BLOOD-C (2011) - Saya returns in a bloody new anime

BLOOD-C

(2011, Japan, TV)

You want monsters and bloody mayhem?

(UPDATED - June 2013 - on DVD and blu-ray in the UK and USA)


A twelve-part anime series continues the saga of Saya, the vampire slayer, first seen in the extraordinary short film, Blood The Last Vampire (2000), set during WWII.

Animation house Production I.G eventually followed it up with an epic fifty-part anime series Blood+ in 2005. Then there was a disappointing 2009 live-action adaption of the original short, made in Hong Kong. But with Production I.G again on the case, I was keen for more...

Here, Saya is a girl leading a normal school-life by day, but fighting demons by night. Her father, a priest, has prepared her for daily battles against a ghastly evil that manifests itself as a series of incredible strong and vicious creatures. Young Saya appears to have superhuman strength and amazing sword skills, but still struggles to protect the innocents that the blood-thirsty monsters prey on. As the attacks increase, Saya punishes herself because she can't even protect those she loves...

Blood-C cleverly doesn't immediately reveal its links with the previous stories. Another spin is that the monsters aren't huge vampire bat demons any more. Instead there are an outrageously inventive menagerie of loathsome creatures, each with their own ghastly methods of attack.

The early episodes waste time with her bizarrely traditional and cute school life, with a cast of familiar characters. At school, Saya is indecisive, shy and accident-prone. A very uninteresting alter-ego compared to similar heroines of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Bleach. It's also mind-boggling how monolithically female anime characters are portrayed. Saya is a young schoolgirl, yet she has unfeasibly large breasts and is shown almost completely naked in the title sequence.

The nudity and bloody mayhem seem to demonstrate that the producers stepped up to new extremes, at odds with the simple set-up and childish humour. The amount of blood and gore is so excessive that TV stations have fogged out sections in a large number of scenes.

Thankfully, the story gets more serious and complex past the first few episodes and the creative blood-letting and imaginative monsters warrant seeing it through to the bloody end. 

The dynamic animation and artistic layouts are up to Production I.G's usual high standards. Like previous series, the music is lush and orchestral.

The entire series of Blood-C is now available on DVD and blu-ray in the UK, and as a combo blu-ray and DVD boxset in the US.

An animated movie has spun off the series and is just about to hit Japanese cinemas in June, Blood-C: the Last Dark.

 

Here's the movie trailer

GEGEGE NO KITARO: NIPPON BAKURETSU (2008) - Kitaro's first feature-length anime

GEGEGE NO KITARO: NIPPON BAKURETSU

(2008, Japan)

The first ever feature-length animated Kitaro movie, released as part of the anime series' 40th anniversary, was almost lost among the many other Gegege No Kitaro productions in 2008. There was the second live-action film, the weekly anime series, as well as an OVA mini-series.

Nippon Bakuretsu, (roughly translated as Japan Erupts!) is animated in the same style as the 2007-2009 TV series, featuring all the regular characters and indeed, as many different yokai monsters as they could possibly cram in.

The story begins as usual with a spooky local disturbance, as a schoolgirl is harassed by some scary mirror demons (alarming silvery CGI claws), trying to pull her through to another dimension. Her home life is not untroubled as she has trouble pleasing her extremely strict mother.

Luckily she knows where to find Kitaro's post box and calls on the ghost boy to defend her from the mirror demons. But that's not the end of her problems at school or at home, because she's unwittingly involved in a demonic plot that threatens the entire nation of Japan with destruction that not even Enma, the Lord of the Underworld, can prevent...

The film is quite episodic, with three distinct 'chapters', almost like gaming levels, with foes that keep getting tougher. The final 'boss' that Kitaro faces is the largest yokai monster I've ever seen!

While the animation effects and creature designs are impressive, it all still looks like the TV series with an expanded budget. There's still spectacle and dynamic action that the live-action feature films lacked, I just wouldn't volunteer it as an example of a typical modern Japanese anime feature.

While the latest series has been moodier and scarier than its predecessors, the film shows Kitaro taking more of a beating than usual, with several scenes that would upset his youngest fans. A couple of the lizard monsters were also quite sexual in appearance, another departure from the family-friendly series. I'm not saying this is anything as strong as Legend of the Overfiend, but at one point a flurry of tentacles, teeth and one-eyed monsters did remind me of it...

