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Action - Blood + Volume 2

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Blood + Volume 2 – Anime
Voices of Kari Wahlgre, Crispin Freeman
5 Episodes 1 DVD
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2008
124 minutes

Blood + Volume 2 is a 5 episode DVD of the Japanese anime about the adventures of schoolgirl Saya and her continuing battle against ugly shapeshifting monsters known as chiropterans. Like many anime heroines, Saya is round-eyed and always wears a schoolgirl uniform with the obligatory short skirt.

For those, like myself, not familiar with the series, Saya is a good vampire (she does not know this) who battles her twin sister Diva, monsters called chiropterans, and another bunch of monsters called the Schiff. The only thing that can kill these monsters is blood from their originator and this is why Saya must cut her finger on her samurai sword before she can fight the monsters.

There is a complicated lore and levels of everything in this Japanese anime. Suffice to say the good guys are Haji and David who are part of the Red Shield and the heroine is the adopted sister of Kai and Riku. Bad guys include the French / German accented Van Argiano, who runs the Cinq Fleches organization, and the U.S Army. Delta 6-7 is the name of the compound that turns people into monsters.

Blood + Volume 2 opens with My Father's Hand. Saya and her protectors go look for her father in a remote research facility at Yanbaru. They must find him before the U.S. forces bomb the place out of existence.

Episode 7, I Must Do It is an interstitial episode that draws the curtain on previous events and opens the next adventure. A journalist and David find out the Yanbaru facility imported French wine through a Vietnamese distributor. This means the next segment in the fight against the chiropterans will be in Vietnam.

Phantom of the School opens with Saya registered in an all-girls private school in Vietnam. There is a connection between the school and the Cinq Fleches organization and its Delta 6-7 program. There is a legend at the school of a phantom hiding in a bell tower. For some reason Kai and Riku are left behind to fend on their own.

Blood + episode 9, Rainbow for Each, has Riku and Kai looking for Saya in Hanoi. They spend some time at an orphanage. One of its residents has been targeted by the bad guys. The episode includes a pointed commentary on the many land mines the U.S. left behind in Vietnam.

I Want to See You, the last episode on this Blood + DVD has Saya visiting a war museum. This causes her to have a flashback to who she once was.

It is frustrating though to have to wait for the next 5 episode Blood + DVD to learn what happens next. A complete series would be nicer. This anime ran 50 episodes on Japanese TV though it was not the most successful of such programs. This could be because the story is spread a bit thin and is somewhat repetitive such as Saya always hesitating to unsheathe her sword when faced with danger, causing someone close to her to be injured.