Fortune Arterial – review

Director: Munenori Nawa

First Aired: 2010

Contains spoilers

Fortune Arterial was an anime based on a manga. The manga itself was a harem style comic, with a central male character, who himself Is generally ignorant of the effect he is having, who becomes surrounded by a harem of female characters who rival each other for his affections.

As it was, the series actually broke that aspect down a little and whilst you had a predominantly female set of characters who orbited the one male character, Hasekura Kōhei (Ono Daisuke), for the most part it focused on friendship, and whilst there was an episode with romantic misunderstandings, the series concentrated on his relationship with Sendō Erika (Kanda Rei).

Kōhei

Kōhei has always transferred from school to school due to his parents moving. He now has chance to stick to one place as he has chosen to go to the Shuchikan Academy – a mixed-boarding school. He had previously spent time on the island where the school is located and had a friend there, Yūki Haruna (Taguchi Hiroko), the only person he maintained a correspondence with.

Erika

As he arrives he is met by the Student Council Vice-President, Erika, who holds out her hand for a handshake but when he reaches out to grasp her hand she recoils. He is bemused by her reaction but she asks a nearby student Heiji (Itō Kentarō) to take him to the dorm. It is a mixed dorm with boys on one floor and girls on the next. The student dorm manager is Yūki Kanade (Nabatame Hitomi) and her sister, Haruna, also stays there.

vampiric feeding

Kōhei has to take an orientation and at that point meets Lori (Suwabe Junichi) – the student president and Erika’s brother. He is a manipulator, often through practical jokes, and has Kōhei go to the steam baths only to switch male and female signs and have him walk in, naked, on the naked Erika (the steam covers their shame). He then ensures that Kōhei sees him vampirically feeding on a student, which causes him to be late meeting Erika to apologise. In the first assembly, Erika publically tells the school about the baths to embarrass him.

Vampire on TV

That embarrassment is soon passed as Lori tells him that it was no joke, he and his sister are vampires. He must join the student council or have his memory wiped. He eventually agrees and is told the first few basic rules of vampires. They are not like you see on TV (though we get a TV image to illustrate), sunlight does not bother them, they never grow sick or old and garlic is fine. Erika admits that she doesn’t know what would happen if they were staked through the heart. Lori is very old but Erika is the same age as Kōhei. The other student council members are from the Togi family and know all about vampires but to the rest of the school vampires are a secret.

blood pack

They do drink blood, mainly from blood packs, and this is the base storyline. Erika has been allowed to go to school to find a servant. Servants are immortal like a vampire but lapse into shutdown mode occasionally and must slavishly obey their master’s commands. They are created by allowing them to drink the vampire’s blood and are a handy snack-box for the vampire. Erika does not want a servant and wants to subsist on blood packs.

fireworks for Kōhei and Erika

Unfortunately, her vampire nature is pushing out – especially now that she has met Kōhei who has a special type of blood that both calls to her and will become addictive once she has tried it. The show really concentrates on their romance and their desire to break with tradition and make their own choices. As it stands that is fine but is really packed into the last few episodes.

vision

Mini arcs around other characters are touched on but are not really that effectively dealt with. We discover that Haruna lost her memories after an accident, though continued correspondence with Kōhei as it might have helped get her memories back. So one arc is the resolution with her sister and the other is about the real reason she lost her memories but neither arc goes anywhere. One suspects that, within the harem original, the mini-arcs would have been pre-curser to a Kōhei obsession; in this they leads nowhere. Again we have a mini-arc about a vampire servant searching for her master and whilst it introduces the servant concept it doesn’t go anywhere of any real import generally.

In the main this becomes a slice of life story that happens to have vampires in it. There is a little fan service but it is minimal, there is some gentle comedy but nothing hilarious, there are no regular battle sequences though we get a single chase mid-season and a bit of a beating in the finale. As such the pacing of this is a little off especially in the early episodes. It ends up as an ok romance but that’s about it – however the art work is lovely in places with some wonderfully atmospheric lighting that illuminates… not that much I'm afraid. 4.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: Stake This!

Season 1 of ‘Stake This!’, a web serial written and directed by Jennifer Stackpole, Lorena Stackpole, and Mina Kim has season 1 online currently and is brave in that it uses an electronic backdrop to create some of the scenes. It does this in a stylised way that needs little in authenticity and thus defeats some of the issues caused by low budget.

