DVD
REVIEW: BLOOD+ VOLUME ONE

03/02/08

Blood + is an anime series
based on Hiroyuki Kitakubo’s 2000 anime movie “Blood: The
Last Vampire.” the series have been played in Cartoon
Network’s Adult Swim, and it has have great appeal and
success in captivating many fans. It is an intriguing and
beautiful story that goes in more detail than its
predecessor movie. This is one of the rare cases where a
movie based showed have surpassed by far its original
version. The story, the characters, and the sound are just
fantastic. For anime fans, if you have not seen it before,
is a must see , and for already of the series the DVD
collection it is a must have. Blood + Volume: One, which
includes the first five episodes of the series, will be
available in its DVD Format on March 3 2008.
“Blood: The Last Vampire” finishing mentioning that
America’s Air Force are going to start bombing Vietnam.
“Blood +” begins with our hero, Saya, slaughtering vampires
in Vietnam, while American troops are just watching trying
to understand what is going on. Unfortunately , Saya has
lost control and is killing whoever crosses in her path,
then a bomber comes and destroy the place. After that the
story forward to a modern day Okinawa city with an amnesic
Saya living a normal teenager life: going to school,
practicing sports and making friends. She is being care by
George, a retired soldier, and his two adoptive sons.
Everything start going in the wrong direction when a
Chiropteran (a vampire) shows up to Saya in her school and
kills one of her teacher. Saya is then told about her past
and begins her fight against these horrible beasts.
In Blood + Juinchi Fujisaku took the right approach in
developing a fabulous and well paced story line. The series
begins introducing the characters while developing a
persuasive and amusing story. All the characters are well
drawn and animated in a way that it is impossible to not
fell sympathy for them, also all of them are important since
they add their share in the plot showing basic Human
emotions, form Saya’s supported brothers , Saya’s faithful
and enigmatic chevalier Haji, to Saya itself. The animation
is fantastic and remarkable, it absolutely leaves the
original movie way behind. Aside the animation and story
another impressive point of the series is its sound, which
has been produced by Academy Award Winner Hans Zimmer and
equally talented composer Mark Manzina.
Blood + is an exceptional anime series that outdoes its
forerunner movie in all aspects, it can compete against many
other popular series, unlike many series the audience gets
in touch with all the character and understand the motives
of our heroine. For anime fans: do not even bother watching
the movie, just start form this point and you will be hook
for an incredible ride, with outstanding artwork, plot, and
soundtrack it will let you asking for more. The only let
down of Volume one is that it is in full screen version and
that five episodes will raise a great hype and will let the
audience wanting more, they were just not enough for me, I
wanted to see more. So my advise is: if you know the series
you definitely should get the disk with the 5 episodes and
wait for the next volume is release, if you don’t know the
series watch the five first episodes and find a way to watch
the rest.
VIDEO:
Video: Full screen 1.33:1 Mastered in High Definition
AUDIO:
Audio: Stereo,
English and Japanese
Subtitle: English, French and Korean
SPECIAL FEATURES: It is
a shame that the Volume one did not have any Special
features, but then again the series by itself is more than
enough for the anime fans. What I really like, and I always
say this, is that the default format is in Japanese with
English Subtitles, but if you are lazy and do not want to be
reading you can set it in English as well.
RATING BREAK DOWN:
FILM REVIEW |
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VIDEO |
 |
AUDIO |
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BONUS
FEATURES |
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Review
By Milo
milo@smartcine.com
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