Blood: The Last Vampire (Blu-ray) (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Making Of Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	48:10
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Hiroyuki Kitakubo
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Youki Kudoh Saemi Nakamura Joe Romersa Rebecca Forstadt Stuart Robinson Akira Koteyama Tom Fahn Fitz Houston Steve Blum Paul Carr
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	$24.95	Music	Yoshihiro Ike Yusuke Takeda Hiroshi Kato

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 English Linear PCM 48/24 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Blood: The Last Vampire was largely conceived by leading anime house Project IG as a relatively quick, low-overhead project to experiment with applying 2D anime techniques to CGI, with some degree of commercial viability. The film holds the honour of being the first anime to be completely computer generated. The resulting product is not particularly original and quite short, but it looks good to this day and makes for reasonable (though mindless) viewing for anime fans. Over the years the film has developed somewhat of a cult following (hence the reasonably decent Blu-ray treatment here) and a variety of mixed-media spin-offs, sequels and an abominable live action remake (which we reviewed here.)

     The film is about "the last vampire", Saya, who is in fact just the last full-blooded vampire. Saya, in a true anime cliché, roams a late 1960s Japan dressed as a schoolgirl slaying vampires who aren't full-blooded beasties on behalf of a shadow organisation. She kills them with a Katana. Some of them are on an American air base. That's pretty much as deep as it all gets in the 50-odd minute runtime.

     Also worth noting is that this Blu-ray includes two transfers of exactly the same film; one from a 35mm film intermediary and the other a pure digital transfer. Oddly, the ever so slightly less impressive looking 35mm transfer is the default and the digital version is listed as an "extra".

Video

     Both transfers of the film are presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio in 1080p.

     The video is clear and fairly sharp in both transfers, although compared side by side the telecine transfer is slightly softer. The telecine transfer features nominal grain, which is only really apparent when the two are compared side by side. Both transfers feature excellent shadow detail and black levels. The colour palette is stylish, focusing heavily on yellows and browns, and well rendered in each transfer. The telecine is slightly muted by comparison, although each looks very good in this department. There is no significant compression artefacting in either transfer. The telecine transfer contains no noticeable film artefacts.

     The video features only English subtitles for the Japanese parts of the film.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The film features a choice of English/Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks.

     Both tracks sound decent. The dialogue is clear and easy to discern at all times, however the sync is fairly iffy even for a cartoon. The film features a decent orchestral score from Yoshihiro Ike, which is well presented in the mix. The surrounds are well used, particularly during the action sequences. The subwoofer is used like brick through a plate glass window - clumsily but effectively.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Making Of Featurette (20:52)

    A so-so "making of" featurette that largely comprises interviews with cast and crew. Presented in rather fuzzy SD video.

Trailer (1:36)

    A rather brief trailer for the film. Presented in SD.

    The Region B DVD edition is identical to the US Region A edition, save for some local branding.

    Compared with the previous Region 4 DVD edition, this Blu-ray edition only gains the alternate digital transfer version of the film at the cost of a handful of pointless text-based extras.

     A visually impressive action anime that overcomes a clumsy storyline and short runtime with its visual flair. The video is excellent. The audio is good. The extras are merely a repeat of those found on the previous Region 1 DVD edition.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall