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Modern Vampires (1998)
"Now, you see, that's a myth. With a good commercial lubricant, we can go for hours"
A complete romp of a vampire movie. Tired of hackneyed vampiric angst? Tired of vanilla Hollywood vamps? Do you prefer your undead driving Camaros, smoking huge cigars and listening to The Reverend Horton Heat? This may just be the film for you. I don't think I stopped grinning at any point during this movie, except when I was laughing. This is a vampire film for people who like movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Snakes on a Plane, Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town and From Dusk Till Dawn. It certainly isn't Nosferatu, but it will expose the entire Blade trilogy and every Anne Rice film adaptation to the sun and then stake them through the heart whilst screaming the Lords Prayer, and at a budget that probably amounts to about the same as two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Highly recommended, everyone who reviewed it badly needs to chill the hell out.
Kyûketsuki hantâ D (1985)
Great adult anime of the old school
Vampire Hunter D is the kind of stuff that Manga Entertainment built their business on: old school, action heavy anime with buckets of style. The animation, whilst heavily stylised and nowhere near as crisp as todays fare, works perfectly with the material. Compare the 2000 sequel, 'Bloodlust': the animation in the latter is incredibly slick and the action comes thick and fast, but it might as well be robots fighting in outer space or samurai battling on a mountaintop. What the original does, with its dirty, old fashioned animation is create a decidedly other-worldly and eerie feel, perfectly encapsulated in the strange, mutated beings that roam the hostile countryside, glowing and sidling in a sinister fashion. The overall colour scheme, as well, is very Dario Argento: dark blues and browns prevail over the modern, Akira and Ghost in the Shell inspired trend for green overkill. Character design is, as said, very stylised, but perfectly acceptable, and D himself looks as cool as all hell.
As for the plot, there are no problems there, although there are a few cliché moments. The counts boredom, as opposed to the angst that seems to be all the rage in vampire flicks nowadays, is a nice touch, and at no point do characters motives seem unbelievable. The setting is a nicely realised far future post-apocalyptic landscape full of the standard juxtapositions (horse riders with laser rifles) bought to life by the supernatural element, which seems to have taken monsters and critters from anywhere and everywhere, to no detriment. The voice acting is competent, much better than some eighties dubs I could mention (unfortunately I only have this film on VHS, so I can't compare to the original Japanese).
Overall, not the best of 80's anime. It lacks the sophistication of Akira or the sheer camp hyperviolence of Fist of the North Star, but it's still a very enjoyable film, and a solid part of the collection of any anime connoisseur.
Herushingu (2001)
A mixed series, but eventually not up to Hirano's vision.
Hellsing is a series of two halves. Episodes 1 to 7, which follow the first two volumes of Hirano's manga with the insertion of significantly slower pacing and new subplots, are brilliant, however, quality from thereon declines significantly, as the series takes up with its own plot in order to close of the (still unfinished, and much more so at the time) arc of the manga story. A lot of this can be attributed to the writers and character designers lack of feeling for Hirano's style: the series only characters, such as Incognito, Helena, Boaban Sith and the Werewolf SAS guards simply don't fit the look or feel of the Hellsing world, and the whole affair reeks of an attempt to broaden the series appeal towards a more mixed audience, which makes Hellsing not quite Shonen: though the series retains some incredible action sequences, they are paced out with introspection and Anne-Rice style vampire angst on the part of Seras, who becomes much more the focal character of the series. Other characters have their personalities softened, particularly Alucard, who is not only slightly more physically attractive but markedly less deranged. On top of this, the religious aspects of the story are moved more into the background. That is not to say that the writing team is completely awful: where they adapt, and weave new scenes and subplots into Hiranos work, they can be very good. However, this schizophrenic nature, as well as the legendarily unsatisfying ending, significantly mar the series.
This is not to say, however, that Hellsing is bad. Indeed, far from it. Though vampires are a relatively common subject for anime, no other, except maybe Blood, manages to capture the sheer atmosphere of Hellsing. The animation is, in fact, quite crude. The CGI effects, though used sparingly, are awful, and the character design fantastically erratic. However, this is only really noticeable after two or three viewings, because what Hellsing does have is style. The heavy use of red lighting to convey the vampire viewpoint gives the whole thing a eerie, disturbing air, that, mixed with possibly the best original soundtrack to any anime (both collected CD's easily stand on their own) perfectly creates the cohesive world. And of course, there is the Gothic atmosphere and wonderful characters of Hirano's original work shining through. Finally, both the English and Japanese version have great voice acting, though Crispin Freeman's Alucard does annoy somewhat with his accent at first (especially when you watch Read or Die and realise that he is quite capable of doing a perfect English accent).
Still, despite the negative tone of this review, Hellsing does thoroughly deserve its eight stars. There is a sheer enchanting quality to it that defies being put down on paper. All you have to do is look to its huge, and surprisingly mature, fandom to realise there must be something here that's worth seeing. That said, as is so often the case with adaptations: Read the book!
Read or Die (2001)
An insane romp.
Like many of the best anime, Read or Dies plot looks absolutely ridiculous on papers. Superpowered librarians and resurrected minor historical figures fight ridiculous, lightning-paced battles for a lost Beethoven score of, at least initially, uncertain significance. The premise, and many of the superpowers hurled around with vicious abandon, are absolutely absurd, yet the show maintains its own bizarre internal logic which catches you up in the shows world without requiring you to ask too many questions, especially if watched in one sitting. Indeed, the show never tries to explain any of its more bizarre elements, and a good thing as well. Something like ROD could easily get bogged down in technobabble fan-service, but instead it rips along at a great pace. Whilst not a classic by any means, ROD is a great bit of fun, with colourful, eccentric characters, top-notch animation and good, crisp modern anime artwork thankfully free of blatant CGI abuse. When did anime ever have to make sense anyway?