Zeta Zeta Zeta

In episode zero – a teaser and the background to the generic arc we meet Dea (Katie Oellerich), a new pledge to the rather exclusive sorority Zeta Zeta Zeta. Of course, the sorority is run by (and consists of) vampires. They are – in order of age – Fane (Lorena Stackpole), Ruxandra cel Ray (Jennifer Stackpole) and Mika Nim (Mina Kim).

Ari Welkom as Beeslebob

The show also introduces a demon by the name of Beezlebob (Ari Welkom), a werewolf named Jerry (Joey Borgogna) and the Abigail Williams (Abigail Marlowe) who has survived the centuries by subsisting on vampire blood and is still angry at Mika for blowing her cover in Salem. Ruxandra has spent centuries searching for “the one” – every time this prophesised being is spotted, Beezlebob shows and the one tragically dies.

the vampires

The vampires seem to wear large sun hats and shades and survive fine in the sun otherwise. Ruxandra specialises in cooking blood sausage (and had a one night stand with Lestat) and we discover that garlic effects vampires differently but at best can be classed as a hallucinatory drug. Most interestingly Mika is a kyonsi. As the homepage tells us, “Although she quickly outgrew the jiang-shi* hop, the preferred gait of her type, Mika still has an aversion to running water and a personal fear of cute, human babies.”

The first season simply teases us with potential, the characters quickly become rounded and I am looking forward to season 2. Currently there is no imdb page.

*jiang-shi and gang-shi are alternate spellings of the westernised kyonsi.

The Return of Lord Ruthven – review

Authors: Alexandre Dumas & Frank Morlock

Edition first published: 2004

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Ruthven is a demon. Ruthven is a Vampire! His love is death

The implacable Lord Ruthven returns in a new, horror-filled story where the deadliest vampire of all comes face-to-face with an even more fearsome enemy—a female Ghoul of great necromantic powers. Both Ruthven and the Ghoul covet the same humans. The shadow-filled castles of Europe become the stage for the ultimate confrontation between Vampire and Ghoul—and those who dare defy them!

The character of the Byronesque vampire Lord Ruthven was first created in 1816 by John William Polidori on the same night that Mary Shelley created Frankenstein.

The volume includes an 1851 sequel, presented here in its original form, written by Alxandre Dumas, the famous author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo.

The book also includes an all-new story in which Dumas himself meets Ruthven in 1850s Paris, by renowned playwright and translator Frank J Morlock.

The review: The second of the Blackcoat Press Ruthven books is almost fully taken up by the Dumas play The Return of Lord Ruthven, which takes the Ruthven story forward and sets its tale in Spain, Brittany and Circassia. Dumas includes in his tale Ruthven dying and being taken to a mountainside below the rays of the moon for his rebirth. He also ups the ante for Ruthven, making him require the blood of two virgins per annum and makes him a creature sworn to Satan.

Even more interesting is the female Ghoul. What separates these from vampires in Dumas tale? Truthfully not too much. We hear that the Ghoul is “evil-doing, murderous, the spectral woman, wearing the appearance of beauty, the forms of youth to better conceal her snares and attacking especially young men, the handsomer, the fresher, the better—whose blood they drink with delight.” These then seem almost a precursor to the femme fatale vamp, but with her blood drinking intact.

They tell the tale of a man who married a Ghoul who, “seeing her eat for nourishment only some little grains of rice with little ivory chop sticks, followed her one night to his great terror—make one of those bloody meals”. This is reminiscent of the story of the Ghoul that, in his Vampires and Vampirism, Dudley Wright cites as coming from The One Thousand and One Nights, regarding a bride groom who discovers his bride sneaks from the bed chamber to feast on corpses with the ghouls and subsequently has no appetite for mortal food.

What is unusual is that the Ghoul, Ziska, actually seems to be a good character – despite also being sworn to Satan – and she is so because she is actually in love with the main human hero.

Morlock’s original tale is an interesting little tale where Dumas’ son discovers that his father wrote the play to expose the vampires, including Ruthven, who plagued the Parisian streets and held their secrecy through convoluted conspiracy, how they ruined him and how Dumas managed to rid France of them.

Again, for the genre fan and student alike, an absolutely necessary play and thus a welcome volume. 7.5 out of 10 for the volume.

Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends: The Bride of Dracula – review

Director: Unknown

First aired: 1983

Contains spoilers

Whilst the imdb page titles this episode as “The Transylvanian Connection”, the episode itself entitles it as “The Bride of Dracula”. It is amusing to compare and contrast this with DC's earlier Super Friends episode. I complained about the camp element in that episode but this, just a scent few years later, showed that Marvel carried a knowingness that allowed it to get away with said camp element.

The plot is stronger, even if it is ridiculously logic-less in places – why would Dracula travel incognito to New York for one college dance and then kidnap the first woman he dances with? Yet the campness contains a tongue in cheek air that allows it to get away with so much more. This is summed up in the line about the “web-headed wonder and his frisky little frozen friend.” Marvellous stuff.

eye mojo

Anyway the series sees a team-up between Spider-Man (Dan Gilvezan), Iceman (Frank Welker) and Firestar (Kathy Garver). This episode sees them in their civilian identities at a dance. Bobby and Peter argue who is going to dance with Angelica when she dances with a stranger. This sends Spidey’s spider senses tingling and the guys follow the dancers as they step outside, where the stranger is busy eye mojoing Angelica.

he'll drive you wild

She ignores her friends as they walk past them and get into a limo. What the two guys don’t see is that the driver is a werewolf. Nevertheless they are concerned, and even more so when they discover that she has then got on a plane and that the plane is going to Transylvania. Dracula reveals his true form in the plane – in other words roughly the Marvel standard form they used for Dracula.

Dracula

Spidey and Iceman hitch a ride on another plane and Spidey jumps down to Dracula’s jet to ensure his friend is alright. He looks through the window and Angelica nearly snaps out of it. However Dracula is alerted to Spidey’s presence and mojos him so he falls off the plane – Iceman has to rescue him. Dracula then long distance eye mojos the captain of the pursuing plane – forcing an emergency landing.

the jet changes to bat form

This way Dracula is able to get to his castle first. The Wolfman panics as they are coming in too fast but Dracula changes the form of the jet into a giant bat and lands. At the castle we see a Frankenstein’s Monster creature that is actually a robot, the robot is wary of strangers. Angelica is put in a coffin filled with Transylvanian earth and this breaks her hypnosis. She transforms into Firestar and attacks Dracula, but he evades her fireballs as a bat and then re-mojos her. He is delighted that his bride is Firestar and they will rule the world as husband and wife.

friends divided...

Of course Spidey and Iceman get there and there is much fighting, including a fight against Firestar. However, eventually Spidey is able to get through to her and break her hypnosis. Dracula is eventually defeated by Firestar glowing like the sun. This causes his illusions to crumble, a pit of crocodiles is filled with Salamanders and the Wolfman becomes a butler. The robot falls apart. Dracula himself turns into his human disguise and cannot recall what has happened.

...then reunited

This was great fun. It was the tongue-in-cheek aspect that made it, part of that being the endless bickering and rivalry between Spidey and Iceman. The story does not stand up to the cold light of day (a bit like Dracula) but the audacity of the episode means you don’t care.

6 out of 10. The episode's imdb page is here.

Super Friends: Voodoo Vampire – review

Director: unknown

First aired: 1980

Contains spoilers

It seems that, in 1980, the idea of superheroes was still attracting an inordinate amount of camp and illogical, ill-thought out plot. Welcome to Super Friends, an amalgam of the DC heroes; debased and pantomimed for kids TV. Too harsh? Possibly, perhaps I was in the wrong mood when I picked this up on YouTube but it is worryingly pointless.

We are in the swamps of Africa and out of a doorway, above which is carved a giant bat, comes Vampirus the Voodoo Vampire looking for victims. At the time an expedition is travelling that area. They are harassed by a bat that then turns into Vampirus – recognised as such by the guide.

She announces “Do not be afraid,” and you might wonder why… well she tells us “there is no escape from my voodoo spell.” Now, call me a pedant but surely the inevitability that she announces is a reason to be afraid. With the slim hope of escape removed surely we should be even more terrified? Said spell involves firing lasers out through jewels in her fangs…

vampirus

Batman (Olan Soule) and Robin (Casey Kasem) are in the bat-jet, flying over Africa when the ‘trouble alert’ sounds. A video link-up reveals the guide who gets half a story out before being blasted by lasers – and turned into a vampire. Batman homes in on his signal and he and Robin eject and parachute down. They are attacked by the guide (who now has laser fangs too) and then batman gets bitten by the guide (in bat form, which has no supernatural effect) and Robin is got by a snake. Luckily Black Vulcan (Buster Jones) saves them.

vampire heroes

They find Vampirus but quickly Batman and Robin are turned, despite the fact that their cloaks are impervious to her lasers. They attack Black Vulcan but he seems to explode (and uses the cover to hide) and so Batman takes Vampirus to the Halls of Justice. Once there Superman (Danny Dark) and Aquaman (William Callaway) are soon vampirised. Black Vulcan just about pulls Wonder Woman (Shannon Faron) to one side before she is spotted.

the sh*t invisible plane

Black Vulcan and Wonder Woman follow them back to Africa. You might be wondering what diabolical plot Vampirus has devised; especially given she has 4 superheroes under her control… She’s going to return below the swamp with her vampire slaves. Yup, that’s it. Anyway, Wonder Woman distracts them whilst Black Vulcan does… something… It looks like he flies behind the moon and makes it glow brighter. Is he is space? As he caused the reflection of the sun’s rays to be temporarily amplified somehow? Who knows – but everyone is cured and Vampirus is sealed away and I was left scratching my head. Not great, poor plot, poor logic, poor lore, poor use of superheroes. On the plus side, vampire Superman and Batman (vampire Robin and Aquaman are less impressive).

3 out of 10 for nostalgia back to the pantomime of superheroes. The episode's imdb page is here.

Lord Ruthven the Vampire – review

Authors: Various, adapted by Frank J Morlock

Volume released: 2004

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: The Angel of Hell comes to caress his victim. Recoil – his hand is icy. Beware, young Fiancée, of the love that brings death!

In the early 1800s, young British aristocrat Aubrey travels through Italy and Greece in the company of the mercurial and fantastic Lord Ruthven.

Later, he believes his friend to have been mysteriously slain. But when Ruthven returns to prey on his sister, he realizes that the enigmatic stranger is none other than a vampire!

The character of the Byronesque vampire Lord Ruthven was first created in 1816 by John William Polidori on the same night that Mary Shelley created Frankenstein.

This volume includes the original 1819 novella, a fragment from Lord Byron showing his own take on the character, an 1920 stage adaptation by French author Charles Nodier and an 1821 vaudeville play by Eugéne Scribe.

The book also includes an all-new story pitting Ruthven against Dracula and Sherlock Holmes by renowned playwright and translator Frank J Morlock.

The Review: Polidori’s The Vampyre: A Tale was the first English Language vampire story and for no other reason than that – though there are plenty others – the story belongs in every vampire genre fan’s collection. I am forced to look at this collection and ask why you, the discerning public, should part monies for a story already in many a compilation and available free online?

Firstly, I guess, because this is more than just Polidori’s story. This is the first of (currently 3 but later to expand to) 4 volumes dedicated to the vampire Ruthven and published through Blackcoat Press. The blurb tells us the range of material available in this, the first volume. Polidori’s tale and, to a lesser degree, Byron’s fragment are often found in vampire story compilations. However, the script of Nodier’s The Vampire (adapted into English by Morlock) is not often seen and even less common is Scribe and Mélesville’s script Being Lord Ruthven (again adapted by Morlock).

These two plays are fascinating in what they actually do to the character, Nodier definitely keeping the more supernatural elements and actually has a resurrection by moonlight within the play. We also gain a beautiful imagery – within the stage notes – of the death of the vampire. “The rear of the stage opens revealing the shades of the vampire victims. They are young women covered by veils. They pursue him, pointing to their breasts from which blood still flows from the wounds.”

In contrast Being Lord Ruthven is lightweight. However, both show a versatile use of the character that foreshadows the fate of Dracula - a character both used and abused by many a writer. He, of course, appears in the Morlock story that is intriguing, has some interesting ideas but is ultimately just a tease, being fairly short.

The joy, of course, is that this is all Ruthven. For the genre fan wanting some of the less available Ruthven material then, this is a worthwhile volume. 7.5 out of 10 for the volume.

Honourable Mention: Vampirism Bites

This is a web serial created and directed by James Fernandez. This is a serial that shows a lot of love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer though it creates its own lore along the way.

It follows a newly turned vampire called Belle (Natalie Baxter), a girl who was always obsessed with vampires and is now one of them. In fact, as the series goes along we discover that she was turned by the third vampire ever and is also part of the Dracula’s human line… she discovers she is special.

Belle checks her teeth

When we meet her, however, she is checking her teeth for signs of elongation – in this a vampire gets his/her fangs after 10 years. She is hanging around with Kristy (Lindsey Black) who is (or at least was) her best friend. Belle ate Kristy’s boyfriend and Kristy swore revenge and trained as a vampire slayer. After they were both double crossed they were thrown back together. Neither have brilliant fighting skills and, despite Belle preying on criminals who never seem to feed her eternal hunger, they are both pretty much lame. In the first episode we see just how much Belle sucks at glamour.

the Litagator and Polidori

Whilst we watch Kristy and Belle we also get to see the machinations of the hunter Simon Polidori (Jesse Dunmore) and the executive part of the hunters, the Litigator (Jason Cale) along with, for the vampires, Vincent (Ryan Falcheck) – the second vampire – and Erica (Adiva Wayne). All of whom are awaiting the rebirth of the Dracula and, it seems, that when Dracula is reborn the first hunter (known as the Holy Bulldozer) will be reborn also – and he does more damage than the vampires by the sounds of it.

fangs

Belle and Kristy are taken under the wings of boyfriend and girlfriend Pierce (Dan Hiebert) and Syd (Miranda Tully) – a hunter and vampire respectively, who are in a similar boat to Belle and Kristy. During one of their training spars Belle’s fangs appear – over 9 years early. Syd files them (as per Dracula’s law; hide your fangs) but the next day they have regrown. Belle is special.

blood at mouth

Lore-wise vampires have reflections and can walk in daylight. They have the ability to glamour (as mentioned) but can be knocked out by an anti-vampire liquid called the punchline. Both sides are watching the Dracula clock for the return of the Dark Lord but – and this is not much of a spoiler as the homepage of the series already spoils this – the hunters are unaware that the Dracula is not a Romanian warlord but a woman, played by Jacquie Floyd.

So there we have it, Vampirism Bites, a show that packs a whole lot of story into its running time. There was a season zero – test pieces with canon lore, from what I can gather, but these seem to have vanished from the YouTube channel at the time of writing. The show looks to start a season 2 during 2011. At the time of writing there is no imdb page.

Vamp or Not? The Seventh Curse

The 1986 Ngai Kai Lam directed Seventh Curse seems to be available in a couple of cuts. The version I have seen starts with a dinner party from which a novelist, Mr Ngai (Kuang Li), introduces the ladies present to Wesley Wei (Yun-Fat Chow) and Yuan Chen (Siu-hou Chin; Ultimate Vampire, Chinese Vampire Story and Vampire Vs Vampire) and then goes on to tell them about one of their adventures. The action is then displayed as a complete film, returning to the party at the end of the movie. The other cut seems to have split the stories into episodes and intercuts the film with scenes of the party.

Indeed there was a series of “Wisley” films, of which this is one. Wisley was an occult expert played by different actors in each film. In this case his name has been transposed to Wesley.

Yuan enters the building

Be that as it may we see Yuan Chen at the scene of a police raid on a building taken by villains and discover he is a doctor, but with his martial arts, his knowledge of weapons and his cold as ice nerves he seems more like James Bond in spectacles. He is going in to treat a hostage but his ‘nurse’ will be a cop and they have a flash bomb to set off in the first aid kit. Unfortunately a reporter, Rainbow (Maggie Cheung), has knocked out the cop and taken her place to get a scoop. Things nearly go wrong but Yuan lets her go at the end.

She chases after him, looking to do a feature on him, harassing him at a party. He loses her and gets home and is about to have some nooky with a lady friend when he is accosted by a man, Black Dragon (Dick Wei). They fight, wreck the place and then talk. Black Dragon wants him to return to Thailand, Yuan has a blood curse on him and he will die soon. Betsy (Sau-Lai Tsui) is also cursed, he must save her. He is also told no nooky as he will die sooner – some nooky later and a curse bursts from his body.

Sau-Lai Tsui as Betsy

He goes to see Wesley and explains what happened. He then relates an expedition to Thailand a year before in search of herbs that might help cure AIDS. He was dismissive of talk of magic by the expedition leader and so was unconcerned that the nearby worm tribe was reputed to have evil magic aplenty. The first tribe member he saw was Betsy, swimming in a robe that left nothing to the imagination. That night they heard drums, a ritual was being celebrated, and Yuan, with a few others, went to investigate.

Elvis Tsui as Aquala

Betsy was amongst four villagers in white robes. The head shaman, Aquala (Elvis Tsui), asks her for an answer and she refuses (presumably him) even though he has sent Black Dragon away. He then walks before the supplicants looking for a sacrifice for Ancient Ancestor. His magic spearhead glows in front of one man and then in front of Betsy. Can I just say that I never, when I started this blog, conceived that I would be writing a sentence about a glowing magical spearhead.

little ghost

One of the tribesmen is actually vocal with his objection to this turn of events. Betsy, it transpires, was the last chief’s daughter. The shaman isn’t happy and releases a monster at him that flies and rips his throat out sucking his blood. This is our first potential vampire. We learn later it is a “Little Ghost” a magical construct that is created (once every three years) from the blood of 100 children and specifically flies, drinks blood and kills. The only other thing we learn about it is that it can be overcome with a mixture of cow placenta and black dog’s blood – an ingredient that appears in respect of vampires in some version of Chinese lore.

Ancient Ancestor attack Yuan

Betsy is taken into the temple and Yuan decides to rescue her. She, and the man, are tied before the sarcophagus of Ancient Ancestor and the shaman awakens him by pouring blood on the sarcophagus. Yuan ends up fighting the desiccated corpse, which has glowing eyes, is stronger than Yuan and is bullet proof. It bends Betsy’s neck to bite the throat and eats of the flesh of the man – subsequently turning into a demon like creature.

demon form

Suffice it to say – as we need not consider much else with regard the “Vamp or Not?” – that Yuan escapes, is captured, is cursed and saved by Betsy. The curse will kill him as it explodes in seven parts, the seventh at his heart, and so he ends up going back to Thailand with Rainbow in tow (she is Wesley’s cousin it transpires). Both of the primary creatures have some vampiric traits, indeed Hong Kong Cinemagic calls Ancient Ancestor a “vampire demon” and he seems to gain his powers directly from flesh and blood. The “Little Ghost” is reminiscent, vaguely, of some Far Eastern vampire types, but twisted to the needs of the films.

Ancient Ancestor is the one that gets me thinking of this as a vampire film – or at least with enough elements to warrant a place on filmographies. I will say, for fans of Yun-Fat Chow, his role is little more than a supporting, perhaps even a cameo, role. The imdb page is here.

Shiki – Review

Director: Tetsuro Animo

First aired: 2010

Contains spoilers

At first glance Shiki – or corpse demon – seems to be rather like ‘Salem’s Lot. Vampires (known as Shiki in this) move into a house overlooking a small town/village and take over, turning the townsfolk into vampires.

However, once you start watching this – which was a 22 episode series – you realise that there is more to it. The method of takeover is different as not everyone rises as a shiki, the motivations are different and the human protagonists, whilst sharing some traits with those in the Lot, have vastly different motivations.

Megumi

The first episode concentrates on a young girl called Megumi (Haruka Tomatsu) and, at the head of the episode, the locals are searching the woods for her. We then cut back in time. We discover that she hates living in the village of Sotoba, feeling that it is a backwoods town full of yokels. Whilst they talk of jizou statues that have been vandalized (making the insertion of the vampires easier, we can note) she has only two important things in the village. One is the European styled house that has been built overlooking the village. The other is Natsuno (Kōki Uchiyama), a boy moved there from the city. Although he hates the village too, he pays her no regard. The village itself is described as isolated and seems easily cut off from the outside world.

Natsuno

There is a small hamlet some distance from Sotoba and the cops have been called out. Only three people lived there and all three are dead. Two are dismembered and pretty decomposed – the police are thinking wild dogs might have attacked them. The mystery is that the third is not decomposed and evidently lived with the bodies for some time before expiring herself. During this scene we meet Toshio (Tōru Ōkawa) who runs the Ozaki clinic and is the village’s main doctor and also Seishin (Kazuyuki Okitsu), the temple’s junior monk and part time (and successful) novelist. These two went to school together and are main human protagonists in the story.