Gegege No Kitaro: Nihon Bakuretsu is out on DVD and Blu-Ray in Japan, but also on a far cheaper Taiwanese DVD, but none of these have English subtitles. The Taiwan DVD is a good-looking 16:9 anamorphic image, with optional Chinese audio and subtitling.

For more about the many TV and movie incarnations of Gegege No Kitaro, here's my extensive overview.


Lastly, here's a Japanese trailer for the movie on YouTube...

GEGEGE NO KITARO 2: KITARO AND THE MILLENNIUM CURSE (2008) - live-action sequel

GEGEGE NO KITARO 2:
KITARO AND THE MILLENNIUM CURSE
(2008, Japan, GeGeGe no Kitaro 2: Sennen Noroi Uta)

The first live-action spin-off from the long-running anime series did so well that this sequel immediately followed. But while I love the characters and the stories, the live-action films are disappointing. Even though my expectations were pretty low for this sequel, as an adult, I was barely entertained. My main consolation is that least these films are raising awareness about Gegege No Kitaro, and the character has finally made a debut on English subtitled DVDs.

I can't get enough of Kitaro's many anime series. They first appeared on Japanese TV in 1968. But to do Shigeru Mizuki's stories justice in a live-action movie requires a considerable budget, which this sequel lacks. I got the same vibe off Saiyuki: Monkey Magic, made in Japan the same year. It's good fun for kids, but lacking the intrigue and sophisticated special effects to please adult audiences.

The Millennium Curse begins with a typical scare as young women are menaced by ancient spirits. During the title sequence we get a flashback of Kitaro's origin (also seen in the impressive anime OVA Hakaba Kitaro) as baby Kitaro crawls out of his mother's grave, guided by all that's left of his dad (the walking eyeball). Kitaro, Rat Man, Cat Girl and the gang now have to unravel the mystery of a series of disappearances, all linked to an ancient curse lingering after a great injustice, many centuries ago.

While the plot is solid, it generates little intrigue or excitement, even in fight scenes. Kitaro's primary weapons are his flying wooden sandals and needle hair - these are made to look dynamic and interesting in the anime but fall flat when rendered realistically.


On the upside there's the late Ken Ogata (The Hidden Blade, Mishima), in his final film role as Kitaro's nemesis Nurarihyon. But this arch-villain doesn't fully emerge until the climax. The finale is especially impressive for a well-animated giant skeleton piling on the jeopardy.

But mostly the yokai monster make-ups of supporting characters are either obviously CGI or use completely static masks. Two busy monster scenes in the yokai library and the forest simply look like a bunch of dancers in masks. I'd rather yokai monsters be done properly or not at all. The effects in these scenes reminded me of similar techniques used in the 1960s yokai film trilogy. For instance, there's nothing on the scale of the flying demon attack on Kitaro's house in the first film.


The main cast are good, all returning from the first film. Once again Yo Oizumi makes the most of the treacherous, hypocritical, smelly Rat Man. The baddies include Yasha, who's a terrifying yokai in the anime who hypnotises victims with his music and steals their souls. But here the character looks like a failed rock star who only uses his guitar like a machine-gun rather than for anything supernatural.

I might have enjoyed the story less because of the poor English subtitles on this Malay DVD, available here from HKFlix. But really, the 2007 anime series would provide more action and scares than this - that's what I'd prefer to see on DVD.

My review of the first Gegege No Kitaro film is here.

My guide to the Gegege No Kitaro anime series is here.

Here's a Japanese-only trailer for Kitaro and the Millennium Curse on YouTube...

... and there's an English subtitled trailer on this page in the AsianMediaWiki.

Much more background info, pictures and a plot summary on SciFi Japan, and Sarudama.

HAKABA KITARO (2008) - the graveyard origin of GeGeGe No Kitaro

HAKABA KITARO
(2008, Japan, OVA, Graveyard Kitaro)

I've written as much as I can about GeGeGe No Kitaro in this total series guide, which I also keep updated. But while the character is enjoying a revival in Japan, all 400+ episodes of the animes now available on DVD. Creator Shigeru Mizuki has a museum all about his characters, and there's a Kitaro street of statues flourishing as a popular tourist destination in Sakaiminato. But in the west, Kitaro has only recently been represented on home video, by a single DVD release, the first live-action film. We've yet to see any anime, which first appeared back when Scooby Doo was first on TV!

