to budget reasons only this middle part got made. It's unfortunately all too obvious that this was a middle part. None of the characters and events get properly introduced and build-up. It makes the story too much of a disjointed one. The movie is also way too short for some proper development and build-up of course.

Now the story mostly doesn't make sense, simply because you don't know what and why things are happening. Guess the concept still showed some serious potential but I guess we'll never know how good this actually could had been if all 3 parts had been made instead of just this one. Well maybe in a way we'll still know soon how much potential this movie and concept had, since a live action version of this is current in post-production.

The vampires are all good and scary looking. Many horror movies can learn from this. The action is also good and so is the gore. Yes, this movie is really filled with tons of blood but all of this of course can't fully make up for the lack of a proper- and properly developed script.

Its short running time is action filled enough to consider this a watchable movie but yet the movie is too short to consider it a really good one as well.

5/10

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I work at Yokota High School where the film is supposed to have been set and noticed that many of the details of the Gym, the location of the Nurse's office even down to the Nurse's room number are very accurate. Many things are different, of course, but it was interesting to see what real features made it into the movie. There are no rumors of vampires at the school. Although, the base security forces who patrol the school building off hours have said they have seen strange illuminations (ghosts?) in some of them at night. I've worked there since 1997 and it would have been nice if anyone at the school would have been notified about the writer's visit to the school and about the making of the movie. Not too many students or faculty even know about the film. It would have been too cool to show it at the base theater at Halloween !

,,, who seem to fall into 2 categories. The first are mad because of the length. The second feel this is not true to the original. The second group need to remember that this is a twist on an old and very popular icon. It is well done and clever. You can't reinvent the wheel. You can only make another kind of wheel. The first group may have a point. A very engaging take of the original.