I watched this film because a number of friends told me it was both great anime and a good movie. I was told that I didn't need to watch the first film to understand this one, and I found that to be true enough. But this didn't even come close to living up to the hype.
SPOILERS!!!!!
Great animation involves more than watching some hair blow in the ever-present wind. Great acting is complimented by close-ups; still drawings of faces (with the few strands of hair blowing, of course) is not the same as watching an actor's face. The climactic battle involves still shots of our hero and nemesis facing each other, a sword locked against a cape/shield. They stare at each other and eventually where they touch begins to glow red. Ooooooh, really great action scene. In fact, most of the "action" scenes weren't much more than a still shot of our hero holding his sword while he is suspended in the air. One swipe was usually enough to kill anything he faced.
Also, I don't get this goth thing about Vampires being misunderstood, persecuted, blah blah blah. Vampires kill humans in order to survive, right? End of story; no negotiating. It's not like we walk around saying "man, those homicidal maniacs have a bad rap! Maybe we could just treat them like everyone else and all live in peace..." No.
The movie is set in the far future, where there are bridges that apparently span hundreds of miles, yet the fastest thing on the road is a carriage drawn by four horses. Our hero uses a sword, not a gun. WTF?
And I can't say enough about how annoying it is to have a disembodied voice (in this case, coming from a demon-thingy face in our hero's palm) give advice and offer humourous commentary. Lame. Stupid.
The good thing was the art itself. The drawings are excellent. The backgrounds, particularly, were a constant bright spot, done in a stunning neo-realistic style. The character art is good, although I could was surprised to find that our hero is male. From the art, I thought we had a female vampire hunter, and I found that I never could quite reconcile the hero's voice (masculine) with his decidedly feminine look.
The story is filled with elements of Romeo & Juliet (tragic star-crossed lovers), racism (vampires are just misunderstood), and is at least coherent enough that it seems to make sense (as long as you don't think too hard about it (if his rivals wanted our hero dead & out of the way, why destroy the mob about to attack him, eh? but like i said, don't think too hard about it)).
To sum up, if you think that lots of still art (i mean that little if anything in the frame is in motion), like watching each frame of a comic book, is how an animated feature should be, and yer really into goth-y/sci-fi stuff, you'll love this movie. If you want people who move, scenery that does more than move from a perspective, and a story that doesn't throw a lot of trite "misunderstood monster/Romeo & Juliet/racism" crap at you, you might want to keep looking.
Oh yeah, it does have a happy ending, tho.
Snowboarder Bo Snoarder
SPOILERS!!!!!
Great animation involves more than watching some hair blow in the ever-present wind. Great acting is complimented by close-ups; still drawings of faces (with the few strands of hair blowing, of course) is not the same as watching an actor's face. The climactic battle involves still shots of our hero and nemesis facing each other, a sword locked against a cape/shield. They stare at each other and eventually where they touch begins to glow red. Ooooooh, really great action scene. In fact, most of the "action" scenes weren't much more than a still shot of our hero holding his sword while he is suspended in the air. One swipe was usually enough to kill anything he faced.
Also, I don't get this goth thing about Vampires being misunderstood, persecuted, blah blah blah. Vampires kill humans in order to survive, right? End of story; no negotiating. It's not like we walk around saying "man, those homicidal maniacs have a bad rap! Maybe we could just treat them like everyone else and all live in peace..." No.
The movie is set in the far future, where there are bridges that apparently span hundreds of miles, yet the fastest thing on the road is a carriage drawn by four horses. Our hero uses a sword, not a gun. WTF?
And I can't say enough about how annoying it is to have a disembodied voice (in this case, coming from a demon-thingy face in our hero's palm) give advice and offer humourous commentary. Lame. Stupid.
The good thing was the art itself. The drawings are excellent. The backgrounds, particularly, were a constant bright spot, done in a stunning neo-realistic style. The character art is good, although I could was surprised to find that our hero is male. From the art, I thought we had a female vampire hunter, and I found that I never could quite reconcile the hero's voice (masculine) with his decidedly feminine look.
The story is filled with elements of Romeo & Juliet (tragic star-crossed lovers), racism (vampires are just misunderstood), and is at least coherent enough that it seems to make sense (as long as you don't think too hard about it (if his rivals wanted our hero dead & out of the way, why destroy the mob about to attack him, eh? but like i said, don't think too hard about it)).
To sum up, if you think that lots of still art (i mean that little if anything in the frame is in motion), like watching each frame of a comic book, is how an animated feature should be, and yer really into goth-y/sci-fi stuff, you'll love this movie. If you want people who move, scenery that does more than move from a perspective, and a story that doesn't throw a lot of trite "misunderstood monster/Romeo & Juliet/racism" crap at you, you might want to keep looking.
Oh yeah, it does have a happy ending, tho.
Snowboarder Bo Snoarder