But the animes never fully established exactly who Kitaro is. His origin has remained in the manga, even too scary for Japanese children's TV. Now comes Hakaba Kitaro, a short anime series, shown last year as part of the 40th anniversary of the Gegege anime, which has omitted much of the scarier, ickier side of the early manga stories. Whereas the ghost boy is regularly introduced emerging from a graveyard, like in the TV title sequences, episode 1 of Hakaba Kitaro dares to reveal Kitaro's mum and dad, his ghoulish birth and even the loss of his eye.


The series develops with Kitaro trying to find his place in the world, a young yokai living among humans. He meets Ratman and Catgirl for the first time, both portrayed to extremes, bigger farts and sharper claws respectively. His father, the eyeball (also explained), guides him towards his various powers as he gets used to modern city life, the lower reaches of hell, and angry yokai monsters.

The anime successfully mixes a deliberately retro style with the latest CGI effects. The drawing style reflects Shigeru Mizuki's earliest Kitaro manga. The human characters look angular and realistic - from before the time when he drew them in a rounded, cartoon style. The early Hakaba manga also provide many of the storylines, though the series interweaves these into a long continuing story. The almost primitive Kitaro character starts as a monstrous, hunched, cackling demon, carefree of the troubles of the world and netherworld, unlike the usual conscientious hero.


While there is humour, there's also sadness, shock and horror. The scares are often pitched at a level of near-hysterical terror like a Kazuo Umezu manga. There are more than a few echoes of Hell Girl - perhaps the creators are reminding us that Mizuki did it first, with Kitaro and his other early character Akuma-Kun, (Devil Boy), who also wore a stripy shirt.

I found two DVD releases of the series in Kuala Lumpur, intended for Hong Kong and Malaysia, both cramming the eleven episodes onto a single disc. The English subtitles on both were identical and accurately translated. They are the first translated DVD releases I've seen of any Kitaro anime. But while they looked like official releases, with holograms and carded sleeves, and bought in official video stores, the unreliable performance of the discs indicates otherwise.

But I look forward to a time when this rare scary anime is widely enjoyed as a stand-alone series, or as an introduction to this Japanese phenomenon, like the recent live-action films. I'm hoping that one day the many yokai monsters of these series will be seen outside Japan.

There's an interesting, related article about the series and Kitaro's history here on The Japan times online.

Update: Japanese Blu-Ray news - and more

While it's not surprising that Chinese blockbusters like Curse of the Golden Flower and House of the Flying Daggers are out on Blu-Ray in America, there's a few high definition surprises for sale over in Japan.

Blu-Ray anime in the west is restricted to recent titles like Appleseed: Ex Machina, Tekkon Kinkreet and Satoshi Kon's Paprika. But there are many more, reportedly with English subtitles, on sale or coming soon from Japanese online stores like CD Japan... (Note that Japanese DVD releases that include English subtitles normally only add subs to the main feature, and not the extras or commentary tracks).

Remember also that the Blu-Ray format has it's own new region coding system, that's different to the zones used by DVD companies. Like DVD, your Blu-Ray player or Playstation3 will refuse to play discs from other regions.

Impressively, in Japan, there's already an entire series boxset of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex on Blu-Ray, containing both TV series (that's 52 episodes), and the three feature-length spin-offs (series reviewed here). This is a limited release, so hurry.


More exciting still, is the announcement that the revised CGI-enhanced version of the original movie, released to Japanese cinemas earlier this year as Ghost in the Shell 2.0, will appear on Blu-Ray in November. CD Japan only lists English subtitles on the limited edition Boxset version, which also includes a Blu-Ray disc of the original version of the movie.

While Freedom was only releassed on the HD-DVD format in America (first episode reviewed here), the entire series is now a Blu-Ray boxset in Japan, listed as having English subtitles and even the English language track.


A reissue of the Japanese Jin Roh Blu-Ray has English subtitles, where the first release had none. This awesome, adult fairy tale has only just been released on DVD in the UK.

Live-action films take a backseat to anime on Japanese Blu-Ray, but a couple of interesting titles are the first Gegege No Kitaro movie (review here) and Mamoru Oshii's Avalon, both listed as having English subtitles. There's also a Director's Cut of Day Watch that's 15 minutes longer.