the Kirishikis

The family who run a roadside restaurant, on the outskirts of the village, are awakened when a moving truck stops and the driver hammers on the door. The driver is Tatsumi and he is moving the Kirishiki family to the house above Sotoba, but has become lost and asks for direction. The family consist of Sheishirou, the father, Chizuru, the mother, and Sunako (Aoi Yūki), the daughter. Mother and daughter are vampires but claim to suffer from systemic lupus erythematosus and thus are unable to go out in sunlight. It later transpires that Sunako is the vampire leader and she chose the village as she is a fan of Seishin’s novels.

finding Megumi

Megumi hears that the family have moved in and decides to meet them as she hopes to be accepted by those who seem more sophisticated than her family and neighbours. When she doesn’t return home at dark, search parties are sent for her and she is found, barely conscious, showing signs of anaemia and suffering from a few insect bites. Rather than get better, however, she becomes more and more languid and eventually dies. After more and more villagers mysteriously die Toshio starts to believe that, rather than an epidemic, he is dealing with vampires. The name Shiki is used by Seishin for a specific undead type that he was putting in his next novel (a Cane and Abel type story) and is adopted as a term by Sunako.

Seishin and Sunako

The lore is interesting. These vampires burn in the sun and can be destroyed by stake or decapitation. Their bite allows them to give hypnotic commands to their victims (victims are told to quit their jobs at first, especially those who commute, and later told to insist their family take them to the new clinic the vampires set up rather than Toshio’s and to use the new funeral home rather than the temple) however only the first vampire to bite someone can issue commands. They use this hypnosis at times to gain entrance to buildings as they must be invited.

Flying

Turning is almost random, some people will turn and others will not. We see one Shiki attack her entire family (all related to her husband) and not one of them rise to be with her – this indicates a genetic propensity to rising. Megumi refuses to attack her own family as she will not risk spending eternity with them. The town is unusual in that they bury their dead rather than cremate them (as is standard in Japan) and thus have a folklore concerning risen corpses.

beyond the window

At first Tatsumi is the one who digs up the risen as he can smell, through the grave, whether someone will rise or decompose. He is a jinrou – he starts to liken it to being a werewolf but breaks that explanation off – that are depicted as a day-walking Shiki, very rare, who have abilities due to their nature (if they feed) but can also integrate into human society and eat normal food.

A bite

Toshio discovers much about the Shiki when his wife is killed and turns. He experiments upon her and this is one of the genius things about the series. At first the Shiki are portrayed as monsters, they come out of the night feeding on humans and destroying the fabric of the village’s society to create a place for Shiki (incidentally we discover that there are teams of Shiki sent to a nearby city to abduct prey that won’t be missed). However, Toshio has to become a monster himself, and watch the townsfolk who mount a resistance become monsters too, in order to defeat the vampires.

dying

It is within these depths – character and cultural – that this veers massively away from what was done in ‘Salem’s Lot and also within the lore, because not everyone will rise (in fact comparatively few do) the manner of takeover is different. There were a couple of moments that needed expanding on. I don’t want to spoil them as they involve main characters but, occasionally, something will have happened without explanation and we are left to guess how a character survived (or didn’t) a cliff-hanger. Talking of which, there was an interesting structure that would sometimes cross-cut scenes but at others leave a cliff-hanger and then ignore it for an episode or two and then cut back in time to show you what happened on that particular thread.

stylised artwork

This was a great anime – up there with the best of them. The artwork is fantastic throughout and often moves into a stylised form that was rather lovely to look at. A couple of minor annoyances but well worth your time.

8.5 out of 10.

At the time of review there is no imdb page.

Vampire Warriors – review

Director: Dennis Law

Release date: 2010

Contains spoilers

This is one that nearly slipped under the radar. A wire-Fu Hong Kong movie that mentions kyonsi but actually features vampires more western in design – despite the main bad vampire being played by Yuen Wah, who was the vampire in the iconic Mr Vampire (as well as being in Vampire Super and Dating a Vampire).

female vampires

The film begins with Ar (Jiang Lu-Xia) on the streets of modern day Hong Kong. She seems to be trailing someone and ducks into a building as a couple walk past. They meet another couple and the guys seem to be leading the girls down an alley. One of the girls stops to be sick – she can’t hold her booze. They lead the girls into a disused building and put music on, dancing with the girls. Ar appears and the girls reveal their vampiric nature. The boys leg it, three male vampires come in – cue some (fairly subtle iro the wire) wire-Fu fighting. Ar is fairly spectacular for a human, suspend your belief now folks and go along for the ride – it’s worth it.

