Movies: Blood +: Volume 3

The original Blood: The Last Vampire was one fierce little piece of work, despite clocking in at barely an hour. The TV series has the benefit of being longer and more involving, but also that much more — well, for lack of a better word, ameliorative. They broadened the scope of the story, but brought in a great many other things to make it more palatable to a broad audience: family matters, cute character touches, and even the odd comedic element. Is it me or has every series I’ve seen this year with claims to a remotely serious side — Blood+, Darker Than Black, etc. — used the staple gag of having a character who eats too much as their standard-issue way to inject a laugh into a scene?

I shouldn’t make it sound like I’m slagging Blood+ for splitting its attention between a serious story and a more light-hearted one. Spoonful of sugar, medicine, you know the drill: one makes the other that much more palatable. And in this case, it’s neither so sweet — or so bitter — that it’s wholly unpalatable. Last volume, we were right in the middle of a storyline that sounds like something ripped out of a gothic Nancy Drew, with vampire-killer Saya at an exclusive girls’ school in Vietnam, where rumors swirl about a masked phantom haunting the bell tower. And in the first episode of this disc, Saya’s dolling herself up for a gala ball at the school — where she ends up surreptitiously stuffing her face without even thinking about it.

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.