CB: You’re also managing the Blood-C TV series and movie. Did that series push any limits with you when it came to the violence? The simulcast for it truly lulled me for a while, even with the flashes of violence it did have, but once it kicked into high gear, it just made me cringe and wince constantly, even while being drawn to a show that didn’t seem to believe there should be a limit to how grisly it could be. How does the movie compare to the TV series in terms of story and violence?
GM: The BLOOD-C TV series is pretty gruesome by my standards since I don’t seek out a lot of hyperviolence or guro or anything, but I think it definitely keeps that shock factor rather than desensitizing its violence. I feel like the entire series’ structure emphasizes this shift from 90% cute/happy/sweet and 10% fighting/monsters to 100% fighting/monsters and 0% cute/happy/sweet. I remember watching the first episode and writing about it for ANN and not being sure where it was going, but the show definitely benefits from a marathon watch. I expect the build-up and payoff are much more satisfying when taken in just a couple of sittings rather than a week-to-week experience.
The movie is an entirely different beast, though—as soon as you bring in (effectively) a different Saya, the tone changes completely. The Saya in the movie will be considerably more familiar to fans of the Blood: The Last Vampire franchise, and the movie also pays some homages to the titles that came before it. It’s mostly accessible to fans who skipped the TV series—there’ll be references that they won’t get, but they shouldn’t get in the way too much. I actually kind of feel like fans who start with the movie and then go back and treat the TV series as a prequel will have a really unique experience; they’ll know sort of where things go but not exactly how, and they’ll watch the first episode of the TV series and say “how the heck did we get from this Saya to that Saya?” and want to see more.
Chris Beveridge
Chris has been writing about anime, manga, movies and comics for well on twenty years now. He began AnimeOnDVD.com back in 1998 and has covered nearly every anime release that’s come out in the US ever since.
He likes to write a lot, as you can see.