staking

As the vampires are staked they dust in a lets-out-do-Buffy cgi way. The final vampire, one of the girls, is questioned about a vampire in a red cloak called Sue (Pinky Cheung Man-Chi). She claims to know her and confirms that she is almost two hundred – and is staked. Sue is only a few (vampire) years old. Ar gets home and Kung Fu flies over the fence – Ar’s powers are never explained and thus one assumes they are Kung-Fu powers. She is stitching a gash in her arm when Max (Chrissie Chau Sau-Na) shows. It becomes clear that Max is a vampire but she does not feed on humans and thus the two girls are friends.

vampire water chugging

Ar sniffs something (she can smell out vampires, it seems) and chases after a figure vanishing off into the distance. They lose the vampire but comes across several more vampires. There is Rex (Rock Ji), Kar (DaDa Lo Chung-Chi) and Lin (A. Lin). We also meet Rex and Max’s dad, Lung (Chin Siu-Ho, also Mr Vampire and New Mr Vampire) and his girlfriend (Rachel Lam). All these vampires subsist on animal blood. We later hear that the blood is the conduit to steal the victim’s lifeforce. During this scene we get to hear that Sue is Ar’s missing sister and see a game where the vampire’s bet on how long it will be before an old lady they can detect will die and the losers have to chug water – water being potentially poisonous to vampires. Vampires, incidentally, can fly as well.

face turns black

We see a couple of prostitutes meeting up with a girl, they are on loan to her it seems. They are taken to an abandoned house and seem to be followed by a man in a funeral costume. He is Mung (Yuen Wah). The girls get more and more spooked as they climb the stairs and are going to run until their escort vamps out. She has brought them for a male vampire (Xiong Xin Xin, Musical Vampire). His repast is interrupted when Mung attacks. Eventually, after a long fight, the male vampire ends up accidentally staked. Mung is not happy as he cannot take the soul if he dies. He remembers the female vampire, finds her and feeds on her. Her face turns black as he does this. He is a vampire who feeds on vampires. He also has, in chains, the now vampiric Sue whom he keeps captive as he doesn't take rejection well and she had rejected his romantic overtures.

oap vampire

So we see some more vampire slaying and the good vampires drawing the attention of Mung as well as Ar coming onto his radar. The vampire kids – for want of a better term – spend a lot of time complaining that they cannot feel anything. They would do anything to feel pain. This whinging might have got in the way but it also attracted a level of pitch black humour. At one point Rex jumps off a bridge, because he can and he’s bored, landing on the pavement head first. The three vampire girls jump also. This is witnessed by some drunk human girls, one of whom emulates them, declares she is awesome and then realises that she has broken her back.

vampire sleeping

The effects work well, mostly. However there was a moment with a rabbit that was obviously a cuddly toy and it looked plain silly. Essentially Max pulls a rabbit snack out, fumbles it (dropping the real rabbit) and grabs again. The illusion of her feeding on a real rabbit fails miserably and we all wonder how much blood you’d get out of a toy rabbit. Vampires like to sleep upside down, they can only feed on warm-blooded creatures (snakes are out) and sunlight burns them. We find via Lung that Mung follows the 'demon way'. By feeding on vampire souls he gains their powers but will die if he doesn’t devour a vampire every day. One wonders why he hunted more than one a day in that case, but never mind.

Rex flying

There was nothing in depth in this and the characters were paper thin. It didn’t matter too much though, it was just a Kung Fu flick at heart, a take your brain out actioner. One wonders exactly why lore such as water being poisonous was introduced just to be ignored later. The film is totally secular except for an idea that the vampires’ souls would be in Hell after Mung consumed them (no, I didn’t get how he could consume them and them be in Hell, but never mind).

Max and Ar

As thin as it was plot and character wise, I found myself entertained and Chrissie Chau Sau-Na was very pretty – though her character did little more than look pretty. Indeed a good number of the cast were models, many of the Lang Mo variety. As daft as it might sound I’m going to stick my neck out and give 6 out of 10 for a no-brainer wire-Fu flick with pretty people looking pretty a lot. Honestly I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I did and it was a pity about the occasional whinging, but I liked this one.

The imdb page is here.