A few more movies of interest on Blu-Ray in the US include the live-action Initial D: The Movie (movie review here) made in Hong Kong, as well as Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle and CJ7.


As for movies from Thailand, Vengeance (review here) has appeared in America - a rather odd choice. But only the US remakes of Thai horror hits Shutter and The Eye, and not the originals, are on Blu-Ray as yet. Wha?

GEGEGE NO KITARO (2007) the live-action movie

GEGEGE NO KITARO

(2007, Japan)

A disappointing adaption of Japan's much-loved spooky cartoon hero

Japanese region 2 NTSC DVD (Fuji)

This is based on my favourite old anime, that's been running since the 1960's. The stories are jam-packed with Japanese monsters, ghosts, and goblins both old and new. (For more about the many anime series, see my extensive beginner's guide, here.)


Of course I was really looking forward to this new live-action feature film, thinking it might be on the same scale as The Great Yokai War (2005), which also featured some of Kitaro's friends.

Basically, Kitaro (also spelt Kitarou) has returned from the dead (along with his father) as a powerful ghost in the form of a young man, and uses his powers to keep the peace between the human and the spirit worlds.


When a multiple haunting strikes an apartment block, Kitaro investigates and meets teenage Mika and her little brother. Their father has accidentally found a magic stone that could give a gang of shape-shifting foxes unlimited power. Can Kitaro save their father from the greedy foxes, without upsetting the higher echelons of the yokai hierarchy?

There's some exposition for newcomers, but the bizarrest creatures may still confuse... his dad is a huge eyeball with a tiny body, there's a man running around with nine foxtails, a lardy blubber monster, a gigantic straw sandal demon... but really all creatures that are only scary for 5 year olds.

The film is very faithful to the manga and anime stories, except for Kitaro himself. He's now both grey-haired and teenaged (instead of brown-haired and ten years old). I suppose grey hair suits his being 350 years old, but doesn’t remind you at all of his usual appearance. You can also glimpse the actor’s left-eye behind his hair in several scenes - it's supposed to be an empty eye socket.

Pop star Eiji Wentz doesn’t act like Kitaro normally does, far less confidently and brave than his cartoon counterpart. It’s a tough role to fill, but the rest of the cast seem to be more lively. Besides being made old enough to be caught in a love triangle (between Mika and his friend Cat-Girl), he's now a slacker who has to be thrown out of bed in the morning.

Unlike The Great Yokai War, not enough money has been spent on the background monsters. In crowd scenes, like at the yokai nightclub, several extras with inanimate masks are too visible for too long, looking exactly like what they are. The quality and intricacy of the CGI FX is also inconsistent. Some are highly detailed, like the beautiful location composite paintings, but the unrealistic movements of the umbrella monster, set a low benchmark early in the film. It may have been an attempt to be less scary, and even funny/cartoony, but it's shoddy compared to the rest of the film. Especially when compared to the complicated and extensive Rokurokubi FX (the snake-necked woman), and the entrancing vision of the Fox Queen.

Also impressive is the full-size outdoor set of Kitaro’s lakeside house, which is bigger than usual, almost too much of a desirable residence for a poor, homeless boy.

The success of the film is that the regular characters, Kitaro's crew of friends, are faithfully recreated. Yo Oizumi, as the unreliable and smelly Ratman (‘Nezumi Otoko’), delivers a fantastic comedy performance, though he's sadly missing from the second half of the movie. The beautiful Rena Tanaka plays a likeable Cat-Girl, breathing as much into her role as possible, but like in the anime, she's very underused.

The plot elements are all familiar from a dozen different old Kitaro stories – a desecrated shrine, greedy humans, quarreling yokai, even a flying ghost train. It succeeds in creating an alternate world, where even the human characters appear to be stylised, carefully made up to look like artist Shigeru Mizuki's original stock characters of salarymen, police detectives and careless businessmen.

But I felt the film kept losing its momentum. The flat direction constantly drops the pace and lost any possible drama. Even the action scenes were short and faltering, providing little more than money shots for the trailer.

I'll probably enjoy it more a second time around. But the good news is that the film was such a hit in Japan, there's now a sequel well on the way. Hopefully this time, they’ll keep all the marvellous actors, lose the umbrella, and pick up the pace.

The Japanese DVD editions (three of them) all have very good English subtitles. I think I saw that the rights have been picked up in the US, but have not heard confirmation of an actual release.